Cane Toads Heading for Chop Suey

With warty dry skin, bulging eyes, and large swelling bodies, the cane toad is an ugly blight in Australia.
Cane Toads Heading for Chop Suey
2/2/2010
Updated:
2/2/2010
SYDNEY, Australia—With warty dry skin, bulging eyes, and large swelling bodies, the cane toad is an ugly blight in Australia. Cane toads are poisonous and one of the ugliest and, quite possibly, most unpopular introduced species in Australia.

Native to Hawaii, cane toads were imported to protect Australia’s sugar cane from the devastating scarab beetle. The toads however have become devastating themselves. They are highly toxic, prolific breeders, and will eat just about anything— and they do, including a wide range of native wildlife.

Some adventurous entrepreneurs have turned cane toad skins into leather handbags and boots. The cane toad, however, is highly prized in China.

Southwest Queensland meat processor John Burey however sees advantage in adversity and is off to China next month to sell the toads “en mass.”

Mr. Burey believes the Chinese will take to the toads, not only for their poison which is used in traditional Chinese medicine but also as a delicacy. If the deal goes ahead it could be a solution to Queensland’s biggest pest problem, he says.

“[We] really have to nail down the export requirements that China’s going to place upon us—and also what we have to do within Australia,” he told the ABC. “Because if we start handling cane toads, you’re talking about a venom that’s considered a class one drug in Australia—so there’s licensing that has to be there,” he said.

It could be a bit like collecting aluminum cans, he explained, “Anyone can go out and collect them [cane toads] and lob them off at our collecting points and we would come around in our trucks and pick them up after that,” he said.

“But instead of sausage sizzles and charity drives, pie drives, that sort of stuff—they could do a toad drive.”