Endangered quolls get aversion therapy to survive cane toads

BRISBANE - Researchers have used aversion therapy to teach the critically endangered northern quoll not to eat cane toads.

Cane toads are highly toxic when eaten and have driven the cat-sized northern quoll, a carnivorous marsupial, to extinction in many parts of northern Australia.

The toads are continuing to spread and are expected to soon invade the Kimberley, one of the quoll's last strongholds.

While eating a large cane toad would prove fatal, the University of Sydney ecologists fed a group of quolls a small dead cane toad, making them ill in a bid to teach them to avoid the toads.

They found that when released into the wild, the toad-smart quolls survived up to five times longer than toad-naive quolls.

The researchers will now study whether other wild populations of endangered species such as goannas and bluetongue lizards can be taught to reject cane toads as food.

In future, wildlife agencies perhaps could aerially deploy toad baits ahead of the cane toad invasion front to educate quolls to avoid attacking cane toads before the toads invade.

- AAP