Science & technology | Invasive species

Genetic engineering could help rid Australia of toxic cane toads

It is better than freezing them to death

Cane toad in the pool.
Photograph: Trent Parke / Magnum Photos
|Townsville, Queensland

THIS WEEK, between January 18th and 27th, thousands of volunteers in a band of territory stretching across north-eastern Australia from Darwin to Brisbane are venturing into the night with torches and collecting-buckets. They are taking part in the Great Cane Toad Bust, an annual attempt to keep a lid on the population of these invasive, toxic amphibians. Toads thus caught will be killed humanely by being chilled in refrigerators and then frozen.

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This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Wart wars”

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