Wild quolls take bait of cane-toad sausages, offering hope for species

Extract from The Guardian

Wildlife

Wildlife managers hope taste aversion technique can help safeguard the endangered northern quoll

Amy McNeilage

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Mon 19 Mar 2018 16.19 AEDT Last modified on Mon 19 Mar 2018 16.47 AEDT

Cane toads are marching undeterred across northern Australia and are wiping out the endangered native quoll populations. Photograph: Wa Department of Parks and Wildlife

Scientists are a step closer to stopping the devastating march of toxic cane toads across northern Australia, as the introduced species continues to decimate what is left of the native quoll populations.
Field trials of a technique used to turn quolls off the taste of toads has yielded positive results, which were published in this month’s Austral Ecology journal.

The method involves feeding northern quolls sausages made of toad mince laced with a chemical that makes them nauseous.
Cane toads have poison in their glands that kills predators such as quolls and snakes when they eat the toads. The researchers had previously found captive quolls that were fed the sausages showed less subsequent interest in cane toads and were less likely to attack them than those that were not fed the baits.
The latest trial found wild quolls were also attracted to the sausage baits and that almost two-thirds of them ate the baits when they came across them. Between 40% and 68% of the wild quolls that ate the bait developed an aversion to the taste.

Researchers are hoping to use cane toad sausages to create a food aversion in northern quolls to save them from extinction. Photograph: University of Technology Sydney

Cane toads, which were introduced into Queensland in the 1930s to control crop pests, have been responsible for wiping out many native animals, including local populations of the endangered northern quoll, the smallest of Australia’s four quoll species.
The toads have moved steadily westwards and first arrived in Western Australia’s Kimberley region last year. They are predicted to reach quoll populations in the northern and western parts of the Kimberley within the next few years.

In preparation for the invasion, researchers from the University of Technology Sydney – in conjunction with the Australian Wildlife Conservancy and University of Melbourne – have been developing techniques to help wildlife managers fight the cane toad frontline.
The lead researcher, UTS faculty of science PhD candidate Naomi Indigo, said the findings suggest the taste aversion technique could be implemented on a large scale to help safeguard the endangered species.
“It was suggested it could be used a long time ago but this is the first time we have been able to quantify how well it would work,” Indigo said. “The results open up the possibility for us to be able to use it on a broad scale and help mitigate some of the impacts of cane toads when they arrive.”
When implemented on a larger scale, the baits would be dropped from helicopters.
The WA government has already started delivering taste aversion sausages to northern quoll populations in the Kimberley.