Innovative businessmen to start

cane toad venom exports to Asia

Brisbane - The coal industry may be taking a hammering from falling prices, but another industry may be breeding in the wet lands of Queensland’s far north.

Golfers, drivers and scientists have tried for years to wipe out the cane toad, but now two Melbourne busi nessmen have hatched a scheme they reckon will make a big dent in the ranks of one of Australia’s worst pests.

The population boom started with the introduction of a mere 101 toads as an experiment to eradicate cane beetles in 1935.

The bane of environmentalists and wilderness groups for several years, toads are now threatening to engulf the world heritage-listed Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory. But Melbourne businessmen Alan Day and John Ratcliffe are gath ering the toads in Far North Queensland to export their venom to Asia for use in traditional medicine.

The first exports of venom, taken from two large glands in the back of the toad’s head, were to have left a production plant at Machans Beach, north of Cairns, in May and may open up a multi-million dollar industry.

The Melbourne-based business con sortium behind the $250,000 venture pay residents of the seaside township to trap the toads and are expanding their operation to the Northern Territory later this year.

The toads are held at a “processing farm” in the township, where they are kept under lights and then cooled before the venom is extracted by nee dles. Venture partner and a practition er of Chinese medicine, Ratcliffe said

plans were also being made to produce

toad byproducts, including chicken

and fish pellets and fertiliser.

He said a telephone hotline with details of toad “drop-off” points was also being set up for collectors in Queensland and the Northern

Territory.

“The skin, eyes, liver, heart and other organs can be freeze-dried and put in containers and exported,”

Ratcliffe said.

“Personally, my idea is to blast them (the dead toads) out of a wood chipper and in to a vat of citric acid to render the remains liquid and for use as a liquid fertiliser”.

Dried toad skin and potions made from toad venom have been used for thousands of years in Chinese medi cine, and are still dispensed to treat congestive heart failure.

Ratcliffe said he hoped the toxins in the toad’s skin, which is a high source of protein, would become inert once mixed with meal and baked, not harming the animals eating the

byproducts.

Ratcliffe said the venture, which had received backing from a Melbourne financier, would extend to a farm in Mackay if the Cairns trial was a success.

“Once the trial is completed at the end of May, we will set up a full-scale collection of the toads in the Northern Territory in August before the wet sea son begins,” he said.

“We would like to keep the prod ucts here in Australia because at least we could use them in a positive way

for the agricultural industry.

“But if the returns are too little and it becomes too expensive we know we can put them in freezers and send

them to China. “It could be big, it’s really just the tip of the iceberg.”

(Aap) ■