Do Go On - 349 - Cane Toads and Other Terrible Decisions with Animals

Episode Date: June 29, 2022

This week we look at the disastrous decision to introduce cane toads to "take care" of cane beetles in Northern Queensland. But they're not the first introduced species to run amuck; possums, lizards, fish and birds... turns out humans have been making bad decisions for centuries!Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: dogoonpod.com or patreon.com/DoGoOnPodSee us live in Sydney in September and Book Cheat live in London: https://dogoonpod.com/live-shows/ Submit a topic idea: dogoonpod.com/suggest-a-topic/ Our merch: https://do-go-on-podcast.creator-spring.com/Cass and Jackson's podcasts: https://www.sanspantsradio.com/ Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] Our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/ Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader Thomas REFERENCES:https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/articles/1803 https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Threats-to-Wildlife/Invasive-Species  https://australianfoodtimeline.com.au/wild-rabbits/ https://www.wwf.org.au/news/blogs/10-facts-about-cane-toads#gs.2i6ize https://pestsmart.org.au/toolkit-resource/how-did-the-cane-toad-arrive-in-australia/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Just jumping in really quickly at the start of today's episode to tell you about some upcoming opportunities to see us live in the flesh. And you can see us live at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2024. We are doing three live podcasts on Sundays at 3.30 at Basement Comedy Club, April 7, 14 and 21. You can get tickets at dogo1pod.com. Matt, you're also doing some shows around the country. That's right. I'm doing shows with Saren Jayamana, who's been on the show before. We're going to be in Perth in January, Adelaide in February, Melbourne through the festival in April, and then Brisbane after that. I'm also doing Who Knew It's in Perth and Adelaide. Details for all that stuff at mattstuartcomedy.com.

We can wait for clean water solutions. Or we can engineer access to clean water. We can acknowledge indigenous cultures. Or we can learn from indigenous voices. We can demand more from the earth. Or we can demand more from ourselves. At York University, we work together to create positive change for a better tomorrow. Join us at yorku.ca slash write the future. Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go On.

My name is Dave Warnke and as always I'm here with Matt Stewart. Hey Dave, how's it going? Good, thanks. How are you? Good. Good to be here at the Sands Pants headquarters. Can you believe it? Yes, look at this. We're looking around the room. It's fantastic. It's beautiful. There's foliage in it. There's plants.

There's a 2007 podcast award. 2017. 2007 wasn't us 2007 Not sure podcasts were real You didn't let me finish 2007 podcast award team Okay I said that in a funny order didn't I

No I don't think so That was a pretty normal order to me Super normal But who are these fantastic voices? Well sadly Jess Perkins couldn't be with us this week and it takes not one but two people

to replace her. Yeah that's true. So we are joined by our Sands Pants radio friends Cass Pates and Jackson Bailey. Thank you so much for having us.

You both take up one part of Jess. Top half or bottom half? Yeah which half of you? I want to go top half. Oh no! No! No! No!

Honestly, Jess's most famous part is her powerful legs. She's got very powerful legs. She's strong. She can leg press like a boulder. If you're ever in trouble, you'll want her to be around and as long as that trouble is

a boulder on top of you, because she will be able to just kick it off. Oh, that's cool. Although the top half does have the laugh, which is the other most famous thing. Oh, okay. Hey, suck shit. Suck shit off the boulder. Okay.

All right. Also got Jess's wit there. Appreciate that. Well, in Cass's defense, she's only the legs. I can't be expected to do a head's job. A head's job. Hey, Dave, it's been a while since Jackson's been on the show and a little while since Cass has been on the show.

Do you want to explain to them how it all works? Yeah. Well, what we do here, Jackson, to a lesser extent Cass, is take turns to report on a topic often suggested to us by one of the listeners. We go away, do a little bit of research, and bring it back to the group in the form of a report. It is my turn to do that this week. Fabulous.

I'm going to tell you about a topic, and to get us onto that topic, I always ask a question. Okay. And I often sometimes get them right. Yeah, sort of brag. But there is a listener out there keeping a leader tally. Oof. So you could get on the leader board. Oh, yeah, call it or we could chart.

That's exciting. Oh, hell yeah. You'd instantly be in the top five, I reckon. Okay, my question to you is, what was introduced near Cairns in 1935, reached Brisbane in 1945, the Northern Territory in 1995. English backpackers.

They didn't make it to WA until 2009. That's got to be the cane toad. It is the cane toad. Sorry, Jackson. That is, that's fun because before the episode, Dave said this is a real, got a real Jackson Bailey

energy. I'm all over it. I love cane toads. You can't let a dog eat them? Because before the episode, Dave said, this has got a real Jackson Bailey energy. What does it mean to introduce pests? I'm all over it. I love cane toads. You can't let a dog eat them? Yeah. It just feels like something that Jackson would be interested in. When I was a kid, my grandparents had a house up kind of north, and it was full of cane toads,

and my brother would just collect heaps of them in a bucket and just carry them around. I knew that this would appear. I don't know how I knew. And it was like, you shouldn't be touching cane toads, but he would just pick them up bodily and they would chase the cat. Yeah, hell yeah. The cane toads would chase the cat.

Yeah, yeah. The cat knew they were poison. Is it true that if you lick them, you get like a hallucinogenic? I think you might just get sick. I will be addressing that later in this episode. So I wanted to know more about them because, yeah, I know you can't eat them. You can't let other animals eat them. But what, is touching allowed?

What if I give him a little kiss? What if he's been good? There could be a little prince under there. You never know. Just for the record, I would have also accepted Giant Neotropical Toad. Oh, okay. Or the Marine Toad, which are also cool names. Is it the same name for the same guy?

Yeah. Why is he the Marine Toad? He ever in the sea? Yeah. I guess we'll find out. Naval Captain? They come from the water. They do.

On this episode, we're going to talk about cane toads and other terrible decisions to introduce species around the world. And there's been lots of them. Oh, dear. So strap in, here we go. Invasive species are among the leading threats to native wildlife. According to the National Wildlife Federation, approximately 42%

of threatened or endangered species are at risk due to invasive species. I feel a little bit, you know, hypocritical for us European backgrounds in Australia. Like, oh, these fucking introduced species. Oh, God.

Jackson often brings up, imagine if we didn't introduce any new species. Yeah. And if instead of bringing them over, they were like, oh, we'll just domesticate the ones that are here. Yeah, I think I remember reading somewhere online they were like, we could have theoretically domesticated the quoll. You know, the quoll? Oh, wow. They were like, if we'd given the time,

we probably could have sorted that out. I just said we went for cats. Oh, quolls are great. Beautiful spots. And little grabby hands. Oh, yeah. Oh, delightful. Imagine having a little grabby-handed pet.

Oh, my God. No, I don't like any creature. I don't like raccoons because they've got thumbs. It stresses me. Maybe they can open locks and use keys and stuff. But in your world, we never would have introduced raccoons. That's true.

That's true. I actually read in a couple of places some articles that were like, but really the most invasive species is humans. That would have been funny if I said that. I love that. That's great. We're an invasive species right now. I reckon actually the most dangerous animal of all is humans.

Wrong. Bear. But these invasive species also affect humans by damaging natural ecosystems and cost economies billions of dollars per year. But it is humans that colonize and destroy our own planet. And the spread of most of these species are often because of humans, sometimes unintentionally. We'll say again from the National Wildlife Federation, the NWF.

People and the goods we use travel around the world very quickly, and they often carry uninvited species with them. Ships can carry aquatic organisms in their ballast waters, while smaller boats may carry them on their propellers. Oh. Oh. Yeah, they're hitching a ride. A little guy holding on, getting the most dizzy he's ever been in his life.

He'd want to have some grabby hands. Yeah, if you were a mollusk and you'd gone onto the hull of the ship and you watch another mollusk go on the propeller, you'd be happy with your choice. Yeah. 24,000 reps per minute. But you'd come out of it and be like, whoa, I'm the dizziest anyone's ever been in their entire life.

Oh, this place looks really weird. It'll go back to normal soon. Two days later, you're like, I don't think it was the spinning. I think something else happened here. Can a mollusk get dizzy even? Why do you get dizzy? You need ears. I thought you needed eyes.

I think Dave will get into this soon. That's part of the report. I think just in case, when you spin a propeller, in case there's something attached, it should then spin the other direction for the same amount of time to balance them out. Just in case they're feeling that. Reverse the boat up.

I've always found that helps me if I'm dizzy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You stand up and you spin once in the other direction. I find the older I get, the dizzier I get. Yeah, you're not doing spinnies. You're losing your tolerance for it. Yeah, I think I am. Yeah, that's right.

You've got to train every day. I've been getting dizzy coming off the walking desk. That rules. I've been doing walking desk. So you stare at the computer and your legs are moving really, really fast because you get excited about the work you're doing. And then you step off and your legs are like, I'm going. And your brain's like, I have been still. sometimes i get head spins if i'm having a hot bath and then

i stand up to have a shower to like you know to refresh or whatever blood pressure yeah and then i'm like well i'm gonna fall over it's basically every night yeah get back in the every night you have a hot bath and stand up for the do you shower after shower after bath? Well, it's like to just like wash away. I shower before bath. No, because if you have a bath, you're sitting in your own grime. No, that's why I shower before bath. Well, it doesn't, either way. Well, then I have the big soaking clean and nice oils and I come out and I'm oiled.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I guess both of us have our own beauty to the methods in which we move through this. All I'm hearing is a lot of bragging about having a bath. And I'm feeling jealous right now. You love a bath. I'm living bathless. Oh, that's tragic. This is when I was house-sick.

I only just got into baths in one of the lockdowns. Yeah. And then I moved to a bathless place. Bath's a king. Oh, it's the best way to get clean. No. I will live with a bathless place. Bath's a king. It's the best way to get clean. No. I will live with a bath again. You just really specifically stated that you can't get clean in a bath.

Stop. It's a good way to wind down after you are clean. That's true. Maybe I'm not so friendly against Jackson's arguments. It makes a lot of sense, Cass, that you work at a walking desk as Jess Perkins' legs. Yeah. Well, I've got to get strong desk as Jess Perkins' legs. Yeah, that's true.

Well, I've got to get strong for her. Do it for Jess. So some invasive species are intentionally or accidentally released. Pets, for example, Burmese pythons are becoming a big problem in the Everglades in Florida. Oh, yeah. It's possible that up to 300,000 pythons now inhabit southern Florida. Which is terrifying. That's so scary.

They're pythons. That southern florida which is terrifying scary they're pythons that's almost the population of wyoming closing in they're coming for them but the pythons i i reckon oh yeah no they're still gonna be eating stuff but they're eating frogs and stuff yeah they eat lots of stuff apparently and they're very hard to find they hide very well yeah that would be they're not they're not attacky like they're very hard to find. They hide very well. Yeah, that would be annoying. But they're not a tacky. They're just going to eat little animals and then they just swallow them whole. They're not venomous. They're just going to be chilling out terrified because they're used to life indoors.

They're just scared little guys trying to eat a little possum. But those examples I've been through there, they're kind of accidents. But not always. What we're going to focus on today is animals that were intentionally introduced by humans into new habitats. And people have been doing that for a while now. In fact, in the 19th and 20th centuries, acclimatization societies began to grow in popularity. These were voluntary associations in the 19th and 20th centuries that encouraged the introduction of non-native species. Huh. Why?

Well, the first one was founded in Paris in 1854. Okay. And basically it was Europeans colonising and now dominating new areas of the world going, I don't like this stuff here. And rather than going back to the original, rather than going home, they were like, let's bring home to this new place.

Here in Victoria, Australia, the Victorian Acclimatisation Society was founded in 1861 by Edward Wilson as an offshoot of the Victorian Zoological Society. Wilson was a journalist and a private collector whose motto was, quote, if it lives, we want it. No dead animals. So snappy. I love it. Amazing.

If you're living in a, like right now I know if I put like a lion in the middle of the, say outback it's probably going to die. But maybe back then you would be like maybe it won't. Maybe the result is we'll have lions now let's see what happens. Yeah, like maybe it won't. Maybe the result is we'll have lions now and that'll be cool. I see where they're coming from.

I imagine without all the knowledge we have now that has come from doing things like this, you'd be like, lion in the Outback, you're like, oh, same colour. I reckon he'd do pretty well out there. Lion like hot. That's hot. Probably won't affect the animals that are already there.

They'll live together nicely. He'll be like, oh, well, he's got food. Yeah, he can eat a kangaroo or whatever. That's probably better because he can eat one thing. Oh, this is going to make that lion's life great. And then didn't that actually happen with camels? Like we put camels in the outback and they thrive. Oh, yeah.

We export camels to other countries. They love it here. Are you going to talk about this? There's so many incidents I couldn't go through them all. There's now like a million camels in the centre of Australia. Is it the biggest population of wild camels in the world? We do sell some camels

but it's only like 5% of them a year or something. No really? They breed at such an alarming rate. I can't imagine a camel mating. We can't sell enough camels. There's only like 5% of them a year or something. No, really? Because they breed at such an alarming rate. That's crazy. I can't imagine a camel mating. We can't sell enough camels. Humping a hump.

I once went to Central Australia and we went on a little camel ride and we went back to the place where they kept all the camels and the people who owned the place were telling us about them. They're like, this camel just came to us. And there were so many wild camels that this one saw the suite set up and was like, I want in, and just came up and was like, I live here now. It domesticated itself like a cat that rules. I don't know what kind of camel conversations they were having,

but I think they were always like, yeah, they just feed us. It's like, what? It's like, yeah, you get people riding on you. It's like, man, who cares? Some of them did get angry. Some of them hated being ridden, and I felt very bad. I'm like, yeah, you get people writing on you. It's like, man, I... Who cares? Who cares? Some of them did get angry. Some of them hated being written, and I felt very bad. I'm like, put them back. This one hates it.

Yeah, there's so many. Get the domesticating one in. Hold auditions. Yeah, exactly. Get the good camels. You might as well. Yeah, you're spoiled for choice. Yeah.

So it was nice to know they treat them so well. The camel was like, one for me, please. I live here now. The Acclimatization Society in Victoria was governed by the colony's most eminent scientists who believed that Australia's plants and animals were greatly inferior to those in Europe. So that's their theory. That was a scientist?

The most eminent scientist. I cannot imagine looking at a kangaroo and thinking it was inferior to anything. Yeah, that's right. I know. The Australian animals are amazing. Yeah. They have some of the most unique. They thought our animals were joke animals.

They were like, that can't be real. Yeah, like when you bring your platypus back, they were like, you've sowed two animals together here. They tried to pull them apart. Nice try. And yet, being a scientist and not realising that they would have evolved to inhabit this land perfectly. My God. Australian writer Eric Rolls wrote in 1984, quote, there was never a body of men so foolishly, so vigorously and so disastrously wrong.

Whoops. But according to Museums Victoria, founder Edward Wilson was supported by Henry Barclay, a science patron and later the governor. The society was primarily responsible for the introduction of starlings, sparrows, and European carp into the Murray River, which has since become an incredible issue as they've massively degraded the river and the basin. Oh, God. Whoops.

This is a grim topic, Dave. How do you get carp overseas? How do you get carp overseas? How do you get carp here? Fish tanks? Yeah, big tanks. Like, because some stuff's already traveling in the ballast water down below. Oh, yeah, true, dude. Just dump some carp in there.

Have a bit more. Yeah, fair enough. Because I think you don't need that many. Oh, yeah, true, true, true. Because they breed so quickly. Yeah, now it's horrible. Start off with two. Yeah.

And you'd probably bring eggs. Maybe they can freeze eggs or something. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. As a scientist, I'll build this one. Our most eminent scientist. Yeah.

The principle of acclimatization involved transporting fauna from other places in the world to see which animals could adapt and be integrated into a new environment. So we're talking blackbirds. They tried pheasants, quail, salmon, camels, goats and sheep. They were all brought first to the Melbourne Zoo and then introduced into the Australian environment. Many of these species did not establish in the Australian landscape. It would be cool if we had pheasants. Pheasants are cool.

I mean, obviously tragic and probably would come with untold problems, but I can't see their thinking too easily. Yeah, pheasants would be sick. Put them in. Well, maybe, I feel like I'm not giving these people enough credit for having think, but maybe they're looking at things and being like,

oh, I don't know if we can eat that. Yeah, okay. But no one checked. Like they're not looking at kangaroos being like, oh, we'll just eat those then. There were people here they could have checked in with. Yeah, people were eating them currently. Could have let them know.

I know the same thing happened when the pilgrims first came to America. The pilgrims were like, no, we're eating our disgusting British freaking milk porridge or whatever. And all the First Nations American people were like, yeah, we're eating like, we've got all these delicious foods. Turkey. Yeah, they had corn. I like my canned food.

Thank you. They had like the three sisters growing system with like, was it corn? Oh, yeah, yeah. Whatever the other two vegetables were, yeah. But they grow perfectly together and then you get delicious meals. Yeah, yeah. That is so good for you. But in fairness for these people,

the acclimatisation wasn't just a one-way exercise. The society also sent echidnas to London, wombats to Paris, kangaroos to Mauritius and possums to New Zealand. They were hoping to use the possum as a source of food and fibre and fur pelts for clothing.

Possums are now widespread across most of New Zealand and have had a significant impact on many of the local natural ecosystems. Yeah, you're allowed to kill the possums in New Zealand. Yeah, they'll sell a lot of possum skin merch and all their shops over there. All of their shops. All of their shops. In the 1980s, the population peaked at 60 to 70 million possums.

Oh my God, far out. That's way more than the population of Wyoming. Yeah, how many dozen possums does each person of Wyoming have to kill to take down this population? We get everybody from Wyoming into New Zealand with one goal in mind. Do we know how the echidnas and what? I mean, I know presumably not well because there's not like a bunch of echidnas in Britain or whatever. But like it does feel like unless it became a problem, that means they didn't do well.

Yeah, you're right. Imagine just having, because London, there's not enough places for them to borrow. So I can immediately see some problems. But imagine if they'd become like, I don't know, a little street echidnas. You know, burrowing into holes in buildings that mice had previously dug out and then the caves had gotten too big for the mice to feel safe in. You know? Like a pest.

Yeah. That would be very. Like native Australian animals, only some of them have really adapted to the suburban sprawl. Yeah. Like possums are everywhere. Yeah. True. But you don't see a lot of echidnas. For me, favourite Aussie animal? Native animal? really adapted to the suburban sprawl. Yeah, yeah. Like possums are everywhere. Yeah, true.

But you don't see a lot of echidnas. For me, favourite Aussie animal, native animal? Wombat. Wombat. I think I'm a koala man. They're great. I'd say wombat too, but echidna for me. Just seeing them, how they sort of, they womble along,

kind of like a wombat. Yeah, I love an echidna too. Oh, yeah, echidnas are great. Because a couple of times I saw them in my house Growing up And you know They are in

You know It's semi-superb They're pretty suburban And they're wandering around But the look of Not giving a shit Because they're like Come at me

Try and touch me I'm covered in spikes I'm covered in spikes They would have learnt so quickly People like Oh I can't touch you They're like Yeah

Your brother picks them up Doesn't he Yeah my brother He picks them up Puts them in a Yeah, my brother, he picks them up. Puts them in a bucket? Yeah. He just digs his hands underneath and pulls them out of the earth. A fun thing you can do, if you've ever seen an echidna,

obviously the first thing they do is they just like burrow down and hunker down. But if you just stand very still, eventually the echidna's like, I guess they're gone. And then just starts walking away and you can watch it for ages. They're so funny. I love how all they care about is getting their little ants and stuff. They'll just like nose to the ground,

like sniffing for truffles or something. They couldn't care less about you. They were all great animal. Fantastic animal. Fantastic animal. I do love how wombats are like Jess Perkins legs. So solid. Thankfully,

I don't know anyone this has happened to personally, but if you've got any international listeners, if you hit a wombat with your car people are like fuck are you okay yeah I've been in a car that hit a wombat and the wombat was fine

but we had to pull into a car park and it was like it hit a rock and the underside of the car was just destroyed they are so solid

I love nugget animals yeah the wombat whatever we just kept walking I used to want a like a pet wombat when I was younger, and I looked it up to see what you could do, and there were all these websites where they're like, adopt a wombat.

And I'm like, this is a cartoon that an artist has put a lot of work into. You're giving the money to wombat sanctuaries. Found out that you can adopt baby wombats that have been orphaned. Oh, yeah. But once they hit heat, then they get released into the wild. So you literally only get them for the cute phase of their life. That rules. And I was like, I'll do that. I'll nurse a wombat to make sure it's healthy

and can be in the wild. But I don't... My home wasn't set up well enough and then I moved out into an apartment. I'm like, I can't keep a wombat in an apartment. I've never lived in a wombat safe house. You put that on the lease? Oh, I've got a wombat in an apartment. I've never lived in a wombat safe house. You put that on the lease? Oh, I've got a wombat.

I hope that's okay. I reckon if you own a native animal and someone comes in on your house inspection day and they're like, why is there a wombat in here? You're like, don't. He came in and honestly, they're scary, right? Hopefully the person's like, yeah, they're pretty scary. Have you heard what happens when you hit them with your car? You have to wait for them to leave.

Yeah, well, it's actually been here longer than us. So really, if anything, we should go. We should go. Yeah. This is his house. He lives here. So apologies to the New Zealanders about the possums. So sorry about that.

Yeah. But back in Australia, six rabbits had been brought over by the first fleet in 1788. But the godfather of rabbits in Australia, as I assume he demanded to be called, was a guy called Thomas Austin. He was a hunter and a member of the Acclimatization Society, I spoke about. Good. In 1859, he introduced 12 pairs of rabbits, hoping to hunt them for sport on his property, Barwon Park at Winchelsea in Victoria's Western District.

them for sport on his property, Barwon Park at Winchelsea in Victoria's Western District. Rabbits are able to produce tenfold in one season, and a website called Australian Food Timeline, which I'm a big fan of, writes that just seven years after Austin introduced the rabbits at his property, he received a visit from Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second son of Queen Victoria. A report in the Illustrated Australian News recounted that the prince shot 416 rabbits in three and a half hours, and his gun became so hot that they blistered the hands of the loader.

The loader, the separate person. Someone else, it seriously is, someone else is loading his gun. That's so funny. So he couldn't miss, basically. It was like in a ball pit, a bunny pit. Oh my god. And then some poor guy saying,, a bunny pit. Oh my god. And then some poor guy's saying, Your Majesty,

it's burning my hands. You've killed enough. You can't eat all of these before they go bad. This is a time where it probably took five minutes to reload the gun. So he'd only fired four bullets in that time and killed 400 rabbits. So they were

everywhere in just a few years. Rabbits were introduced around the country in different places over the decades after, but that was the epicentre. And by the 1920s, there were more than 10 billion rabbits across Australia. Wow. Man, you've hit so many Wyomings. Thomas Austin was praised during his lifetime for bringing

these rabbits, but has copped a lot of fl lifetime for bringing these rabbits, but has copped a lot of flack for the rabbits since, I will say. His widow, this will be interesting to Melbourneites, Elizabeth Austin founded what would become the Austin Hospital in Melbourne. Oh, wow. Cool. That's a better contribution. She's got a better reputation.

They're balanced out, maybe. Do we think they're balanced out? I don't know. The native animals probably don't think so. The native animals probably don't think so. The native animals probably don't think so, but I reckon a lot of people's lives would have been saved. I reckon a hospital did a bit for health. Bloody hell, you reckon?

I reckon, maybe. So when the prince came, apparently I read that they were a bit embarrassed because their mansion wasn't mansion-y enough. Oh, yeah. So after he left, they built an even bigger mansion in case he ever came back. But then within the year, Thomas himself died. So he never got to appreciate the royalty. He had the second mansion on his massive property.

And he also never got to appreciate the devastation that he alone caused. Yeah, he never knew. So that's in Australia. In the USA, there Thomas Austin was a German immigrant named Eugene Scheffelin. His grand idea was to bring one of every bird mentioned in the plays of Shakespeare to North America. That's so funny. How beautiful. To be, man, back in the old times, you could just have a maniac idea and then do it.

Yeah, it's like, are you wealthy? Yes, you can do whatever you want. Fetch me a bird. And then other people have to figure out how to do it. Are you wealthy? Yes, you can do whatever you want. Fetch me a bird. And then other people have to figure out how to do it. How to get all the birds. And that's about 60 birds. So there's things like wrens, cormorants, owls, nightingales, larks, all get a mention, often

for dramatic purpose in the works of Shakespeare. But the one that really took off was the starling. According to the BBC, one cold winter's day, Eugene released 60 starlings into New York's Central Park in the hope that they would start breeding. And they did! The US is

now home to an estimated 200 million European starlings. And they are a horrific nuisance, causing over a billion dollars of damage to crops every year. Wow. So much so that they are one of the few bird species unprotected by law in the United States. They're like, go for it. Oh, God. So much so that they are one of the few bird species unprotected by law in the United States. They're like, go for it.

Oh, nuts. They're also potentially dangerous. They're a particular problem at airports because they flock in very large numbers, and compared to other birds, their bodies are very dense. They're like the wombat of the skies. They've been known to cause bird strikes on planes. Bird strikes? Bird strikes, yeah.

Like a picket line? No, it's more when they get sucked into the engine. Oh. It's so funny that there are some birds that if they get sucked into the engine, it's like, well, that was such a light, airy bird. Who cares? Come at me. Who cares?

These are like bowling balls with wings. Do they just not have as hollow bones or something? Yeah, what's going on here? Why are they just full of better meat? Too muscly. Like a factor. Yeah, what are they? Big, chunky like an owl or something?

They sound little. They are quite small, but they flock in hundreds, sometimes thousands. That's crazy. And they are solid compared to other birds their size. Oh, they're beautiful. Show us. Look at that. Oh, they're beautiful. Show us. Look at that. Oh, I get it.

Oh, yeah. Once again, I understand why you did it. It's a pretty bird. Yeah, it's a beautiful bird. And it's a Shakespearean bird. You get it. Yeah, I'm there. Because there are things, like when you go overseas, you'll see bits of scenery and nature

and you're like, wow, the sky looks really different here. Or like, wow, I love the trees. And then there are things I notice about like Australia. I'm like, God, I love, you know know X, Y, Z about how this country looks and being a maniac back in the day and being like I could get all the best bits

at once yeah I'm going to make the perfect country this place does not have beautiful birds or you get someone and you go

it took ages to get here I can't be bothered going back just bring the other stuff to me I don't want to go back to England to see a fox whatever

just I'll have a fox. Whatever. I'll have a fox here. We'll have him here. It's no big deal. But the Starlings, they caused the most deadly bird strike in US aviation history. In 1960, the birds flew into the engines of a plane as it took off from Boston's Logan Airport, causing the plane's engines to malfunction.

They crashed into the harbour and 62 people were killed. Whoa. And this can all be traced back to this guy in Central Park being like, fly, my pretties. Just being like, it would be beautiful if I could read Shakespeare and, like, see the birds. And possibly the worst part of all of this is, considering the damage,

is that starlings are only mentioned once in all of Shakespeare. Oh, my God. It's not even like they're his most popular bird, you know. In Henry IV Part 1, Hotspur is in rebellion against the king and thinking of ways to torment him, and in Act 1 Scene 2, he fantasises about teaching a starling

to say Mortimer, one of the king's enemies, as starlings are very good mimics. So you're trying to blame the guy who brought the Starlings. You know, I blame Shakespeare. If he didn't write that verse. That's true.

Yeah, it would never have happened. I don't think he wrote it for Americans, though. I think he wrote it for people he lived with. Yeah, people who know Starlings. Well, he should have known what could have happened. It's a real sliding doors Shakespearean moment here. Do I pick Starlings or a novabird? Yeah, the bald eagle

The ostrich Well, so the line is Nay, I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak Nothing but Mortimer And give it to him to keep his anger still in motion Poetry That line's worth it That line's worth the damage

I like that the starling in context with Shakespeare is also annoying. It's also in a negative light. And then, you know. I'm going to drive someone crazy. I love how you understood what that sentence meant. Oh yeah.

I'm like, oh, gibberish. And you were just like it sounded like English to you. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, oh, gibberish. And you just sounded like English to you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I'm a genius. I speak a bit of the spirit. Yeah, the bard. Was he actually a bard?

Well. He's the bard. He's the bard. But, like, as we know a bard today, was he annoying? Did he suck? Yeah, he was pretty annoying. According to a lot of Americans who were harassed by starlings year after year. Australia has had its own fair share of terrible decisions to introduce birds, namely the minor bird.

Oh, yeah. Screw that guy. I feel bad because we do have a native minor bird. Yeah, that's true. And sometimes people confuse them and get angry at them. I have done it in my past. I've gotten angry at the wrong bird and then I felt awful. I'm like sorry, sorry.

You're doing everything right. You're not breaking anything weird. I'm getting mad at the wrong bird. They hunt in packs as well, the introduced ones. Yeah, so that's the common miner and our ones are called the noisy miner. Yeah. They've changed it to common. It used to be called the Indian

miner. Yeah, so they're native to India and Southern Asia. And according to PetSmart, the common miner are popular birds in their source countries as crop pest control agents and as symbols of undying love associated with their habit of pairing for life. Oh, that's nice. Just not here.

That's beautiful. I reckon as people put them in a bag and attach them to their exhaust pipe, they think the same thing. They live together, now they're dying together. Jeez. How do you turn them into the miner ball pit? Common winers were introduced to Melbourne in the 1860s

to combat insects in market gardens. Now it's estimated their numbers have swelled to the millions. In 1883, miners... Dave, could you put it in Wyoming population? How many Wyomings? Like eight Wyomings? Whoa! I should let everyone know that Dave told me the population of Wyoming today.

I don't think you need to tell them. I think they do know. Our state of the day, Wyoming. Why did Wyoming even come? It doesn't matter. It is, yeah. In 1883, miners were transported to Townsville in Queensland, a neighbouring sugarcane-growing areas,

to combat locusts and cane beetles. Oh, here we go. A bit more on the cane beetles in a moment. We'll be coming back. But the common miner thrives in urban and suburban environments. In Canberra, for instance, 110 miners were introduced between 68 and 71. And by 1991,

common miner population density in Canberra averaged 15 birds per square kilometre. Whoa. Jeez, that's too much. That's so many birds. And only three years later, a second study found that that had grown to 75 birds per square kilometre

in the same area. Oh my God. But in Cairns, there's 200... Sorry, in Canberra, there's now 250 per square kilometre. But in Cairns, there's 200, sorry, in Canberra, there's now 250 per square kilometer. But in Cairns, there is a thousand minor birds per square K. Whoa, so that's what,

one per square meter? Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. That's great. Oh my God. If they all landed at once, it would be terrible.

It'd be Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. It'd be full on The Birds situation. Yeah. That's so many. That's horrendous. You think we could solve it by giving every citizen of Australia the appropriate amount of birds per person? And we can just do with them what we like?

That's right. Everyone's responsible for a certain amount of birds. Like the Adopt-A-Highway sort of plan. You've adopted, I don't know, 60 odd birds. How big's your house? Alright, you now have that many square metres of bird. Do with them what you will, but they can't grow. You can't let them out of your sight, basically.

You don't have to, but if you've got a car exhaust pipe, I'm not saying do it, but I'm not saying don't do it. That's a crazy government initiative. It's up to you. I wonder if, because our culling techniques are getting insane. Like, have you heard of the one they're using for mosquitoes

or they're in development for mosquitoes? I can't remember if it's approved yet. No. They are releasing mosquitoes that are infertile or have an infertility gene.

So they release all these mosquitoes, they breed, and then the next generations of mosquitoes can't breed anymore. Huh. That's clever.

So it's the next generation down becomes infertile. So they keep releasing these one generation off infertility mosquitoes to kill them off. We've got too many mosquitoes, haven't we? They just keep killing people. Oh, okay. I personally, I don't really like killing anything. Yeah, that's fair. Mosquito, I think that's fair game because it's us versus them.

Yeah. I feel like mosquitoes kill people. If a mosquito could kill, if it could squash me, it would. Yeah, that's fair. Mosquito, I think that's fair game because it's us versus them. I feel like mosquitoes kill people. If a mosquito could kill, if it could squash me, it would. Yeah, I think it's fine. How do you feel about when they go hunting for a shark that bit a surfer or something? Well, the surfer was in the shark's house.

So, I don't think that's a shark's fault. Are we not in the mosquito's house? Yeah, that's true. Is the mosquito's house not? Yeah, and he's coming to get us. So, it's us versus them. If a shark bit me, I'd punch the shark in the nose. But I'm not in the mosquito's house? Yeah, that's true. It's the mosquito's house. Yeah, and he's coming to get us. So it's us first. If a shark bit me, I'd punch the shark in the nose. But I'm not in the shark's house. That's true. I will kill a mosquito.

What if the shark came into your house? Like in the bath? Yeah, well, the shark would have to cop it if I killed him. That's fair. That's fair. That's fair. But if he came into my house with no intention to kill me, if he just wanted to have a look around, I'd be like, have a look.

Yeah. This is what a person looks like. You know, mosquito comes and tries to bite me. He starts a fight. If anyone comes to your house and just wanted to have a look around and be like, have a look. Yeah. You know, Mosquito comes and tries to bite me. He starts a fight. If anyone comes to your house and just wants to have a look around, you'll welcome them in? Ah, yeah. Well, that's the thing.

If I'm like shut in the door and they're like, no, come in. And they're like, problem. I'm like, well, problem. But if I'm like, yeah, come into my house, it's fine. And if there's a problem, a problem will happen. I will be part of the problem. Okay. Anyway, can we get some of those infertility genes on the minor birds, maybe?

Because that, I like that because it's not culling them. Yeah, that's true. It's just sort of getting rid of them. It won't kill any existing ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It will make them die out. True. Which is pretty horrific.

Maybe less horrific. They just keep destroying so much. And they get to live lives without the worry of kids. Don't birds have to teach their kid birds how to fly? Don't worry about that now. Yeah!

Empty nesters. Oh, love the space! Well, they're lifelong monogamous and sedentary. Breeding pairs use the same territory each year and maintain and defend their territory aggressively during breeding season. This behaviour is thought to evict native bird species from nesting boxes or tree hollows and even kill eggs and chicks. Not so romantic now, are they?

No. They also carry avian malaria that kills local birds. Jesus. Oh, no. They are the avian malaria that kills local birds. Jesus. Oh, no. They are the mosquitoes of the sky. It's true. The mosquitoes of the sky. The mosquitoes with wings.

But before we finally get to our main headline event, the cane toad, I hope you'll indulge me talking about a lizard, and not just any lizard, the Lazarus lizard. Oh. Called the Podarcus muralis, or the common wall lizard. They're from Europe originally. But they are referred to locally in the Cincinnati slash northern Kentucky area as the Lazarus lizard, as it was introduced to the area around 1950 by George Rau,

who was a member of the family who owned the Lazarus Department Store chain, which was later bought out by Macy's. When George was just 10 years old, his family went on vacation to northern Italy, and wanting a souvenir of the trip, the boy had stuffed around 10 lizards into the socks in his suitcase to bring home with him. My God. The lizards survived the trip, and he released them near his family's home in the eastern

Cincinnati suburb of Hyde Park. And they quickly bred and spread. This story became local legend and George Rau himself wrote a letter in 1989 to herpetologists at the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History, owning up to being the guy who introduced the lizards as a 10-year-old. And in 2013, genetic testing proved that he was telling the truth. That's amazing. They come from the area of Italy.

And there's also, they think only three of the 10 lizards survive to breed. So there's like a real bottleneck in their genetics. It all comes from these three. And they're like, okay, the guy's not lying. The lizards now number in the hundreds of thousands and are expanding and have become a local symbol found in murals, on carousels and the original neighbourhood they were introduced is often unofficially marked on maps as

Lizard Hill in their honour. So they like them. Yeah, it's devastating these Lazarus lizards. I think they eat some stuff, yeah. Okay. But I just thought it was so funny that a ten year old kid... He's not expecting. I think there's so much that's funny about that.

One, he's like, I need a souvenir. Ten lizards. That'll be my souvenir. And then I love when he gets home, he's like, ah, I'm sick of these lizards. It just dumps them in his yard. Yeah, they're releasing them is the insane bit. Surely one lizard.

Yeah, one lizard's a perfect souvenir. Ten lizards is so many lizards. That's heaps of lizards. How did he even pack that many socks? I'm surprised they survived the trip as well. Like Italy to America, that's a while. Yeah. Don't some animals just turn off sometimes?

They just like have an off switch. Like, I'm dormant for a bit. I'm in socks. Yeah, you put a lizard in a sock, it's like putting a blanket over a bird. Yeah, it's night time. Good night. Does that work for us? I know that the sun affects our circadian rhythms, but like.

What's your question? Are you saying if I put you in a cage and then put a sheet over it, would you go to sleep? Maybe. No, what about, okay, in the Iceland? Yeah. Dark all the time. Uh-huh.

Do they sleep well? I don't know. I know they have very high rates of depression. You probably get bored a lot more, yeah. You've been, haven't you, Dave? Do you go there? So is it dark at one point of the year and really light at the other? Yeah, like up toward.

Dark 24 hours. Yeah, the further north you go. Yeah, I think when I went to Iceland maybe there was only seven hours of sunshine for the whole day or something, but it was getting less

and less. Did you sleep more or party more? I actually slept less. So one morning we got there at

night and I woke up the next day and for some reason I hadn't checked my phone to see what time it was and I went downstairs

and I was at a hotel with a continental breakfast so I said to the guy oh are you serving breakfast yet and i had to buzz the bell actually to get him down he was really grumpy and i was like oh this guy's really mad at me and i was like oh where do i go for breakfast he goes oh yeah i'll be there in a minute i'm like okay i went back to my room and i realized that it was like 4 45 a.m and i just buzzed him down to the desk. I was like, oh, okay, sorry. Rise and shine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't realize. I didn't realize. Oh, that's so funny. We can wait for clean water solutions. Or we can engineer access to clean water. We can acknowledge indigenous cultures. Or we can learn from indigenous voices. We can demand more from the earth.

Or we can demand from Indigenous voices. We can demand more from the earth. Or we can demand more from ourselves. At York University, we work together to create positive change for a better tomorrow. Join us at yorku.ca slash write the future. Finally, we get to the cane toad. Hell yes. Described by PetSmart as one of the foremost examples of an exotic animal release gone wrong. Oh, yeah. Hang on. When's it gone right?

They put some kangaroos in France. It's pretty cool. I will actually, in this story, talk about an example gone right. That's exciting. There are a couple. Honestly, they seem to be few and far between. What about the dingo? Yeah, that's true. That's exciting. There are a couple. Honestly, they seem to be few and far between. What about the dingo? Yeah, that's true.

That went pretty well, right? Yeah. I mean, it happened so long ago that I think some people call them native dogs. Yeah, but they were definitely introduced. They were from like East Timor, right? Yeah. Down into the island. I didn't even know that.

It was like a few thousand years ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A long time ago. I don't know really when, because people talk about them being introduced, but I guess because we have so little idea of the connection between Australia and kind of like Southeast Asia, we don't know who was trading what or whatever. Like how did the thing go from who? Yeah, it must have been, yeah, obviously via boat.

Yeah. Or did they swim? Yeah, just a swim. Yeah. They perfected doggy paddles. I know there was a lot of trade between the people in the northern tip of Australia and the, the southern set of islands or whatever, where they were,

they would come down here from Southeast Asia to trade, to collect sea cucumbers. And then the first nations, Australian people would help them farm the sea cucumbers and stuff. So there was some, maybe it was that, maybe that's how the dingo came here. I don't the sea cucumbers and stuff. So maybe it was that. Maybe that's how the dingo came here. I don't know.

This is from the Australian Museum website. Yeah. Quoting a guy called Jackson. Oh my goodness. Maybe it was me. Maybe I wrote this. I don't know. The dingo is Australia's wild dog.

It is an ancient breed of domestic dog that was introduced to Australia probably by Asian seafarers about 4,000 years ago. Its origins have been traced back to early breeds of domestic dogs in Southeast Asia. That's cool. I would have been the same for the people here just being like, that's a new kind of guy. What? Holy, what about that dog that's got two noses? You know this dog?

No. I think it's from Southeast Asia. How does it smell? How does it smell? Really well. It smells twice as well. No, it's from Southeast Asia. It doesn't smell. How does it smell? No, so it's got... Really well. It smells twice as well. No, it's got... It's more like its nose is bisected down the middle, so its nostrils are on like two separate snouts

with like a weird divot in the middle. And it's... I don't think it exists anymore, but it definitely existed for a while. Yeah, the old two-nosed dog. The idea of that makes me feel a bit sick. It's like a normal... He's fine.

The dog's getting by. Don't worry about the dog. He me feel a bit sick. It's like a normal, he's fine. The dog's getting by. Don't worry about the dog. He's having a great time. I wish I could remember where it was. It might be Southeast Asia. It actually might be South America, maybe somewhere. Somewhere south. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Okay. The Google image just gives you pictures of dogs that that's happened to these days. Yeah, that's not what you want. I don't recommend it. The dogs look happy. It looks like they're living good lives, but it definitely sets off a part of the brain that thinks,

oh, something's a body horror. It's a kind of body horror. Yeah. Anyway, it was a two-nosed dog. It was pretty cool. That's all you need to know. To understand the cane toad, you have to understand their namesake, cane or sugar cane.

Oh, my God. Used for sugar production. Sugar cane was also brought to Australia from South Africa with the first fleet in 1788. But the industry really took off in Queensland in the 1860s. The climate up north is suitable to grow sugar cane, which is native to warm temperate and tropical regions of India, Southeast Asia and New Guinea. Everything was going well until a couple of decades later in the 1880s when white grub attacks began to damage the crops. The white grubs are the larvae of up to 13 different species

of native beetles that eat the roots of the cane, causing the plants to die. The most famous is the cane beetle. Well, that's native, yeah? Yes. The sugar was in our house. It was in his house. It's funny to me that they're named after...

We were here before. I used to just be the beetle. This is weird. Adult beetles eat the leaves of sugarcane, but greater damage is done by their larvae hatching underground and eating the roots, which either kills or stunts the growth of the plant. White grub. White grub.

White grub. Same.ub. White grub. Same. Their eggs and larvae are often buried deep underground, making them difficult to exterminate. Okay. Oh, so they're clever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Deeper poppy syndrome. The government knew there was a problem and bowed to pressure from cane growers and were forced to establish the Queensland Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations, or the BSES. That sounds so much more fun than it is. I want to go to a sugar experiment station.

That was 1900. Wow. The beetles were studied and lots of methods of control were experimented with, many of which involved pesticides that were either ineffective or unnecessarily killed other insects. So they were like, oh, the damage isn't quite worth it. So these were deemed inappropriate. One idea was to introduce

another animal to take care of the cane beetles. They tried minor birds earlier and that didn't work out. By this time they were riding high from the success of the 1925 introduction of the cactus moth that dealt with invasive prickly pear plants. Okay.

Well, I'm seeing lots around. I don't think it did a good job. Well, the prickly pears, they'd also been introduced and had quickly overgrown huge swathes of land, like millions of acres apparently. Wow. And nothing could sufficiently deal with them until the moths came along and in just a few years ate up to 70% of the cactus. Did the moth cause any kick-on problems? No, I don't think so. It's seen as one of the successes.

Yeah, yeah. Wow. Good on you, cactus moth. What's prickly pear? It's that cactus that grows, it looks 2D. It looks like little upside down teardrop shapes that keeps growing, but they actually grow a fruit on them called prickly pear. Oh, I know that.

So you know how it looks like they wear a hat sometimes? Oh, yeah. Those guys. Oh, okay. And you see them around a lot. Yeah. I don't know. I can't remember.

Well, out in the country where there's big swathes of land to be ravaged by a prickly pear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, right. Cool. Need more of them moths. Yeah. They're a pest,

and I think there are, like, laws in place where you, if you live on a land that has prickly pear, you have a legal responsibility that you have to get rid of the prickly pear. Really?

And it's really hard. Yeah. Ow! And they're cactuses. Yeah. They will thrive under neglect. Yeah. Don't give me anything.

I love it. No, don't leave me alone. I hate that. So that case is often cited as an example of successful biological pest control. And if it worked, then why couldn't it work for the cane beetle? That's what they were saying. It did work with the mitre bird earlier, but the cactus. We went too big.

Birds can fly elsewhere. That was our mistake. Unlike moths. You reckon they would have been going before? I mean, maybe you'll say whether or not this is true, but they went moths first. So they were like, well, the cactus moth worked. We got any cane moths?

No. We know moths are good. Well, Reginald Montgomery, an entomologist, that's a bug guy, was convinced the cane toad was the answer to a major agricultural crisis in the sugar industry as they'd reportedly solved similar beetle problems in Hawaii, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. So obviously they don't have the exact cane beetle because that's native to Australia,

but they've got similar bugs that are affecting their crops. And the cane toad done super well over there. Yeah. Cane toads are also known, as I said, the giant neotropical toad, native to South and mainland Central America. They're considered to be a very large species of toad. They are big. How big are they?

Reaching up to 15 centimetres in body length, occasionally getting up to 25 centimetres. That's beef. In body length. That's no good. Sorry, I didn't talk about body width. Like when you're watching tennis and they'll say racket head speed. It's like, yeah, you say speed. What do you think?

What else? What other part is speed? They do get huge though, you say speed. What do you think? What other part is speeding? They do get huge, though, cane toads. They're so, like, it's a shock whenever you see one because they're so big. Yeah, they are very big. Yeah. And for anyone who hasn't seen one, this is how the Australian Museum describes them. Adult toads have a light brown or yellow brown back with darker patches and spots.

The skin is dry and warty. The word warty. Warty is a weird one because it's not actually warts, is it? It's just lumpy. It sort of looks like that, yeah. The belly is white or yellow, sometimes with grey mottling. Oh, mottling. Goodness.

I don't know what it means, but I like it. Fancy. Fancy toad. Adults have large parotid glands on the shoulders which secrete toxins when the toad is under threat. I think if you didn't, even if you didn't know the cane toad was poisonous, if you saw it, you'd know.

It looks poisonous. Absolutely. Lumps up top spots on belly. They're a grotesque little guy. I think they're kind of pretty Show us Let me see if that's true They've got the modelling and stuff

It's like little nice watches They've got the eye ridges No I can see they're kind of pretty But I think all the photography of cane toads For at least Australia They photograph them From a low angle and it makes them look mean.

Because they're trying to make them look like a nasty species. I really like this photo you have here, Cass, of a cane toad eating another cane toad. That's good. It's got its mouth open and the legs of another cane toad poking out. They're the problem but also part of the solution. More cane toads. Oh, my God.

That's genius. Bring in more from Puerto Rico. Get the 25ads. Oh, my God. That's genius. They're bringing more from Puerto Rico. Get the 25-centimetre ones in. Yeah, they'll eat the little ones. It's a real, you know, the lady who ate the fly? Yeah. That's what Australia's, that was their old policy on pest control. Yeah.

Well, they ate the fly. Well, take the fly. What ate the fly? Okay, well, we're going to. We'll have to eat a frog or whatever. Get the frog in. Get the frog in. We'll find something that eats a frog,

and then eventually it's big enough that we'll figure it out. Yeah. Eventually we're putting blue whales out into the cane fields. It's like lowering them from a helicopter. Open up. So Reginald Montgomery was pushing to use the toads to take on the cane beetles. This is again from PetSmart. They're writing,

In June 1935, Montgomery travelled to Hawaii, where he captured 102 toads and brought them back to Australia. When he arrived at the Moringa Experimental Farm near Gordon Vale in far north Queensland on the 22nd of June 1935, all but one toad had survived the journey. Oh, wow. So that kid from northern Italy. Yeah, he brought 10 lizards back.

He'd had a better success rate. Yeah. Should have put the cane toads in socks. Yeah, socks that had been worn by a boy. Boy socks. The toads were housed in a purpose-built enclosure and left to breed. On June 19 that year, so this is about six weeks later, 2,400

toads were released into sites around Gordon Vale. In less than two months the number of toads had increased at least 24-fold. There's such a reproducing in nature is not that easy and

a lot of animals overproduce because a lot of them will like, like the eggs will die off in the process or like the babies will die off or sometimes the person who birthed them just because they'd be hungry. And then when you do them in these controlled environments, it's too many. And then you put them in nature, which is,

it doesn't have all the things that should eat all the eggs. Oh God. It's such an issue. Have you seen that person in the u.s who has rescued a million frogs oh no they went to a local pond and they were like oh there were all these frog eggs but they're gonna die so i brought them home and now they're breeding 1.4 million frogs yeah oh and people keep trying to report them for environmental terrorism but it's just some kid on tiktok being like i'm gonna start a frog army and people like this is you don't know how many frogs that is you are going to cause a lot of harm it's kind

of like the wolves at yellowstone you know the wolves at yellowstone thing where they were like we gotta the wolves are a problem we gotta eradicate the wolves at yellowstone so they completely decimated all of the wolves numbers and then what happened is that the wolves weren't eating the deer and that meant that the deer population was going crazy and because there were so many deers the deers were eating all of the foliage because all the foliage was being eaten it meant that the weather and stuff could have a far more devastating effect because they were at the trees to prevent erosion and because the weather was having and it just had this insane kick on effect so they had to

reintroduce wolves back into yellowstone to eat all the deer because it was causing such a massive problem. Were they worried about the wolves in the first place? I think they were like, oh, the wolves are probably going to eat us or whatever. So they were not introduced? No, no, it was basically just like part of the environment and the ecosystem

and they were like, well, the wolves are scary. How do we keep making this mistake? Humans are really dumb. Everything's set up perfectly. It's in a perfect balance. Let's fuck with it a little bit. See what happens. But I mess up the balance heaps.

So therefore I can change things. I'm like that kid with the frogs. Like all the frog eggs were going to die. Yeah, that's nature, baby. Which is what was meant to happen. And they were like, I'll save them. God. I don't know what's going to happen because people keep trying to report this kid.

So maybe by the time this is released, something is concluded. It's so stressful. It's crazy. So Montgomery, he put out 2,400 toads and now there's like over 10,000 of them. Further releases of toads in the Cairns and Innis Valley areas followed. Not everyone was on board, though. Another Australian entomologist, Walter Froggatt. Oh, come on.

He's like, listen to me. I'm the frog man. He's like, let's release frogs, not toads. Yeah, forget about it. I got toaded on my son. He voiced concerns that maybe this wasn't such a great idea. It seems like it. Trust him.

He wrote, this great toad, immune from enemies, omnivorous in its habits. That's right. Omnivorous, sorry. In its habits. And breeding all year round may become greater pest as the rabbit or the cactus. He's like, you know the thing that we're worried about? Remember how we've done this multiple times and you're citing one time? This could happen again.

He convinced the government to ban the introduction, but this ban was soon overturned. The government changed and then went, nah, it's good. It's a good idea. We like the toads. Yeah. Not doing it isn't working. Maybe doing it will change something.

By March 1937, some 62,000 toadlets. Baby toads were bred in... That's cute. It does. That's what got the government back on board. They're only toadlets. They're only babies.

Fuck you, frogget. They were bred in captivity and then released in some areas around Cairns, Gordon Vale, Innisfail and Northern Queensland. More toads were released around Ingram, Eyre, Mackay and Bundaberg and the toads spread like wildfire. Like wildfire. Oh dear.

Oh dear. But at least they meant there'd be less beetles, right? Yeah, surely. The one question you think they consider is they actually eat cane beetles, right? Right? Cane toads, cane beetles, makes sense. Surely cane toads, yeah. Well, this is debated.

Again from PetSmart, which has a great article that I'll link to in the show notes. There is no evidence of any pre-release testing by the Queensland Bureau of Sugar Experiment Station entomologists to determine if the toads even ate the cane beetles. That's amazing. They had to breed them and feed them.

Why didn't they just feed them? They had to check. But also you've got to think, I reckon a cane toad will probably eat anything, really. So, like, you give it a cane beetle and it eats it, you're like, yeah, I mean, there we go. Oh, true. They eat mice and stuff.

They don't care. The beetles that the toads were supposed to control were native Australian species, different to those causing problems in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Yet no trials were carried out to see if this translated to Australian conditions. Risk assessments of potential harms from the introduced species were not done either. Yeah. Yeah, good.

Others say, no, they do eat some of the larvae at the bottom of the cane toads like they're supposed to. Okay. But they're also terrible for other native animals around them. It just so happens that the cane toads are toxic at all life stages, from eggs to adults. Oh, wow. And then their bodies as well. Same here. It's good to be consistent.

Yeah. They have large swellings called paratoid glands on each shoulder behind their eardrums. This is where they carry their milky white toxin, known as buffer toxin. Sounds scary. Their skin and other glands across their backs are also toxic. Their poison couldn't even be pleasant. Yeah, it's all gross. It's all milky and disgusting.

Milky sounds pleasant to me. I feel like, but I feel like a milky poison is worse. Like if someone's like, you've got two poisons in front of you. One's milky, one's clear? You want the clear one? Or is clear worse? I feel like clear is going to get the job done in the quickest amount of time. That's what I think as well.

With least damage to me. Milk sounds painful for some reason. Yeah, I don't know why. I feel like milk, whatever's going to happen, you're going to have the worst surprise. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or if it's, you know, glowing green or red or something, I'm like, ah, I'm getting what I get, you know?

That's a classic poison. Milky secretion. Yeah, it's funny. I'd go the milky one. Really? What's appealing about the milky poison? I don't know. I think it's reminding. I'd go the milky one. Really? What's appealing about the milky poison? I don't know. I think it's reminding me of...

Milk? There was some sort of a medicine I'm vaguely remembering as a kid that had that milky colour. I think I know the medicine you mean. Yeah. Was it kind of like cherry flavour? Yeah, maybe. Oh, for throats.

Yeah, maybe for throats. And I'm like, I think that's all it is. Medicine's like a poison. Yeah, it's a good poison. Positive poison. Well, native animals to Australia hadn't had time to adapt to the milky poison. And many animals are killed each year trying to eat the toads. This included and still includes other natural predators of the cane beetle.

So some stuff does eat the cane beetle. For example, goannas that eat the beetles were killed by attempting to eat the poisonous cane toads. And less goannas means less beetles being eaten. So overall, even if the toads are eating some of the beetles, they can't eat enough to make up for the other animals they kill that are no longer there to eat the beetles. That's so hard. So it's not a plus game.

No. And even larger predators like freshwater crocodiles aren't safe. They've suffered massive population declines due to consuming cane toads. The big ones, the saltwater crocs, are usually okay, though. They can eat the cane toad. They're tough. So let's release the saltwater crocs. Yeah, put a bunch of saltwater crocs in the cane fields.

We might have to first release saltwater. That is, oh my God, salted caramel cane. Oh, yum. Oh, that's down the dog. Never mind. Never mind. It's fixed. But imagine you are a crocodile.

You've been alive forever. I'm there. Didn't take you long to get into that headspace. Little fog fucko. Yeah. Delicious. Dead. Thousands and tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years maybe.

Crocodiles are old. Yeah. All it took was one little chunky little cane toad. Yeah. They're not like changed since dinosaur time. Yeah. They're like millions of years old. Millions of years.

Yeah. So they're millions of years old and you've been able to eat whatever you like that whole time. And this new thing comes along, you're like, oh yeah. Yeah. I'm going to try and eat this. Oh, I can eat this. New guy.

Yeah. And then they get killed. They're bite-sized as well for like a saltwater crocodile. It's insane that that crocodile can, that poison ratio. It's enough. That's enough. Like even. You think it would be upset stomach or something.

Yeah. You can feed a dog a little bit of chocolate. It's like all about size ratio. Don't do it. You can feed a dog a little chocolate. They will be sick, but they won't die. That's so toxic if it's killing a whole croc.

Am I remembering this wrong that some animals lick them to get a natural high? Is that something else? I think that's a kind of toad. I haven't read that about cane toads. Some animals do eat them, so there's a myth that nothing can eat them. Things that eat them include wolf spiders.

Okay. That's insane. That rules. Red-bellied black snakes. Okay. Release the snakes. They're venomous also. Put the snakes in the cave.

Everybody just wears tough boots or whatever when they're dealing with the cave. They're really venomous as well, aren't they? Yeah. I think that's one of the top two. Absolutely. Wolf spiders are also exceptionally venomous. We have really cooked it. Native water rats

can have a go. Oh, okay. Oh, they're cute. Yeah, that's so great. Talking about like Jayla Gaia. Yes. Crows.

Oh, okay. Crows can eat them. Some kookaburras can eat toads and be fine while others drop dead immediately. So they're playing roulette.

Wow. So what is it? Just like a genetic thing in the kookaburras can eat toads and be fine while others drop dead immediately. So they're playing roulette. Wow. So what is it? Just like a genetic thing in the kookaburra that means that... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of them... That's crazy. ...aren't susceptible to poison. And as for humans, from the start, this is from the World Wildlife Fund,

who see it as their duty to spread awareness. Despite popular urban legend that licking cane toads can get you high, this is purely a myth. However, humans can get incredibly ill if the toxin is ingested, and if sprayed with it can cause intense pain, temporary blindness, and inflammation. If this is what it can do to humans, then it can definitely kill dogs, other household pets, and native animals.

So they're saying don't lick a toad. Surely there was a period of time where, because that myth is so prevalent. Yeah. Like people were like, let's get high and lick some cane toads. Oh, no. I thought it was other kinds of toads. I thought there were special licking toads. Yeah.

I think there might be. Yeah. Just can't, don't lick a cane toad. Yeah, that one's just poisonous. It's the same as mushrooms. You've got to pick the right one. There's like thousands of species of mushrooms. You've just got to get the right one.

Portobello, these are doing nothing for me. I just feel nourished. This is a scam. So not many anythings can eat them, but they can in turn eat anything. Yeah, okay. In fact, they will eat anything that they can swallow. They'll eat anything, both dead and living. This includes pet food that they come across.

Animals that are dead, they'll just eat anything they find, household scraps, but they mostly exist on a... That's handy. That could come in handy. Yeah, pour it in your... We just put every house that gets their green bin

has a cane toad in it. It's just a cane toad at the bottom of a bucket. But you don't let them out. No, no, no, no. It just gets big. Why not all of them if they can eat anything?

Why don't you put them in also in the recycling cans, probably? Put them in the tip. Yeah? Put them in the tip. You should just set them up in landfill. Yeah. And they'd be happy they've got something to eat. Yeah, just go to the ground. There's a protective wall so they're

not getting out. It's toxic anyway. Has anyone thought about this? Hang on, hang on. Use your brains, guys. Are we trying to fix something by introducing a safety? Is this how it starts? They haven't made it to Melbourne yet, but maybe we could just bring them down. Put them in the tip, it'll be fine. They mostly exist on a diet of living insects.

Okay. There are bugs in the tip. I know, I'm back on board. Sadly, they just don't eat enough of the cane beetle to satisfy people. That's so funny. They also reproduce at an incredibly alarming rate. Female cane toads lay anywhere between 8,000 to 30,000 eggs twice a year. That's so funny. They also reproduce at an incredibly alarming rate. Female cane toads lay anywhere between 8,000 to 30,000 eggs twice a year.

Oh, my God. These eggs hatch within one to three days and tiny tadpoles emerge. Do you mean eight, like single digit? Oh, 8,000. Oh, okay. I was also thinking that. On a water-wide range. No, it's 8,000 to 30,000. Okay.

That's still pretty huge. Yeah. Even on the low end, it's 8,230. Okay. That's still pretty huge. Yeah. Even on the low end, it's still a shitload. Yeah. Well, two cane toads could produce 60,000 cane toads within a year. That's bonkers. That's banned. And then, so they become tadpoles after three days.

The tadpoles become toads after about a month. But tadpoles in warm, shallow water can develop in just 10 days. Oh, my God. So within 13 days. You got 60,000 cagos. If they're in the right condition. Oh, my God. That's from one.

That's from one. That's no good. We've got to stop them. They're already toxic as tadpoles too. So it's not like anyone can eat them. It's not like native animals can just go get them at tadpole stage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're always toxic. Jesus.

Most sources estimate there's now 200 million cane toads across Australia, although some put this figure as high as 1.5 billion. How many Wyomings is that? Yeah, do the Wyoming math. That's Wyoming number of Wyomings. We've got exponential Wyoming here. Wyoming squared. All in all, this means they have no natural predators

or no serious natural predators. Some eat them. Casual predators. They can't keep up and kill almost anything that they touch. They typically devastate local native predators Some eat them. Casual. They can't keep up and kill almost anything that they touch. They typically devastate local native predators by 90% within a few months of their arrival. Wow. And like I said at the top of the episode,

cane toads have expanded through Australia's northern landscape and they're now moving westward at an estimated 40 to 60 kilometres per year. In February 2009, cane toads crossed the Western Australian border with Northern Territory, which is over 2,000 kilometres from the site they were first released 74 years earlier. They're going for it. You've got to admire it. Do you reckon they know? Do you reckon they see too many of themselves around? They're like,

this doesn't seem right. I think they're like, we are living in a utopia. This is all ours. It's the year of the, it's the time of the cane toad. Especially the ones on the frontier. Yeah. They're like, look at all this uneaten food. Yeah, you're first there.

Wow. It's so much to consume. It would feel cool as an introduced species. And I mean, probably because it would be very awful to be transported. But then being opened up into delicious food. Yeah. And they're like, eat it all. They're like, go for it.

Eat away. That rules. No way. Yeah. We're not stopping you. We can't. We're trying. Well, just like the cane beetle before it, lots of ways to eradicate the pest have been proposed.

In 2012, researchers experimented with training predators to avoid larger cane toads by feeding them smaller specimens, which would make them ill but would not kill them. Okay. Like a vaccine. Yeah. Well, they call these taste aversion strategies, including feeding sausages made of minced amphibians to northern quolls. The quoll? The quoll's back. The carnivorous marsupial.

Dave, it's nothing like a vaccine. Forget what I just said before. Yeah, we don't get little minced COVIDs. Little COVID sausage. Oh, God, that'd be good. Imagine if all of the government rollouts were sausage for us. We've got democracy sausage and they're like, here's a COVID sausage. They're like, everyone line up for your flu sausage.

Oh, there'd still be people saying, don't eat the sausage. Don't eat the sausage. The government sausage is controlling your mind. How do we know where it was cooked? How do we know? It's more believable that there were microchips in the sausage. The government sausage is controlling your mind. How do we know where it was cooked? How do we know? It would be much more believable that there were microchips in a sausage. It's easier to put a microchip in a sausage. You feel it crunch.

They'll like swallow all the gristle. Make sure. You know how some people for the vaccine are like, okay, when you get vaccinated, wrap your arm in like charcoal or something. They're like, it'll suck the microchip out or like magnetize your arm and it'll negate it. Why are you telling me this now? But it was like, you know, do this in the hours after you vaccine

and all the microchips will be gone or whatever. Be like, all right, eat the sausage, but chew. Chew really hard. Chew it for 10 minutes and then you'll eat the microchip. A little crunch and the person administering the sausage is like, what was that sound? Can you eat another one real quick actually? Here's a free one.

So the plan with the quolls was they eat the meat, which caused vomiting in the hope that they'll put them off eating any toes again. They go, oh, I don't want that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or do they just not trust sausages anymore? Yeah, I know. How do they know it's a sausage? I guess it's smell. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or do they just not trust sausages anymore? Yeah, I know, because how do they know it's a sausage?

I guess it's smell. Yeah, I suppose. Maybe the taste, like you get a little bit of it, they're like, oh, yuck, this is that thing. That's like that foul

sausage. It hasn't been widely introduced, so it's not, I don't think it's been a super success. Maybe they form the sausage into the shape

of a toad. Yeah, it's made out of toad meat in the shape of a toad. Toad or cake. Strategies for population control have also been proposed. This is similar to the mosquito thing, Cass. Oh, yeah.

One involves the release of sterile males into the population. Oh, okay, cool. These males would compete for resources with other males while themselves not being able to reproduce. A second strategy... So they're having little vasectomies? Yeah. And they're putting them back out there.

But they don't know. But they're also training them to be real badass. Yeah, yeah. To compete. Tough, impotent guys. That's what will save the day. A second strategy would be to insert a gene into female toads, which would allow them to only create male offspring.

Oh, okay. That works. So eventually breed them down. Like in Jurassic Park. Boys Club. Boys Club. Yeah, boys. Oh, okay. That works. You know, breathe them down. Like in Jurassic Park. Boys Club. Boys Club. Yeah, boy. Boys Club, indeed.

In 2005, David. Real sausage fest. Calls are like, oh, no. 2005, David Tolner, a former federal MP, famously urged Northern Territory residents to help squash the problem with their golf clubs and cricket bats. Oh, no. That wasn't a fun little... Pun.

Yeah, that was just what's happening. Effectively turning eradication into sport, animal rights groups were outraged at this, and he copped a lot of backlash. I have heard that hitting cane toes with the car makes a really big bang. Like running them over makes a noise, and I think people for a while were encouraged. Yeah, it makes a really big bang. Like running them over makes a noise. And I think people for a while were encouraged.

Yeah, it makes a big popping noise. And people for a while were like, if you see a cane toe, you run it over. Not good. Not good. I think the problem with that is that I think the eggs survive. Yeah, I think I've heard that too. They're toxic. No one's eating them because they train them not to. Good.

So the RSPCA in Darwin, they recommend killing captured amphibians by smearing them with either hemorrhoid cream, which I'm sure we've all got at hand at all times, which acts as an anesthetic. They also recommend putting the toads in the fridge to cool them down. This immobilizes them and anesthetizes them before putting them in the freezer for 24 hours where they slowly just fall asleep and die.

I don't want to put a cane toad in my fridge. That's where my food is. The reason I'm doing this report is I got fascinated with cane toads when my sisters moved to Brisbane and we were up there for Christmas. And she's like, oh, don't mind the cane toads in the freezer because they have them in their backyard to kill them humanely. That's what they recommend. What the fuck?

And I was like, what do you mean? Aren't they poisonous? Yeah, you wrap them in plastic bags, I think is the recommendation. That's what they recommend. What the fuck? And I was like, what do you mean? Aren't they poisonous? Yeah, you wrap them in plastic bags, I think is the recommendation. That's so crazy. And smear them in, yeah. In hemorrhoid cream. Cover them in hemorrhoid cream. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Imagine they got real smooth. Yeah, I was going to say. Get rid of the bots. Get rid of all the warts. Yeah, when you go to the pharmacist, they're like, oh, cane toads? No. But overall, so far, there isn't a national eradication strategy, which is a little worrying considering how far they've spread

and how destructive they can be. Yeah, absolutely. It feels like they would have got on the same page by now. Yeah, we've had decades of them continually moving. It's just getting worse and worse and worse. It's the CSIRO. What are they doing? Although, didn't they lose all their funding?

Yeah, and there's no funding for this either, apparently. Really? I think there should be more funding. Is there a conspiracy that at the top levels... Big Toad? Big Toad is like... That's why all our scientific funding has been dropping, because Big Toad's in the ear of government.

That's what makes Vagimite so delicious, is cane toad poison. So they'd never kill them all. The state of Queensland in some ways have embraced their association with the pest. Oh, okay. Cane toad is a colloquial term for an inhabitant of Queensland, particularly the state's state of origin rugby league team members and supporters. That's fair.

Like, I get it. Like, in a way, the cane toad is lovable. I can see that. He's like everybody's grumpy old uncle. You know what I mean? In terms of sport, they're an unstoppable force. Yeah, exactly. So, like, what are the whites if not a cane toad on this beautiful land?

You know? I reckon that's a fair name. Yeah, 100%. Townsville holds an annual Toad Day Out. Oh, okay. On March 29, where the community learn about and catch cane toads with prizes for the largest toad caught. It's mainly for kids.

And the heaviest weight of toads caught. Then the toads are killed humanely with gas. Oh, so it's like, that's insane. That's like a kids festival. That's so funny. Hey, kids, I assume they're like, wear gloves because these are poisonous. Yeah, yeah. And then they're like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

We're sending the toads away now. Well done, little. What did you think they were going to do with them? You said they were embracing them. It's just so funny to be like, little Susan, well done. You win the blue ribbon for the biggest cane toad. What's going to happen to it now? It's going to be gas.

Oh, now I'm going to drop a large anvil on top of it. Yeah, why aren't they putting them in a big freezer? Yeah, exactly. Why are they gasing them? To do masks? It's the quickest way. I think CO2 is very... This is like the car exhaust.

Yeah, I think it seems very humane, but not many people have access to it. Most people have a fridge.. Yeah, that's fair. Most people have a fridge. I'd be worried if you were dropping heavy things on them, it'd be like a Looney Tunes situation where you drop a safe on a canto and it just opens it up and gets in. It waddles away all flat.

Oh, God, we made it wider. Yeah, I reckon I saw a story on TV, whatever. But it was about these little groups going around in Melbourne, collecting the introduced minor birds, bagging them up, putting them in the freezer to sort of knock them out, and then taping that to their exhaust. Oh, my God. That's such an intense way to do it.

And they were doing, like's such a dense way to do it. And they were doing like bags a day. Wow. It's surely got to be, but I mean, I know this is the same thinking that got us the cane toad, but surely there's got to be a way to do it that doesn't involve like individual little, like collecting them and freezing them where we can just.

Yeah. Some sort of natural method that takes care of itself. You're never going to make a dent in it. Yeah, exactly. That's what it feels like. But then you're just doing the same thing. I think they feel like they're doing their part. Just, you know, get together with the boys, do a few bags.

Oh, God. How many bags did you do? I couldn't believe this, but it was published in the Sydney Morning Herald. The Toad Day Out in Townsville was inspired, I'm quoting now, by a 1993 episode of the Simpsons TV cartoon show in which residents were called upon to beat as many snakes to death as possible for the annual Whacking Day. I thought of Whacking Day.

Me too. That's so funny. It's like Whacking Day. It's inspired by Whacking Day. That's so funny. It's like Wacking Day. It's inspired by Wacking Day. That's amazing. Those beautiful snakes. I love this sexy slither. Make him quimby with his pre-whacked snakes.

That's so funny because the episode is not kind to Wacking Day. No. They let them live. Yeah, yeah. But in this, they're like, oh, like in the real life, they're like, well, like how great it is on The Simpsons, we'll do it. Yeah. To be honest in this, they're like, oh, like in the real life, they're like, well, like how great it is on The Simpsons, we'll do it. Yeah.

To be honest, I've never finished an episode of The Simpsons. I just watched like the first 16 or 17 minutes. Somebody's just vaguely described the episode to me. And then the Australian episode. Yes. Oh, you're better. I was going to finish with, you know, you've made it when The Simpsons parody you and that has happened to cane toads on the season episode, back when it was great too,

Bart versus Australia, a toad-like creature seems to be taking over. The guy says, these bloody things are everywhere. They're in the lift, in the lorry, in the Bond wizard and all over the Malonga gilder chuck. Doesn't Bart, or someone calls it a toad at one point and says, that's a

funny name. I would have called it a Charles Wazzle. Marge says, we call them bullfrogs. But yeah, it's clearly a parody of the cane toad. That's amazing. So you know you've made us. Yeah, that's it. Oh, absolutely. That's fame right there.

I wish I had answers for you as to what we're going to do about it, but I don't think there is one at the moment. Surely. We'll just introduce some sort of poisoned bug that's more delicious than anything that a cane toad eats. Can we introduce something that's like that? So yes, it will become a problem, but it's going to breed slower. So it'll be easier to take care of, you know,

like say we went the saltwater crocodile route. Okay. We know one saltwater crocodile can probably eat like a hundred doads. And then, well, it can't be that hard to get rid of a saltwater crocodile can probably eat like a hundred doads and then it can't be that hard to get rid of a saltwater crocodile what about you fence off fence off some area like really fence it off

yeah drop a couple of saltwater crocs in there or maybe one, pretty territorial and once he's eaten all his frogs take him home, move the fence to a different bit yeah maybe put the fence to a different bit. Yeah. Oh, just fence in little areas. Yeah, maybe put the fence on wheels with a remote control

and it's just slowly moving across the land. You'd need to keep it fenced off so that no cane toads got in. Okay, we're going to have to divvy up the land with little fences. Yeah, and have a gate. Let them into the gate. Can you train a crocodile? Well, then we'd domesticate him, basically. I think it's rude to think we could.

I think if we manage to domesticate a crocodile, that crocodile is smarter than the person who trained it. You know what? I think actually the solution we talked about earlier in this episode with the Burmese python, what's that eating heaps of? Frogs. What are frogs kind of toads? You're going in with similar logic.

They eat bugs, right? They eat frogs. Toads and frogs are basically the same thing. Oh, someone will check. Yeah, no doubt. I won't check, but someone's going to look into it. Because it would be crazy for us not to. And then we're releasing thousands of pythons. Crazy frog. Could release the ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Just drop them. They love it and start boning even more. Oh, no. The crazy frog starts breeding. Why don't you test it? Oh, no. They've developed little penises. And aviation goggles.

And little vests. Why did they develop pants? Can we just show the crazy frog's penis on TV? That's really awesome, I think. We're going backwards, aren't we? I wouldn't get away with that anymore. We used to be a real country. Showing the crazy frog's penis on primetime.

Well, Jackson Bailey, Cass Page, thank you so much for joining us to talk about cane toes and other ridiculous decisions to introduce species around the world. If you were to introduce an animal, what would it be? Great question. From another place? Yeah. I'm going to go polar bear to the outback,

and let's see if it loses its fur or something. We get like a hot bear. Wouldn't that be cool? And you've got to do it like they've done and bring heaps of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Put them in a tent to mate for a bit and then release them. So there's like a million. Yeah, yeah, because otherwise, obviously, the bear will just get too hot and die.

We want enough that in like 400 years, we're like, you know that hairless bear? Yeah. That was introduced by Jackson after an episode of Do Go On. And that's why it's like 4,000 years now we call dingoes native. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, 4,000 years, the hairless bear, our native bear. Yeah. It's like, you know, can you say anything is native after a long time?

You go back to like when we were like Gondwana or something. Exactly. Used to be. I mean, it was all. Maybe the definition is, did they walk there? Yeah, exactly. If they walked there, native. Okay.

And Cass, if you introduce an animal, what are you going to pick? I reckon it would be really cool. Do you know those like micro bats or micro sugar gliders? Oh, yeah. They're only like five centimeters tall. Bring those into the suburbs. Oh, yeah. I want those instead of mice.

Yeah, they are cute. They can be up high mice. They can like, imagine instead of little cobwebs and unicorns, you just got a tiny little batter of sugar glider just hanging out in the eaves. That rolls. That would be cute. I feel like enough people have those old share houses that have picture railings in them.

Yeah. A little sugar glider sneaking across there. Jumping from eave to eave. I would prefer that. And then they can kick out the introduced mice. Our native mice are beautiful. Yeah, they are. They're very nice. Very lovely. Now, if we want to hear more of you guys,

you guys do multiple podcasts. Where can we hear those and what are they? God, we're sick with them. Riddled with podcasts. Disgusting. Well, we both do D&Ds for nerds. Yeah, that's true. If you like Dungeons & Dragons, you can listen to D&Ds for Nerds. I personally do Plumbing the Death Star, Thumb Cramps, Baseless Speculation. That might be it. D&Ds for Nerds.

Yeah. I'm also on Shut Up a Second, which Jackson's on sometimes as well. Yeah, I pop in. Sometimes I pop into a Thumb Cramps. It's great. Yeah, it's all. Just go to sanspence radio.com click on a podcast. Oh, it's all there. We'll be

in one of them, guaranteed. And you want to find me personally, I'm at olddogsaredead on Twitter. And I'm at cascaspage. Great. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having us. Thank you. I'm going to be thinking about cane toads for the rest of the freaking week. And we're back in the room.

Sadly, I have had to depart from Matt. Well, Matt had to depart from me. He had to watch an NFL game in an Irish pub. You know, cultured activities like that really awaited him. So he had to leave. It's Dave here, by the way. And it's going to be solo tonight. Solo mission through what everyone is calling their favorite section of the show,

and I'm pretty happy about that, that I've been trusted with the favorite part of the show. Now I've got that pesky report out the way. It's on to a thing that we like to call the fact, quote, or question, which has a jingle that goes something like this. Fact, quote, or question. this fact quote or question almost lost it but saved it i reckon always remembers the ding and absolutely nailed it uh this is the part of the show where we'd like to thank the people that make it possible our fantastic patreon supporters and those people have been to either do go on pod dot com or patreon.com slash do go on pod And they've signed up to support the show, which is fantastic, because otherwise we can't do it every single week. We're approaching our 350th week in a row coming out very, very soon. So this is amazing, and it could not have been possible without these supporters.

And in exchange for your support and their support, you can get a bunch of rewards, including three bonus episodes a month. I just put out one just a bunch of rewards including three bonus episodes a month i just put out one just a couple of days ago now that was a mini report on thomas fitzpatrick who stole and landed two planes on the street of new york city why you ask the of course, is a drunken bet. A drunken bet. Or two. Or two. So we've put out nearly 150 of those bonus episodes now. And sometimes people ask, oh, how long do they go for?

Well, last month Matt did one which went for over two hours. So you really get bang for your buck there. When he went through every single reference in the song We Didn't Start the Fire. All those things. Billy Joel song. Everything that he referenced in that song, Didn't Start the Fire. All those things. Billy Joel song. Everything that he referenced in that song. Matt explained all of them. And it was fantastic.

Very, very fun. But yeah. Two hour episode. That awaits you as well as 140 something other episodes. And you get access to all the back catalogue as soon as you support the show on that level. And then you get three bonus episodes going forward. So yeah. Check it out.

A bunch of other rewards too. But that does seem to be a popular one. And you also get, at a certain level, to be part of the fact, quote, or question, which is amazingly what this segment is called. A bit of nominative determinism at its finest. With this section, people that support the show at this level, Sydney Scheinberg Deluxe Package, we call that level,

they get to write in, give themselves a title, and also submit a fact quote or question. Now, Matt usually reads these out, and when he reads them out, it's usually the first time he's reading them out. It's the same for me. I haven't looked ahead, so I don't know what I'm going to be bringing out if I've got fact quotes or questions. But thank you, first of all, to Jessica English.

Thank you, Jessica. The title that Jessica's given themselves is got fact quotes or questions but thank you first of all to jessica english thank you jessica the title that jessica's given themselves is pirate attorney no longer in charge of international waters podcast and then there's a little note here no you can consider this my resignation the pirates have asked me to represent them well congratulations on the upgrade obviously i'd rather work for a pirate than a podcaster. Absolutely. They have all the booty. But you've been doing fantastic work, Jessica. Sadly, we haven't been able to get the podcast into international waters yet, but it is still my absolute dream.

If I could do a gig anywhere, it would be there. Possibly Caesar's Palace. No, definitely not international waters. Thanks, Jessica English, who's written in a question. Okay, fantastic. Okay. The question is, I'm going through a movie right now. I'm going through a move. Oh my God. Okay. I really should have proofread this. I'm going through a move right now. Okay. No, I'm not going through a movie. So I've been polling everyone. I know. What is your best tip or life hack for moving or surviving the stress of a move fantastic okay my thing is give yourself time the last move i did we did not give ourselves

any time at all and in the end we were literally just throwing shit into boxes stuff was getting broken stuff still disappeared we don't know where it is or you know we'd have like our christmas nutcracker next to our fine china, next to a lamp, next to the dog food, like, it would just be absolute random shit in a box, and it, we thought, you know, oh, well, let's unpack it on the other end, who really cares, but it was so stressful on the other end that nearly 18 months later, there is still some stuff in boxes, and they're all just misc, you know, you label a box, all of them were misc, we just have misc, so that would be my number one tip, is, yeah, the stress, the other one is, don't be afraid to, if you can afford to, get a mover, I think, especially for

the big stuff, so we just got a mover in for a couple of hours, just do the fridge, and the washing machine, and stuff like that, and it really it really saves your back you know and you may not know this but um i'm not the strongest of people so watching other people do it now i've also got to do the awkward thing where i'm like get out mate yeah yeah just put the fridge down there yeah no worries oh in the fridge hutch yes that that makes more sense that's better than in the toilet all right you know what you're doing i'll leave it to the professionals. See you later. So that's my number one tip for you, Jessica English. If anyone else has any others, we do have a fantastic Facebook group for our Patreon supporters.

So I'm sure that someone might be able to post in the group and tag Jessica to say what they think. Next up, we've got Nathan Damon. Thank you so much for your support, Nathan, who's given us a fact, oh, also, the nickname is Ferocious, oh, no, Ferris Relocation Expert, Ferris Relocation Expert, Ferris is a metal containing carbon, great work i know that nathan drives road trains large trucks over in wa so is that what you're moving ferrous maybe and the fact is let's have a look he said now i thought recipe was one of the headings oh we've all it only says fact quote a question but uh, recipes are welcome.

And he says, well, it is now. This is for my famous bolognese toasted sandwiches. Man, I'm so up for this. All right, everyone, pens at the ready. Firstly, take two slices of white bread. I recommend buying a loaf of sliced bread from an Australian supermarket. It's the best thing since. Dot, dot, dot.

You fill that in. Next, you will need leftover cold bolognese. I recommend my home-cooked recipe made the day before. My kids love it. If enough people ask this recipe, I'll be publishing on the Patreon Facebook group within a week of Matt, or in this case, Dave, reading this out. For non-Patreons, sign up. That's a bit of sizzle for how good your bolognese is please post if even if no one else asks i want to know i love i love spag bol or some people call it bog but that's controversial anyway thickly spread the bolognese over one slice of bread i find the back of a spoon works best i'm loving this because i I'm a very bad cook and when I get out a recipe and they sort of assume that you know what you're doing, I absolutely hate that. I've

been getting recipes lately where it says step one, read the recipe. And that's what I know, it's written for a person of my cooking ability. Step one, read the recipe, idiot. Okay, next up from Nathan. Grate some mozzarella cheese over the sauce. Pre-grated works just fine. Love that. Then complete the sandwich by placing the second slice of bread on top from Nathan, grate some mozzarella cheese over the sauce, pre-grated works just fine, love that, then complete the sandwich by placing the second slice of bread on top of the assembly of yumminess, this honestly is written for me, now get your George Foreman grill, fuck, all right, I've got to order that, I'm on eBay now, plug it in and place sandwich in it, pressing gently, oh, this, all right, I've actually purchased one too soon. See how they've hit buy now on eBay, but he, Nathan writes, if you don't own a George, get one. Okay, well, I have,

good. But I suppose another type of sandwich press might work, but no promises. Great. No one's going to be holding you to account there. Cook until the outside is brown and cheese melted. This should allow sufficient time for the bolognese to heat up to the perfect temp. Now, grab a beer, put the Saints game on, the Eagles aren't doing so well, go Saints and enjoy. I don't trust a recipe that doesn't say enjoy at the end, I really don't. Nathan has got another tip here. For more cooking tips, simply google cooking tips. That's what I do. That's a good tip. Love the show, guys, and go Saints. I'm on the bandwagon. Thanks, Nathan Damon. If anyone makes this recipe, I would love to see these sandwiches. And please, Nathan, post in the Facebook group.

I really want to see your recipe for spaghetti bolognese. Next up, and usually it's Matt's job to pronounce his name a couple of different ways, Alex Bacci or Baccy. The problem is I've heard Matt say it both ways so many times, I don't know what's right, Alex. I'm so sorry, but the fact is you've given yourself the title of Minister of Pittsburgh Facts. Yes. All right. And it is a fact. This makes sense. Alex writes, most Americans think the lewis and clark expedition actually started in st louis but actually it began in pittsburgh there you go they started on the ohio river which begins in pittsburgh p.s this would be a great topic for

a report i think i'll put it in the hat but if not here, here it is again. Imagine Birkenwheels, except they didn't split the party. Thanks, yins. Yins, we of course learned recently that that is a local slang over there. Yins. Alex, you're my yin. Can I say that? I don't know. I don't know how to put it into context, but thank you so much. And finally, it's Roy Phillips. Roy Phillips, you're an absolute legend, And finally, it's Roy Phillips. Roy Phillips, you're an absolute legend. And their title is Chips Chopper, Chip Shipper and Chip Checker for a Chip Shop. Yes, got it. Thank you so much, Roy, for trying to pull one over there, but you didn't.

It's a question, and that is, what's your least favourite part about flying? Okay, I'm assuming you mean the process of flying in an airplane not getting up there i mean the lack of oxygen if you really are by my least favorite part i'm going to say if it is about the process of flying going to an airport and all that sort of stuff it has to be yep it's got to be when you're at security and you get to the bit where you have to have your stuff scanned you put in those little trays they x-ray it whatever i hate how there's no consistency about whether you have to take your laptop or tablet out of your bag and i feel like i always want to do the right thing so i say to them laptop out laptop out and every time i ask that they say they look at you like no no, of course not. We don't do that here. But anytime you don't say that, they go, is there a laptop in here?

You've got to take that out. Of course you've got to take that out. So I feel like I can never get that right. It's the same with my boots that I like to wear. Boots on, boots off. And they look at you like, mate, why would I get you to take your boots off, you idiot? That's gross. Or if you don't, they go, mate, not in those boots.

Take them off. So you can't win. I overthink that moment i stress too much especially if you've been awake for 24 hours as is the case when you fly anywhere internationally from australia i think that's it at least i wrote part about flying i'm gonna go on a bit of a trip soon flying back to europe and yeah now i'm not looking forward to that bit but the rest of it's pretty good I love I don't mind flying especially long haul because I like the fact that unlike anywhere else you're uncontactable

it's like you have to sit back and that's it's time to watch movies if you're on a plane with movies obviously and yeah like there's nothing you can do and when they offer you wi-fi I was like no why would I want to be contactable this is my my one little time where i don't exist on planet earth and i love that so looking forward to that's my favorite part about flying anyway great also the food is a lot better than people think but also i have very basic taste and i love mushy mushy food all right thanks to roy alex nathan and jessica and now it's time to thank a few more Patreon supporters. These are the people that have been supporting the show. And one of the rewards is a shout out. And some of these people have been waiting over a year to get their shout out.

So let's get to them now. And usually we play a little game where we come up with something related to the topic to assign each of these absolute legends. And I'll tell you what, when I was researching this topic, absolute legends and i'll tell you what when i was researching this topic cane toads came up on the list of the 100 of the world's worst invasive alien species made by the global invasive species database i just thought it was the greatest thing ever that 100 of the world's worst invasive alien species so how about i give each of you one of these species to do with what you will.

Either introduce it into your own backyard, or perhaps it is your job to eradicate this. It's up to you whether you want to be part of the problem or the hero in your own story. First up, I would like to thank from Newport, and what I believe is Wales, it's James Raymond. James Raymond, let me look at my little list here. How about I give you the Clarius batricus, which is a fish, aka the walking fish. Walking fish. It's native to Southeast Asia and it's invasive in North America. And it is named for its ability to walk and wiggle across dry land to find food or suitable environments. So it doesn't truly walk, it wiggles.

The wiggle fish. How about that? You happy with that, James Raymond? Do what you will with that. If you want to introduce that to Wales, that's absolutely up to you. I would advise against it, but it's your prerogative. Thanks so much for your support. I'd like to thank also now from Perth, but in the ACT, it says here, it's Aiden Sweeney.

All right, Aiden, let me go down this list. How about I'm going to give you another one from Asia. It's the Lomantria dispar, an insect, which is invasive worldwide. Okay. Great, Mr. Worldwide. It is the pit bull of insects and is the Asian spongongy Moth also called the Asian Gypsy Moth there you go

it looks big though having said that I am just looking at like a blown up photo of it, there's nothing for scale here so I don't know, it's introduced to nearly all the continents, possibly not Antarctica, there you go Aiden, you're already worldwide good stuff, hey next, I'd like to

thank from Moxie in WA, and the name here is This Week in iPhone Podcast. This Week in iPhone. Great. A podcast you can subscribe to on your iPhone, I assume. Thank you so much for your support. All the way from Moxie. I said WA, I meant Washington, not Western Australia, Washington in the US, Moxie, Washington, it's This Week in iPhone Podcast, let me give you a mammal, this is the Orotelagus caniculus, which is a mammal, also known as the European rabbit, oh, that's the one I was talking about on this episode. Invasive in Australia and New Zealand. There you go. That's your problem now this week in iPhone Podcast.

Thanks so much. How about now from staying in America, Texas, Roger H. Flores. And you're in Austin. Stay weird. Which a reliable source, Matt Stewart, tells me is possibly kind of the saying over there. Roger H. Flores, stay weird or keep it weird.

And it is, with a herb you'll be doing that, the Sphagnetochola trilobata, also known as Creeping Oxeye or the Singapore Daisy, invasive worldwide. Singapore Daisy sounds lovely. The Creepy Oxeye sounds creepy. Honestly, I'm looking at it, it looks like a daisy. It's beautiful. I don't really see it as an oxeye, but there you go. People love or hate this.

Hate this one with that name. Hey, thanks, Roger. And I'd like to thank From London Now, where I will be very soon with the book cheat podcast and i really hope you'll be there on august the 10th i'm doing a one-off book cheat show which i assume i've announced by now on this at the start of an episode but um yes august the 10th a one-off book cheat me and a couple of special guests at 229 the venue there's a ticket link in the description of this episode and maybe you will get to see me and also Tina. Tina from London.

Thank you so much, Tina, for your support. And I'm going to dedicate to you. What have I got here? It's a tree. The Leucania leucophila, also known as the white-legged tree or the false koa. I also like the name Jumby Bean. Invasive throughout the hotter regions of the world. Native to Central America.

Hot. Sounds hot. I'm looking at it. That's a hot plant. That is absolutely... That's popping. It's popping off the page. Because that was also called the River Tamarind.

Love these names. Hey, Tina. Thanks so much. I'd like to thank now from Yuma in Arizona. Giovanna Reed. Giovanna Reed from Yuma, and I'm going to give to you a mammal, it's called, well, honestly, I'm just scrolling up and down the list, and I've found Rattus Rattus, also known as the black rat, blue rat, bush rat, European house rat, roof rat, ship rat, I've been everywhere, man. And it's invasive worldwide, the ratus

ratus. Honestly, one of the most populous animals out there, you'd imagine. And now you're in charge of them. Giovanna, good luck. I'm sure you've got some enuma. I'd also like to thank from California in San Jose, Christina Howell. Christina Howell, let me have a look, I'm going up to the top of the list, oh, how about the Carcinus manis, a crustacean, known also as the European green crab, or the shore crab, which is invasive in North America, Australia, parts of South America, and South Africa, originally from Europe and Northern Africa. There you go. I'm looking at it.

That's a pretty classic looking crab. People do not like how invasive it is. But I think it's a good looking crab. Can't argue with that. Thank you so, so much, Christina. I'd also like to thank from Bristol in the greatest of Britons, love Bristol beautiful city, Anna Wang Anna Wang

okay, going up and down the list let me get to oh I haven't had one of these yet a fungus, the Phytophthora cinnamomi also known as the cinnamon fungus or green fruit rot.

I know which one I'd prefer to be called. Also called the stem canker. All good band names here. Cinnamon fungus, green fruit rot, and the steam cankers. And yes, it produces an infection which causes a condition in plants called root rot. Oh, okay. it's not very nice but hey if you're in charge of it anna wang maybe you'll be taking care of it people will absolutely love you if you do that thank you so much and finally i would like to thank from

reading in great britain it is ashley hunker ashley hunk, how about this? I'm going to give you a mollusk. Love the word mollusk. Specifically, the Poma saia canaliculata. A mollusk also known as the apple snail, channeled apple snail, golden apple snail. That sounds delicious. Are they edible? Let me look them up. South American in origin. It's also ranked as the 40th worst alien species in Europe and the worst alien species of gastropod in Europe. Oh man, people do not like these. But can you eat them? Human use.

I'm on the wiki page now. The species is edible. Fantastic. Apparently in China and Southeast Asia. You eat them raw or undercooked. Oh, fantastic. Well, sounds delicious. Ashley Hunker.

You can enjoy those. They're also invasive in Hawaii. There you go. Hey, thank you so much to all the fantastic people supporting this show, now in charge of an invasive species. Sorry to put that on top of you, but, you know, someone's got to deal with and or exploit these things. James, Aiden, This Week in iPhone, Roger, Tina, Giovanna, Christina, Anna,

and Ashley, and Ashley, I should say there. Not Ashley. Hashtag Ashley. Maybe that's what I was going for. And finally, it's time to check in on the trip ditch club now this is a little secret club we've developed for people that have been on the show for three or supporting the show actually you know i've been on the show for three consecutive years and i've i've got uh i've got the master key though this club never closes so we don't

even bother locking the front door but um people that have been supporting the show at the shout out level or above for three consecutive years, congratulations. We appreciate your support. And by doing that, we induct you into a hall of fame, a bar where good things happen. And if you get on the guest list, you're in forever. You're absolutely on the hall of fame. Name goes up on the wall.

And at this club, Jess usually organizes food and drinks uh i've actually got a cocktail this week that i've been working on it's called the cane toad what it is you lick a cane toad and then you take a shot of the cane toad anti-venom and then also a shot of bourbon after that to take away the taste and repeat throughout the night as you see fit so that's called the cane toad people say there's no use for cane toads but i found one absolutely i found one and as for a live band you're never going to believe it guys i've actually booked this there's been we've been in contact back and forth for over a year i first found these guys on triple j unearthed a great metal slash punk slash rock band from Capricornia in Queensland.

And they finally agreed to play the show tonight at the Triptych Club. And that is, you're not going to believe it, they're called Cane Toad. Cane Toad. I heard them, I listened to their song, Dressed for Pleasure on Triple J Unearthed. And I just had to hear them all live. So, fantastic. Triple J unearthed, and I just had to hear more live. So, fantastic. It will be great to have Taz, Jimmy, Aaron, and Mitch from Cane Toad rocking out the club tonight.

And finally, it's only one thing left to do, and that's to check if there's anyone on the guest list. Any new inductees? Obviously, Matt usually stands by with a velvet rope, but I'll have to do that this week on myself. As I hype people up, everyone else is in the club, I'm on stage, reading out the new guests as people from the cult, I mean club, welcome the other inductees in.

I usually come up with a bit of a pump-up on their name, trying to make them feel welcome in the club. So here we go. Jess usually pumps me up. So behind every hype man is a hype woman. Sadly, she's not here at the moment, so I will have to hype myself up as well. So here we go.

I'm about to lose my mind on the record. Here we go. I'd like to welcome in, first of all, Alan Gilsonan from an unknown location. Alan Gilsonan, more like Thrillsonan when you're around, Ellen. Yes, he's done it again. Fantastic. I'd also like to thank from Candler in North Carolina, which I know a fun fact about, but I don't have enough time. So sorry, but it's Therese or Teresa

LaVallee. Therese or Teresa LaVallee. How about a real releaser of endorphins seeing you here tonight? How about that? Or really, you really, Therese, all of my bad feelings. That's one for different pronunciations of your name. Obviously, if I get it wrong, you get to run out, join the end of the line, and come back in, and I'll welcome you all the same. So Therese or Teresa, I've got something for everyone. I'd like to thank also from Footscray here in Victoria.

It's Kyra jacobson kyra on fire with kyra yeah fantastic i would like to thank from they've given the pronunciation which i appreciate from cumry cumry in i believe he's in wales it's daffod stone daffod stone i feel so good i thought it was stoned but it was just saying daffod here you're like a drug woo you're a legend

I'm really running out of steam here there's only one more to go and finally I'd like to thank from Pakenham in Victoria and their name listed here is astro underscore jazz this night is really blasting off pew pew pew

with astro jazz woo hey thank you so much to Alan Therese that's Therese This night is really blasting off with Astro Jess. Woo! Hey, thank you so much to Alan, Therese, that's Therese. I've really lost that name there. Kyra, Daffod, and Astro Jess. What an absolute pleasure to welcome you in and have your names put above the bar. Come and have a cane toad as cane toad rock out.

Wow, we made it. Hey, that brings us to the end of the episode, everyone. Thanks so much for sticking with me. I know it can be a little bit weird when you listen to one guy talking, even though there are podcasts out there that are just that. But usually there's three of us, and then there was only Matt and I plus our fantastic guests, and then it was whittled down to me. But you stuck with it, and I appreciate it.

We'll all be back together next week. But before that, you can get in contact with us at dogoonpod.com where there's links to suggest a topic anyone can do that there's links to our patreon we can get those rewards and support the show there's links to our social media which are at do go on pod and you can email us do go on pod at gmail.com but apart from that that's it for me i'll say thank you so much for listening we'll be back as i say next week with another episode with the crew back together but until then i'll say thank you so much for listening. We'll be back, as I say, next week with another episode with the crew back together. But until then, I'll say thank you so much and goodbye. We can wait for clean water solutions. Or we can engineer access to clean water.

We can acknowledge Indigenous cultures. Or we can learn from Indigenous voices. We can demand more to clean water. We can acknowledge indigenous cultures. Or we can learn from indigenous voices. We can demand more from the earth. Or we can demand more from ourselves. At York University, we work together to create positive change for a better tomorrow. Join us at yorku.ca slash write the future.