NASSAU GUARDIAN (Bahamas) 27 September 13 Thousands of cane toads captured and destroyed (Krystel Rolle)
Thousands of adult and young cane toads were captured and destroyed in the past three weeks as officials try to contain the spread of the invasive species, Environment Minister Kenred Dorsett said yesterday.
Dorsett said the poisonous toads were all caught in the Lyford Cay area.
“Up until the weekend, we caught in excess of 200 adult cane toads and thousands of toadlets were also identified,” Dorsett told reporters on the sidelines of the National Development Planning Workshop at the British Colonial Hilton.
The findings come less than a month after officials first alerted the public about the cane toad sightings.
Since then, Dorsett said officials have been searching for the toxic amphibians. Once caught, the toads are frozen.
“The team has been going out at night because they (cane toads) are nocturnal so they were coming out on the golf course at night,” Dorsett said. “So we've been eradicating them.”
The minister said the teams are made up of officials from the Department of Environmental Health Services, Department of Agriculture and the Bahamas National Trust (BNT).
The poisonous species of toad can grow up to 10 inches in length. It is also able to produce a toxin from glands lying just behind its eyes and is capable of killing small pets and causing severe skin reactions in humans.
“Right now the focus is containment because, as I've indicated beforehand, they reproduce at significant
levels and it is something that we are not taking lightly,” Dorsett said.
Cane toads have the ability to lay tens of thousands of eggs in a year.
Officials had originally thought the toad was introduced to The Bahamas earlier this year. However, Dorsett said new information suggests that the toads have been here for longer than that.
“Scientific findings confirm that when we look at the life cycle of the toad that we have found they've been here for a while,” he said.
So far, he said, the toads seem to be confined to the Lyford Cay area. However, there have been unconfirmed sightings of the toad in other areas, officials have said.
Dorsett said someone who believes they have seen a cane toad should report the location to the BNT and the Department of Agriculture; take a picture and email it to vhaley-benjamin@bnt.bs and call Sandra Buckner at 393-3821.
Dorsett said officials are continuing work to develop a proper plan to ensure the species doesn’t spread.
Earlier this month, Director of BNT Eric Carey warned people who may choose to kill cane toads to be careful how they dispose of the poisonous amphibians.
Carey said that residents should be careful not to dispose of dead toads in areas where they may contaminate the water supply and explained that even when dead, their bodies are still poisonous.
“If people want to kill them, [they should] know for sure it is a cane toad. It’s an invasive species that has no positive ecological value in The Bahamas,” Carey said. “We don’t have preferred methods of killing them, obviously the safe method is to capture and freeze but you know people see it and just want to get rid of it.”
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