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deangood@wn.com.au
This site and the Kimberley Toad Busters cane toad volunteer group was established by Kimberley Specialists www.kimberleyspecialists.com.au
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The Kimberley Toad Busters Inc. are the only volunteer group on the ground, twelve months of the year, fighting to keep toad populations under control in WA.
For the first time in almost 77 years, volunteers have the ability to mitigate the impact of toads on our native biodiversity and assist government and scientists to find a 'biological' solution to the relentless march of the cane toad across the North of Australia..
Kimberley Toad Busters are as much about gathering scientific data as it is about 'busting' toads.

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Request to use the Yampi Sound Defence Training Area to trial a new bait for broad-scale control of feral cats.


This is a written request to the Department of the Environment by the WA Department of Parks and Wildlife. What is striking about this request and response is that despite comprehensive reports from Dr Carol Palmer and the Australian Heritage Commission and other researchers and people who have a long history with YSTA, that Feral Cats are not a problem on YSTA due mainly to the pure Dingo population, this has been ignored. So why a request to use the Yampi Sound Defence Training Area for the trial of this new 1080 bait? What is extraordinary about this request is they go on to say is that this 1080 bait testing is being used to test its results for use in southern and central Australia. Why are they doing this here in one of the last real Kimberley protected environments and then transferring these results to a desert area and areas in the south of WA?


What is more horrifying is the following statement made by a Dr Fredrick Ford, Director Environment and Policy Development, Environment and Engineering Branch. Department of Defence.


“The field trial results will be published in a technical report for the Department and will form part of the data package to the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) for registration of the Hisstory bait. It is also likely that the trial will form all or part of a paper for a science journal and for presentation at conferences”.
What papers and when? And will the public and other independent researchers and volunteer groups be able to get this information?


And of course in the meantime the cane toad will have invaded the Yampi Sound area so it is quite likely that any negative results from the testing will be laid at the cane toad impact.
If DPAW have applied to the APVMA to trial the bait in an area of over 400 km2. where is this evidence?


Below is the DPAW response to the media re questions on their proposed 1080 baiting program. What is missing from their response are the dates already set. We need to note that these dates are all listed for 2016 but we assume that they have been revised to 2017. No acknowledgment from DPAW in the above comments is that the dates set for the baiting program are set for the 29th of August through to the September 2017 (again they have 2016 listed???). And yet this is the current press release they have just put out.


From DPAW to ABC Broome.


The Department of Parks and Wildlife has applied to the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) to trial a capsule bait product called ‘Hisstory’ in a controlled area in Yampi Sound Training Area. Ethics approval will be sought once APVMA approval has been obtained, in accordance with statutory requirements. Parks and Wildlife is seeking to develop a feral cat bait that is suitable for deployment in the Kimberley. As part of this process, research into the effects on non-target animals is required. Department of Defence and Australian Wildlife Conservancy have been consulted and, pending approval from APVMA and Animal Ethics Committee, have agreed to the trial being undertaken. Over more than 20 years, Parks and Wildlife has developed extensive scientific knowledge regarding the use of 1080 baits to stem the impact of feral predation on native Western Australian wildlife. The research in the Kimberley, if approved, would seek to build upon this knowledge and expand the protection of native species.


“Over more than 20 years, Parks and Wildlife has developed extensive scientific knowledge regarding the use of 1080 baits to stem the impact of feral predation on native Western Australian wildlife”.


Where is this information available to the publicOfficer?

"It is important to recognise that the pristine terrestrial and aquatic habitat systems of the Kimberley are already under threat. Current land care and resource management policies undertaken by land and resource managers have had a detrimental impact on Kimberley biodiversity. Most of our plant and animal biodiversity is in a fragile state. The impact of the cane toad, if allowed to happen, will literally destroy one of the last unique biodiversity wilderness frontiers in Australia," Lee Scott-Virtue. Kimberley Specialists in Research.
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