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SYDNEY - Australians have come up with a new weapon in the increasingly desperate battle against cane toads - a beer bounty for the capture of the invaders.
Cane toads, despised by most Australians for their unlovely appearance and devastating impact on native wildlife, were introduced in the 1930s to prey on sugar cane beetles.
Despite being bashed to death with golf clubs and cricket bats, run over by cars and rounded up by volunteers in "toad musters", the amphibians' advance has been relentless.
They have colonised most of Queensland and are pushing south into New South Wales and west into the Northern Territory and Western Australia. It is estimated that between 100 million and 200 million cane toads are hopping their way across Australia. The reward - which marries a nationwide love of lager with a deeply held animosity towards the unfortunate imports - is being offered by one of the country's biggest pub owners, millionaire Tom Hedley.
Bounty hunters will have to present a bag of 20 toads to the Australian RSPCA in Cairns, Queensland.
They will then be given a voucher which can be redeemed in one of Hedley's pubs for two 10oz (295ml) glasses of beer, or "pots".
"We haven't had anyone in yet but it's early days," said duty manager Craig Godsell. Hedley said he agreed to fund the initiative because toads were "everywhere", decimating Australian native fauna. "They're pests and a nuisance to society. If offering a beer for a bag of toads is one way to wipe them out once and for all then I am all for it," he told the Courier Mail .
Poisonous glands on the pests' back make them deadly to animals who eat them, including crocodiles, monitor lizards, birds and pet dogs.
The RSPCA said it had no problem with the scheme as long as the toads were presented alive and unhurt. They will be left overnight to die in a freezer.
The initiative was more than a gimmick, an RSPCA spokesman said. "It could seriously help reduce the toad population, especially around suburbia."
Graeme Sawyer, a founder of anti-toad group Frogwatch in Darwin, said: "rather than bounties or rewards you need to educate people about why they need to get involved in the campaign against cane toads."
Scientists are trying to develop a toxin to kill the toads without affecting native frogs.
