SYDNEY — Thousands of poisonous cane toads met their fate Sunday as gleeful Australians gathered for a celebratory mass killing of the hated amphibians that threaten native species.
Hundreds of participants in five communities across northern Queensland snacked on sausages, sipped cold drinks and picked up prizes as the portly pests were weighed, measured and killed in the state’s inaugural “Toad Day Out.”
“To see the look on the faces of the kids as we were handling and weighing the toads and then euthanizing them was just . . .,” Townsville City Councilman Vern Veitch said, breaking off to let out a contented sigh. “The children real ly got into the character of the event.”
The toads, which can grow up to 8 inches in length, were imported from South America to Queensland in 1935 in a failed attempt to control beetles on sugar-cane plantations. Trouble was, the toads couldn’t jump high enough to eat the beetles, which live on top of cane stalks.
Voracious eaters, the millions-strong toads chomp up insects, frogs, small reptiles and mammals — even birds. They also produce highly toxic venom from glands in their skin that can kill would-be predators.
