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Cane Toads (Bufo marinus) were deliberately introduced to Queensland from Hawaii in 1935 to reduce the number of French’s Cane and Greyback Cane beetles that were destroying the roots of sugar cane plants.
Bred at the Meringa Experimental Station, over 3000 toads were released into the sugar cane plantations. The experiment subsequently failed as it was realised that the beetles could evade the toads by surviving on the tops of sugar cane stalks.
Since their introduction, Cane Toads have become a major environmental pest. Spreading prolifically throughout the eastern and northern half of Queensland and parts of New South Wales, Cane Toads have even been found as far as the river catchments surrounding Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory. It is estimated that there are now more than 200 million Cane Toads in Australia.
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 | Memo from the Secretary of the Forestry Department about the introduction of giant toads into the Brisbane Valley to control cockchafer beetles, 5 December 1939
Queensland State Archives Item ID 1139497, Digital Image ID 2910 Lands Department, Forestry Department
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 | 1936 First helicopter flight | |
1936 Last Tasmanian Tiger died | |
1938 Orson Welles broadcast ‘War of the Worlds’ | |
1938 Biro invented | |
1939 World War II began | |
1939 ‘Gone with the Wind’ opened | |
1940 Prehistoric art in the Lascaux caves discovered | |
1940 First Bugs Bunny cartoon |
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