Struggling Boys?!?

Trip 19: Perth to Walford Creek and Lawn Hill National Park

Purpose: Biological Survey and eDNA Research

Total Distance Traveled: 7, 474 km

Distance Traveled Year to Date: 69, 097 km

Not looking the best!

I remember exactly where I was, exactly when it was and exactly how I felt when I saw the first cane toad cross the border into W.A. I was guttered. I made a vlog about it called BorderCrossing and the pain on my face was not a put on. When I watch it now it still makes me shudder. That night I said goodbye to all that I adored about the Kimberley: the fresh water crocodiles, the massive Mulga Snakes (King Browns) and the giant plains goannas Varanus panoptes. I knew they would all be gone in a few short years and I was right: it was March 2010.

Fast forward to 2015 and I saw a glimmer of hope when I first travelled to far north-west Queensland. The toads have been there for more than 30 years and the native fauna are coping. No: they are fighting back. Make no mistake, there are toads everywhere; they are still thick on the ground, but many of the predatory bird species and some of the goannas have figured out how to eat them and avoid the toxins. Other animals have simply decided not to eat them at all despite their ease of access and abundance as a food source. 

Fast forward to 2017 and things are looking still better again. Or are they? This was the first year I have worked in FNWQ in the late dry / early wet and all I saw was death; but not the natives. Dead toads everywhere. There were toads scrambling for refuge and cramming themselves into the smallest nook or cranny where moisture prevailed. Those that lived looked shocking and those that didn’t make it were littered across the landscape, all dry and crispy like the leaves of deciduous trees that fall in Autumn. 

Count the dead toads.

I don’t hate toads. I admire them as an example of accelerated evolution and phenotypic plasticity. But I hate what they do; the damage they cause. I am not a horrible person, but I could not help but feel some relief when I saw so many struggling for survival; even in places where water was available. It was odd. I could not help but wonder if something more significant was going on?

I know I am waxing lyrical here, but this is my blog spot and, therefore, I can and will. Could this species have over-evolved and somehow gone off the rails? Maybe the primary prey items (invertebrates) are scarce this time of year? Certainly, the iconic frill-neck lizard aestivates over the dry when food resources are low and the air is dry, accelerating water loss through cutaneous evaporation and evapotranspiration.  I guess that could be true, but the receding water bodies were swarming with water borne or water dependent insects casting some doubt on that inference. 

I kept trying to think logically about what could be going on; right up to the point where I saw multiple males in amplexus with rotting dead females. Yes. Rotting dead females. With absolutely no explanation for this behaviour, which I witnessed on multiple occasions during the survey, I resolved myself to the one and only thing I know to be true: the more I learn about nature the less I know.