Female cane toads to be wiped out (news.com.au)

Female cane toads to be wiped out
By Annabelle McDonald

June 06, 2006

SCIENTISTS hoping to stop the inexorable march of the cane toad are working on a gene that would ensure all the pest's offspring are male - wiping out future egg-laying mothers.

The University of Queensland's Peter Koopman has been developing a "daughterless gene" that would limit the toad's population by eradicating females, which are able to lay tens of thousands of eggs at time.

"I am hoping to engineer a strain of toads where the male offspring stay male and the female offspring become male," Professor Koopman said at yesterday's national cane toad conference in Brisbane.

"The expansion of the cane toad population is dependent on the number of females, because they lay between 7000 and 30,000 eggs, so this would limit the population.

"It is far safer than other strategies. If you release a virus, there is always the possibility that can go across species and start knocking out your green tree frogs. This, however, is absolutely species-specific."
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more: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,19379670-13762,00.html

See followup article: "Australia Overrun By Gay Cane Toads"

:rofl:

:evilgrin:

implementing a sort of Chinese birth control program here. In 20 years you will either see cane toads jumping cats or hear nothing in the bogs.

Cottaging toads?
:wow:

...thanks Nihil!
:rofl: