It sounds like something out of a strange sci-fi novel, but in the case of Bunuba country up in the Kimberley, it’s anything but fiction!
A team of conservationists in conjunction with the Department of Conservation, Biodiversity and Attractions in Western Australia and a group of First Nations rangers have deployed a unique method of keeping freshwater crocodiles from eating cane toads, which poison and kill them.
That method? Conditioned taste aversion. They gave the crocodiles food poisoning using dummy cane toads so they would associate being nauseated with eating the toads. The theory was that they would then avoid eating genuine toads in the future.
Think of the last time you had food poisoning – did it make you think twice before you next ate the food that made you sick? Same principle!
Freshwater crocodiles are crucial to the ecosystems up in the Kimberley, as they are “top order” predators; that is they don’t have any natural predators of their own and they feed on animals below them in the food chain.
If too many crocodiles are killed, population growth can spiral out of control in animal species beneath them and the delicate balance of the ecology of their environments can be thrown out of whack, as Bunuba ranger Paul Bin Busu illustrated.
“If we lose the fresh water crocodiles to cane toads, the bottom feeders like the catfish we have in our river systems eat all the bait such as Judembah [cherrabin], lardy [Boney Brim], Bunda [Perch] which leaves no fish for the barramundi and Black brim [Sooty Grunter], sawfish and stingray to have anything to eat.”
For more information on the study and the results of the experiment, make sure to tune in to AFTRS FM at 3pm AEST on Thursday, September 5 through iHeartRadio!
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