CANE TOADS - Rethinking Invasion Ecologies from the Environmental Humanities - page 162

end, Lewis's greatest achievement as a filmmaker is to have made ecological or
environmental documentaries that are eminently watchable. He doesn't preach to
his audiences, instead, he offers a perspective that plays on the ambiguities and
disjunctures of one of the biggest ecological disasters in Australia's history.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Gay Hawkins, Graeme Turner and Elspeth Probyn for their insights and
imaginative feedback. I would also like to thank the editors for their thoughtful
questioning, encouragement and expert management of this project, especially Jodi
Frawley, who got me thinking about cane toads.
Notes
1 In Australia, the problems posed by cane toads and other invasive species, as well as the
various attempts to control or limit their impacts are perennially featured in the ABC's
flagship science series Catalyst (2001-present) and its predecessor Quantum (1985-2001),
which were both modelled on the BBC's Horizon (1964-present) series. Other ABC
science series that have focused on the environmental impacts of cane toads and attempts
to control them include Toward 2000 (1981-1984) and Beyond 2000 (1985-1995, 1999).
Landline (1992-present), a series focusing on rural and agricultural issues, also occasionally
features stories on cane toads and other invasive species, such as rabbits, foxes and camels.
2 This chapter is inspired by Gay Hawkins' chapter 'Plastic Bags' in The Ethics of Waste:
How We Relate to Rubbish (2006: 21-44). In this chapter, Hawkins uses the example of
the 'plastic bag scene' in American Beauty (1999) to explore how our ethical and political
responses to waste and environmental catastrophe are sometimes shaped more by our
affective and emotional responses to film and documentary than by official waste
education campaigns. I use the example of the 'toad holocaust' scene in Cane Toads: The
Conquest in a similar way. I am indebted to Gay for her insights on the aesthetic and ethical
resonances of documentary films.
3 Cane Toads: An Unnatural History ranks as one of the most popular Australian
documentaries. It held the record for the top-grossing Australian documentary at
Australian box offices until 2008, when it was overtaken by Bra Boys (2007). It is currently
ranked 87th in Screen Australia's 'Top 100 documentaries in Australia of all time', a list
compiled using total reported gross Australian box office earnings. See http://www.
screenaustralia.gov.au/research/statistics/wctopdocosalltime.aspx (accessed 9 May 2013).
4 Nigel Turvey, who is interviewed in Cane Toads: The Conquest , argues that Australia's
problem with cane toads began with 'the myth of scientific proof' provided by Raquel
Dexter's paper, 'The Food Habits of the Imported Toad Bufo marinus in the Sugar Cane
Sections of Porto Rico' (1932). This paper analysed the stomach contents of 301 toads
and concluded that since they contained 51 per cent of insects that were judged to be
'injurious to agriculture' that the toad's presence was causing the drop in white grub
numbers. However, as Turvey outlines, this 'proved nothing at all about the dynamics
of populations of toads and white grubs'. All it proved was what the toads had eaten for
their last meals (Turvey, 2010: 6-7).
5 Walter Froggatt, a retired New South Wales government entomologist, issued one of the
most prescient warnings about the cane toad in a paper published in the journal, The
Australian Naturalist , in 1936. In this trenchant critique of the Queensland Government's
release of cane toads, he warned: '[T]his giant toad, immune from enemies, omnivorous
in its habits, and breeding all year round, may become as great a pest as the rabbit or
cactus' (Turvey, 2010: 10).