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Ingenious New Cane Toad Trap Uses Own Poison Against It

It's a big leap forward in combating the destructive pest.

Queensland's biggest pest, the cane toad, is being fought in a way few of us knew possible.

Researchers at the University of Queensland (UQ) have developed a new strategy to combat the pest and ironically, it involves their own poison being used against them.

Poison from adult cane toads is placed in environmentally-friendly traps that are designed to smell like food. These traps are said to have the ability to eradicate roughly 10,000 younger cane toads all at once.

UQ Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) researcher Professor Rob Capon explained the importance of the research in a statement.

"People have been searching for a solution to control the rapidly reproducing species for almost 80 years," he said.

"Unlike previous traps, ours has proven to remove significant numbers of toads from our ecosystems quickly and easily – without harming other animals."

Professor Capon told the ABC that the research group relied on volunteers to capture and send them toads so they could make the specialised baits.

"Many community groups are out there catching adult toads, we can redirect the toads from landfill into the lab, and we can extract them and get the chemistry we need for the baits," Mr Capon said.

Cane toads were introduced to Queensland in 1935 in an attempt to kill-off the cane beetle, but instead had devastating environmental impacts across the country.

The traps are currently being trialed in various locations across Queensland, and if they are successful in reducing the cane toad population, will be rolled out over the next few years, available for purchase in supermarkets and hardware stores.

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