It’s a classic case of solution itself becoming the problem, as researchers in Australia planned to wipe the ever-increasing cane toad, which was introduced to control sugarcane pests.
Once, deliberately introduced from Hawaii to Australia in 1935 to control the sugar cane-pests – the scarab beetles – the cane toads breed like flies. Seem to be resistant to some herbicides and eutrophic water that normally kill frogs and tadpoles, it is creating nuisance throughout the eastern and northern half of Queensland, extending their range to the river catchments surroundings a swell.
So, in an effort to wipe out the pest, worried researchers in Western Australia have taken up a project for identifying every ‘cane toad gene’. The $260,000 project aims to identify the toads’ biological weaknesses to help stop not just their moving across northern Australia and into WA., but also wipe out from across the continent.
Professor Grant Morahan from the WA Institute for Medical Research says,
The cane toads are just about entering into Western Australia now and once they do get there they’ll be moving south along the coast. So it’s only a matter of time before they’ll be in Perth unless we do something to stop them.
So, tragically, once introduced to help control pests have now become a matter of concern for the same researchers, who once had considered them as a relief from an infestation.
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