Field Reports by Dave Woods

1: Pear Tree Ck Toad Bust 27 th -28 th Oct 2006

 

Crew: Chris Shaw and Dave Woods and Junior Toadbuster, Maddison Shaw

 

Our objective this trip was to substantiate if the toads had made it upstream into the permanent pools on Pear Tree Ck. We left on Friday night just after sunset and within a few hours we had reached the creek. It took a little work to find the track in the dark but once we did we followed it upstream to a permanent pool about 5 kilometres from the highway.

We knew there were toads in this pool as Trevor and his team had been working this ck for most of the year and there was still a trap set up on its edge. This was our base camp, as we needed to wait for daylight to navigate the quad bikes further upstream as the terrain is very rough. For the evening we decided we would work what turned out to be two pools near base camp.

It was obvious to us the pools were shrinking quickly as it was the end of the dry season and the days are rather hot which is great for evaporation. Over the night we busted only 11 toads from these two pools Only Two Were male and the resat female. All mature breeders no smaller than 110 mm. The biggest female was 170mm. One shrivelled female toad was pulled from the trap as well. Over about five hours we checked the pools four times. It was obvious the work done by Trevor has had a major reduction in the number of toads in the Pear Tree Ck area. Our nature bonus for the night was to have four Water Pythons cruising the pools and just before daylight we found two of them sheltering under some rocks close to the waters edge

At first light we began our trip on the quads upstream. It turned out being 6.4 kilometres of rough going, rocky country. Taking us about 1.5 hrs to get to the next permanent pool on pear tree ck. It was already warming up so Chris and Maddy had a swim whilst I began searching for toads. Chris and soon Maddy joined in and after a couple of hours checking every nook and cranny, we came up empty handed. It appears the toads had not made it this far upstream.

It is interesting to note that even though the toads are further west than this system by about 30 kilometres, they had not made it upstream on pear tree ck, to this pool. Which is only six and half kilometres away. This suggests that the toads will not take the hard road upstream against the current when they can continue west crossing these systems in easily traversable floodplain country.

Thanks to Chris and Maddy for their ongoing Toad Busting. Some of our reconnaissance trips are far from easy and having reliable, experienced people to work with makes it that much less stressful. Big thanks to You Both