Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2011L01416:body:0:p4
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2011L01416
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 8568–11398

of better biological and ecological information, as well as understanding and addressing the social and economic factors surrounding the species. The need to move away from attempts at broad-scale cane toad control and eradication to the protection of key biodiversity assets will require the transfer of knowledge on the management of cane toad impacts, as well as support for community effort to limit those impacts.

This new focus, on protection of key assets, is in response to the lack of a method for broad-scale biological control (see 1.2.2). A review of scientific research into the impacts of cane toads on native species informs the initial priority list of "key assets" within this TAP. Scientific findings will continue to inform the priority list and the TAP will also promote the development and use of scientifically proven control measures.

Communication of scientific evidence regarding which species are at risk will be the key factor in this new approach to protecting biodiversity from cane toad impacts.

1.2 Threat abatement plan for cane toads

1.2.1 The threat

History and spread
Cane toads were introduced to Australia in 1935 as a means of controlling pest beetles in the sugar cane industry. This is a process that was common to many sugar cane or other crop producing areas of the world (including Puerto Rico, Papua New Guinea and Fiji). At some locations, cane toads failed to establish (e.g. Egypt, where they were introduced in 1937). However, in many others locations cane toads survived and established to become pests. Attempts at cane toad management and control have been most extensive in Australia (Global Invasive Species Database 2009).

The success of cane toads in pest insect control in Australia was never determined, as the use of agricultural chemicals for this purpose became widespread soon after their release (Shine 2009b). Cane toads, however, did become very successful at invading the environments of Australia's north. Since 1935, they have dispersed over 2000 km west from their release site at Gordonvale, Queensland and many hundreds of kilometres to the north and south (Figure 1). Their southern dispersal includes areas considered to be marginal cane toad habitat in arid south-west Queensland and the cooler climates and higher altitudes of northern New South Wales. The black line in Figure 1 indicates records of cane toad occurrence. In south-west Queensland and northern New South Wales in particular, these records do not necessarily indicate established populations.

In the first few decades after cane toads were released in Queensland, they expanded their range at about 10 km per year (Shine 2009b). Since reaching the wet-dry tropics of the Northern Territory, the westward expansion of cane toads has been recorded at around 55 km each year (Phillips