CANE TOADS - Rethinking Invasion Ecologies from the Environmental Humanities - page 164

stories of discovery and progress' (2004: 232). By contrast, Lewis depicts the practice of
science as radically inflected by culture. Through his depiction of the scientific and
political blunders that led to the introduction of cane toads, as well as various unsuccessful
attempts to control cane toads, he represents science as a fallible and thoroughly contested
practice.
16 Research led by Professor Rick Shine has demonstrated that despite dire predictions of
mass extinctions cane toads have had 'catastrophic impacts on large predators but not on
other species'. Toads have, initially, devastated populations of Northern quolls, freshwater
crocodiles, blue-tongued skinks, goannas such as the yellow-spotted monitor, and other
varanid lizards and snakes in the Northern Territory. However, some species have
benefited from the introduction of cane toads. Populations of certain species of native
frogs and turtles, for example, have risen dramatically as a direct result of the decline in
large predator numbers. Despite initial dramatic declines, populations of large predators
have also stabilised as the invasion front has past. Shine's research has demonstrated that
cane toads at the invasion front tend to be larger and more agile, and that once the
invasion front has past, predators learn to evade the toads, getting sick rather than dying
after attempting to eat smaller toads. Shine's team have also implemented conservation
projects, such as 'predator training', in which Northern quolls are dosed with small
amounts of cane toad bufotoxin to teach them to avoid the toads once they are released
back into environments in which cane toads are present. Other species, such as native
birds and rodents have proved to be less vulnerable to the toads (Shine, 2013).
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