DEAD freshwater crocodiles in Australia’s Northern Territory were once a rare sight. But since the invasion of the cane toad, it has become commonplace for tour guides and helicopter pilots to spot crocodile carcasses rotting on river banks.
Now a team led by Mike Letnic of the University of Sydney has put a figure on the loss of croc life. A massive 77 per cent of some populations of “freshies”, as locals call them, have died since the arrival of the toads. The team surveyed crocodiles in four regions of the Victoria river before the cane toad front arrived in…
