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Toads as Big as Your Head! Cane Toads in Florida

Cane toads are well known for posing a threat to our pets. They are one of many invasive animal species we have here in Florida. In this episode you will learn all about this invasive toad species, how it became established in Florida, impacts of its presence, and ways you can help.

Episode Transcript:

Hey, everyone, quick disclaimer.

Sometimes wildlife management involves the removal or humane euthanization of some individuals for the greater good of the ecosystem. This episode contains respectful discussion of euthanization.

SHANNON:
Lara, I just got off the phone with another resident in my area who was having problems with a large toad. Can you guess which one?

LARA:
I think I can. (LAUGHTER) Is it the cane toad?

SHANNON:
It sure is. It's the springtime right now. We're getting lots of rain, right?

LARA:
Actually, we really haven't had a ton of rain in my area.

SHANNON:
Really?

LARA:
Yeah. Yeah, it's been pretty dry. We actually had like a red flag day over here for in terms of fire because it's been so dry.

SHANNON:
Oh, wow! I mean, we've had red flag days too, but we are getting a decent amount of rain. Not straight up rainy season rain, but with good regularity. I mean, my lawn has never looked better. (LAUGHTER) And I take… I mean, it's survival of the fittest in my yard. So we're getting a decent amount of rain. But that might explain why I'm getting a lot of cane toad calls right now, and you’re not.

LARA:
Yeah, I really haven't had any. I've been getting lots of invasive Cuban tree frog calls and e-mails, which we talked about in an earlier episode. But yeah. So I definitely want to talk about the cane toads, though. Because I do know when I get questions, people are often very scared or fearful or, you know, of course want to know like “Is this in fact what I'm seeing?”

SHANNON:
Yes. And for those of you listening who have never heard of a cane toad, you might have heard of the bufo toad or the marine toad. And these bullets stem from their old scientific name, which was Bufo marinus. And it's currently known as Rhinella marina. And that is the scientific name that we're using nowadays. But it is still commonly referred to, at least here in my part of the state, Lara, as the bufo toad.

LARA:
Yeah. I think for us over here, I do often hear cane toad a lot, but I know that people do use those terms interchangeably. Marine toad not so much, but…

SHANNON:
Yeah, I've heard that one less, but it does come up every now and then. Generally speaking, it doesn't matter. If people are calling about a large toad, I know exactly which one it is. So let's go ahead and dive into what the cane toad is and why people call us. Cane toads are one of our more common invasive species in my area. I feel like they're very, very abundant in a couple of neighborhoods, but they're found all over Florida.

Current range estimates are down from pretty much every coastal county in southeast Florida, all the way from the Keys up to Brevard, but then it does come diagonal across the state through Highlands County, Polk, Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco County. And then there's some overflow into Hernando, Okeechobee, Glades and Osceola. And we have a couple isolated populations in Lee and Collier Counties, Sarasota County and Volusia County. And I believe there might be one small isolated population somewhere in the Panhandle, but I can't remember where.

LARA:
Yeah. If you get a chance to look at the range map of where this cane toad is found, it's pretty interesting. And when you read about where people are finding cane toads, they actually have a preference for like human-impacted areas. Right, Shannon?

SHANNON:
Yeah, they're not super common in our natural areas. Thankfully!

LARA:
(LAUGHS) Right.

SHANNON:
They really do better in urban landscapes or semi-urban landscapes. So in areas that have cane toads, you're more likely to find them in a suburban neighborhood like a large HOA-type neighborhood than you are to find them, say, out in the rural areas of southern Polk County.

LARA:
Right.
SHANNON:
So like I mentioned before, though, they are very locally abundant in those areas that have them. But when we say they're in Polk County, for instance, they're not found equally across Polk County because we don't have neighborhoods that are very, very similar from border to border. So they're going to be focused in those suburban areas. But where did they come from? Lara, do you want to start with this? I know you just did some research on it.

LARA:
Yeah, I was actually. So one of the things that we often hear related to cane toads is that they were brought over to help with a pest with sugar cane, which is true. But what most people don't realize is kind of the next steps to that, which is that population that was brought over actually didn't survive. And so a lot of people say like, oh, well, they brought them over as a biological control and that's why we have them and gives biological control a bad rap.

But that is, in fact, not how they were established in Florida. It was actually from intentional releases of the cane toads. And specifics to that aren't super clear whether it was like through the pet trade or whatnot. But there was a big release down in South Florida, and that is for whatever reason, they were able to survive from that and have just expanded their population from there.

SHANNON:
Yeah, and I think it's cool. Well, “cool” is probably the wrong word, but interesting. They are technically native to very, very, very South Texas and Central and South America.

LARA:
Yeah. And I anticipate the range to continue to expand as we continue to develop right and get more urban and kind of have this habitat that these cane toads are a little bit more preferential to. But it'll be interesting and we'll talk a little bit more more about how you guys can help in letting us know or letting at least the researchers know if you're finding these cane toads outside of their current range.

SHANNON:
Yeah. So I'll go ahead and put a plug in that we're going to put the range map or a link to the range map in our show notes. We are also going to put a link to an email address that if you are seeing cane toads outside of that green range on the map, please send an email with a good picture, which we'll talk about again later.

But how do you know if you have a cane toad if you don't know what it looks like? So let's go ahead and talk about what the cane toad looks like. Before we get too far into it, though, we just want to remind you that it's really hard to make an identification of any species without looking at it. So we're going to tell you about it, but please take a look at the show notes and learn what they look like in that way before you go to the next step that we'll talk about, which is management for the cane toads.
So, Lara, I know you've recently put together a wonderful video, a “This or That?” video on cane toads versus southern toads, which is one of their lookalikes. Do you want to give us a little snippet of what the best way to tell them apart is?

LARA:
Yeah. So there's kind of two things. One is size alone. So these cane toads can get massive. I think I've seen like up to ten inches big. They can get maybe eight to ten, and I don't know, they're just gross to me. That's my personal thing. (LAUGHTER) I’ll keep that comment as Lara’s own, but I’m… So size alone. So our native, the only other native toad that we're going to confuse them with is the southern toad.

And they only get to be about three inches. So if you're seeing a toad that's larger than three inches, you're very likely looking at a cane toad. The other thing you want to note is it's, you know, say it's around three inches and you're not sure, as you can look at the top of the head, kind of between the eyes. And on the southern toad, they have these little crests or ridges right behind their eye.

It's kind of like almost like what we might think of as like an eyebrow, but it protrudes from the head. There's two of them on the southern toad, which is absent in the cane toad. So I think between those two things that should be really helpful. There are some other things we can talk about as well.

SHANNON:
Yeah. When you see that, it's very easy to tell them apart with just like a little bit of practice. But back to what Lara was saying was size and how to tell them apart from a tree frog, because, believe it or not, I get a lot of phone calls about cane toads that are actually Cuban tree frogs.

So how do you know a tree frog from a toad? Well, toads can't climb, or at least not very well. If you're looking at a very large frog—again you know, the size of your hand or the palm of your hand—and it is stuck to the side of a wall, that’s a tree frog. And if it's that big, it's probably a Cuban tree frog.

So you should go back and listen to episode four of our first season and learn all about Cuban tree frogs. But today we're talking about cane toads. Toads are kind of squat. They sit tall off the ground, but they're very sturdy looking frogs. They sit upright and they're just kind of blocky and boxy. They can also have long toes, which if you remember in the tree frog episode, we talk about their long toes.

But unlike tree frogs, toads don't have those big sticky toe pads. They usually have small claws on them. It really helps them gain traction. So if you're looking at a frog that's not sitting real flush to the ground or to the wall, it's sitting up tall and it has little claws on their feet, you’re probably looking at a toad.

LARA:
Yeah. I saw recently a massive cane toad at my apartment complex, and it was hopping along the floor. I saw it only because I heard a thud (LAUGHTER), like a loud thud as it was hopping into the wall. And I was like, “What was that noise?” I looked down and it was this massive, massive cane toad. So yeah, they're big. And yeah, you can see the claws. They're pretty evident.

SHANNON:
Yeah. So people often ask me if their tadpoles are also really big, like, “Can I just get rid of them at the tadpole stage because I found a whole bunch of tadpoles?” My inclination, and Lara let me know if you have a different thought, but my inclination is no. When they're in the tadpole stage, just let them do their thing because it's really hard to tell tadpoles apart.

Also, cane toad tadpoles are actually fairly small. They're, you know, a little bigger than a raisin when they're in their tadpole stage. So you can't just go by size when they're in their tadpole stage. But the reason that we get calls about them is when they're in their adult form, they have large poison glands on their shoulders or what you can imagine is their shoulder area.

And these poison glands, they're called parotoid glands. And that's where the toxic sticky, gooey poison grossness (LAUGHTER) comes about. And that's a problem because dogs will often grab them thinking they're like a toy or a prey item as they're hopping away. And that poison is why Lara and I get calls.

LARA:
Yeah. And there's we can link to another really good resource that if you do happen to have a pet that encounters a cane toad and is expressing symptoms that they have been exposed to this poison of things that you can do to hopefully save your pet because it can result in death. And of course, Shannon and I don't want that for anybody, but that is why we get calls because people are very concerned about their pets. It can also impact cats. But it seems that most of what we see and hear is impacts to dogs.

SHANNON:
Yeah. Dogs are by far the most common reason I get a phone call. But we have had a couple of livestock deaths out here from them, also small livestock. I believe it was goats was the one that we had a couple of years ago.

LARA:
Wow! Yeah. I mean, I was going to say I haven't heard of that. But I mean, coming from Pinellas County, I think that makes sense.

SHANNON:
(LAUGHS) Yeah, we have more livestock out here than you guys have, but I'm pretty sure… Now my memory is… I'm doubting myself, but I'm pretty sure it was goats. It was definitely a small livestock. Yeah. Okay. We're going to move on from that. So these parotoid glands… It's important to note that Southern toads have them also, but they're a lot smaller.

Technically, all the toads in that family have these poison glands on their shoulder, but they don't produce enough poison or enough toxicity in the poison to be a threat to pets, or children, for that matter. So we don't need to be afraid of every frog that has parotoid glands on its shoulder. Just the cane toads are really an issue.

LARA:
Yeah. And something that you’ll often read when trying to differentiate between these two species of toads that we're talking about is the shape of that gland. So on the cane toad, they tend to say that it's more triangular in shape compared to more oval in shape on the southern toad. And for me personally, I feel like the oval-shaped gland on the southern toad is a lot more obvious than the said triangular shape on the cane toad. That's just my personal observation. I guess some people, and maybe with time and experience, it's a little bit more obvious. To tell them apart, but again, I'd probably rely more on size and the presence or absence of those crests.

SHANNON:
Yeah, yeah. I would agree with that. And if you have any toad that’s smaller than two inches, just like tadpoles, we really don't recommend trying to differentiate them. It's very challenging because the southern toads don't have crests when they're really little.

Let's move on to… Okay, we already know a little bit about how to differentiate them. We already know that they're problematic because of their poison glands with dogs. Let's move on to how we can deal with this issue, because, as we have mentioned, it is an invasive species, and it's one that we would like the public to help us with. And this is where we tend to lose people.

LARA:
Yeah. So removing invasive species, at least in terms of animals, isn't exactly my favorite part of my job to tell people to do that. But at least in the case of the cane toad, Shannon and I mentioned a lot of people call us expressing concern about their pets. So that's one way you can help protect your pet, by removing these species.

And then cane toads eat a lot of our native species as well—our native frogs. Some of the bigger ones will even eat birds. I mean, these things are like insane. (LAUGHTER) So if by removing these from the ecosystem, we're not only helping our pets, protect our pets, but protect our native species as well. So I'm going to let Shannon kind of talk about the ways that we can do that, which is through humanely euthanizing them.

SHANNON:
Yes. And like in our Cuban tree frog episode, it's actually the exact same method. So I'm going to go through it pretty quickly. But as Lara mentioned, we want to make sure that we are treating these critters with respect. We don't want to cause them undue harm. So to humanely euthanize these toads, you have two options.

They both wind up with the freezer, but there's two options for anesthetizing the frog or making sure that it doesn't feel pain. So the first option is through what we call chilling. And the way you do that is you take your bagged frog, whatever bag you used—a grocery bag, a dog poop bag, whatever—and you put that bag in your refrigerator for 2 to 3 hours.

In that time, the frog's metabolism will slow down and it will essentially put it to sleep. After 2 to 3 hours, you move it to the freezer for 24 hours, and then you throw it out with your regular household garbage. If putting the toad into the refrigerator is not your favorite first option, there is a second option, but most people prefer the fridge to this one.

So I'm going to go ahead and say it though. You can buy Lidocaine or Benzocaine spray at your local drugstore, and apply that to the belly of the toad liberally. You can use the spray form, you can use a gel form—either one works—but you need to put it on the belly of the frog and let it hang out for 10 or 15 minutes.

After that, you'll notice the toad is completely out of it. It can't turn itself over. It's really in a comatose state. Then you can stick it in the freezer for 24 hours before throwing it away in the trash. I'm going to go ahead and say, Lara, most people prefer the fridge option because they don't have to touch it.

LARA:
Yeah, for sure. And they are slimy. It sounds a lot easier than it is to hold this thing down that's trying to actively escape your hands and apply this ointment onto their belly. So I would, you know, it's easier all around to do the chill option. But, of course, both options are valid.

SHANNON:
And considered humane. Most importantly.

LARA:
Yes.

SHANNON:
So this is a way that you can get rid of the frog without causing it any pain. And I keep saying frog, but I do mean the cane toads.

LARA:
Just one other thing. This goes for a lot of the episodes where we talk about wildlife. There's a lot we can do to surround our home to keep what we call attractants away. So we want to remove those attractants. And we mentioned these cane toads will literally eat like anything, including pet food, which sounds ridiculous, but they will.

So if you're one to keep your pet food outside where you again know you have cane toads, just consider bringing in, you know, while you're sleeping at night and then putting it back out in the morning.

SHANNON:
Yeah. And I would say it's the same thing for their water dishes and especially if you let your dog out the back door, for instance, at night unleashed. If you have a water bowl or a food bowl out there and there's a toad in it, there's a good chance your dog is not going to take kindly to whatever that critter is in the bowl and try to chase it away from its food or approach it like a toy.

And so it's important also to train your dog the command “drop it and leave it.” Those two commands are really important if you are going to be letting your pet out at night in an area with cane toads. Even if there is a cane toad but they know to leave it alone because you told them to, you are immediately saving that dog's life.

LARA:
Yeah. And then the other thing is just make sure if you again know you have cane toads in the area and you have a dog, just make sure that you have your vet's emergency line and number stored in your phone. Because if they do happen to consume or bite a cane toad, the time in which you need to address that is pretty short to ensure their overall health.

So. And again, we don't have time to get into all the details, but making sure you have that number on hand is super helpful.

SHANNON:
Yeah. And we're talking very quick. You need to get to your vet in an emergency fashion. So be quick about it. And then I have one final thing I wanted to talk about, Lara, which is a little ray of sunshine and hope (LAUGHTER) for these critters. So we like to talk about cane toad maintenance in our neighborhoods here as they're just like any other lawn maintenance or yard maintenance that you do. So you can't go through and eliminate all the cane toads and think you're not going to have to deal with this again.

But if you and your neighbors and your neighborhood as a whole get together and regularly manage for these toads, you can reduce the population in your area significantly.


LARA:
Yeah. So I know that's a lot. There's a lot of things that we can do. And I think that wraps it up for this episode. Thank you so much, Shannon. Now, you guys know all there is to know about cane toads. And if you go back and listen to episode four from season one, you can learn about our other most common invasive amphibian species, the Cuban tree frog. And Shannon and I are always here if you guys have any questions. But thanks so much for tuning in!

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