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Trachemys scripta elegans



They may look cute and innocent enough, but the exotic red-eared slider turtle is actually one of the world’s worst ‘invaders’

UPDATE *

During 2007 and early 2008, further red-eared slider turtles have been sited and captured or flushed out with flooding and handed in by
the public at Bunderberg, Marcoola, on the Sunshine Coast and Currumbin,
on the Gold Coast


The turtle has few natural predators in
Australia and is a
Class 1 declared pest animal.

If you think you have seen one of these turtles, or have one in your possession, please contact the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries on 132523



 


Cane Toad
Bufo marinus

Toads in the tropics grow very quickly and may reach sexual maturity within one year, but in temperate southern Queensland they mature in 18 months to two years. An adult lifespan of at least five years has been recorded in wild Cane Toads; captive individuals have lived for up to 15 years. Only about 0.5% of Cane Toad individuals that hatch from eggs survive to reach sexual maturity and reproduce.

Remove cane toads humanely

*  Remove cane toad eggs from ponds (long strands of black eggs unique to cane toads)

*  Plant local native sedges and reds around pond edges to discourage toads and as a habitat for frogs (toads don’t jump as high as frogs or cling onto vegetation)

*  Shading water bodies with local native shade trees helps maintain water temperatures that frogs prefer for breeding.

*  Ponds of less than 20 cm in depth are more suitable for frogs, as cane toads prefer deeper water bodies.


 From an article by Eva Ford
          in the Frogsheet-
 Qld Frog Society Newsletter
     Winter 2006


Cane Toads are considered a pest in Australia because they:

  • poison pets and injure humans with their toxins

  • poison many native animals whose diet includes frogs, tadpoles and frogs' eggs

  • eat large numbers of honey bees, creating a management problem for bee-keepers

  • prey on native fauna

  • compete for food with vertebrate insectivores such as small skinks

  • may carry diseases that are can be transmitted to native frogs and fishes.

 

 


They may look cute and innocent enough, but the exotic red-eared slider turtle is actually one of the world’s worst ‘invaders’The turtle – native to the Mississippi River in North America – has already taken over parts of Asia and Europe, and now it’s attempting to set up home here.

The turtle, with its distinctive red facial marking, has no known predators and may displace local widlife. The red-eared slider is an aggressive creature with the potential to multiply rapidly.  Given the chance, it will replace our native turtles. Sliders can also spread diseases that could be deadly to our native turtles. Adults can grow up to 30cm in length .

Imported to Australia as aquarium pets in the 1960s and 70s, it didn’t take long for the red-eared sliders to find their way into local waterways.

People bought young sliders as pets, but then realised that as adult turtles, they were capable of inflicting painful bites. Unfortunately, the quickest solution was to dump them into local waterways. They have now been found in some waterways and dams in Queensland, NSW, ACT, Victoria, WA, and recently SA.  It is now illegal to import, sell, keep or release slider turtles in Australia.  A few wildlife parks and zoos such as Australia Zoo are registered to keep slider turtles for educational purposes under strict biosecurity measures.

In Queensland It is illegal to keep, breed, sell or release sliders, and the penalties are serious.  In fact it's not legal to have them anywhere in Australia, and Commonwealth laws prevent them from being imported.

A female red-eared slider can breed from the age of two and lay a maximum of three clutches of eggs per year, with each clutch potentially containing as many as 20 eggs.

Sliders are not yet common or widespread in the region, efforts to eradicate the pest from local dams have involved trapping or netting, then draining dams before removing mud down to the clay base. Because the turtles can bury themselves in mud to a depth of two metres, silt in the bottom of dams must be excavated, spread and painstakingly searched for turtles.  Eggs are laid on dry land, and a sniffer dog is used to find these and prevent breeding.

A Burpengary, Queensland resident found the Shire’s first red-eared slider turtle in November 2004, prompting a joint netting and trapping program by Council and the State Government.

Within a two-kilometre radius of the original site, another two red-eared sliders – one a baby – were captured early in 2006. An additional two baby turtles have been handed to Council later in the year.  They were also found in dams around North Lakes, at Sandgate, in lagoons in Logan City, and another at Bundaberg.

 



Bufo marinus

Cane Toads are found in habitats ranging from sand dunes and coastal heath to the margins of rainforest and mangroves. They are most abundant in open clearings in urban areas, and in grassland and woodland.

The natural range of Cane Toads extends from the southern United States to tropical South America. They were deliberately introduced from Hawaii to Australia in 1935, to control scarab beetles that were pests of sugar cane. In 2002, Cane Toads occur throughout the eastern and northern half of Queensland and have extended their range to the river catchments surrounding Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory. In New South Wales they occur on the coast as far south as Yamba, and there is an isolated colony near Port Macquarie.

Cane Toads are large heavily-built amphibians with dry warty skin. They have a bony head and over their eyes are bony ridges that meet above the nose. They sit upright and move in short rapid hops. Their hind feet have leathery webbing between the toes and their front feet are unwebbed. Adult Cane Toads have large swellings - the parotoid glands - on each shoulder behind the eardrum

Cane Toads may be grey, yellowish, olive-brown or reddish-brown, and their bellies are pale with dark mottling. Average-sized adults are 10-15 cm long. The largest female measured in Queensland was 24 cm long and weighed 1.3 kg. Male Cane Toads are smaller and wartier than females. During the breeding season males develop dark lumps (nuptial pads) on their first two fingers; these help them cling to a female while mating. Their mating call is a long loud purring trill.

Young Cane Toads have a smooth dark skin with darker blotches and bars, and lack conspicuous parotoid glands. They can be distinguished from some native Australian frogs because they sit upright and are active in the daytime in dense clusters.

Cane Toad tadpoles are shiny black on top and have a plain dark belly and a short thin tail. They are smaller (less than 3.5 cm long) than most native tadpoles and often gather in huge numbers in shallow water. Cane Toad spawn is unique in Australia. It is laid in long strings of transparent jelly enclosing double rows of black eggs. The spawn tangles in dense dark masses around water plants, and hangs in ropy strands if picked up.

 

Cane Toads were introduced to Australia to eat French's Cane Beetle and the Greyback Cane Beetle. The 'whitegrub' larvae of these beetles eat the roots of sugar cane and kill or stunt the plants. The Australian Bureau of Sugar Experimental Stations imported about 100 toads from Hawaii to the Meringa Experimental Station near Cairns. The toads bred quickly and more than 3000 were released in the sugar cane plantations of north Queensland in July 1935.