Cane Toads: An Unnatural History

Cane Toads: An Unnatural History, 1988 6/10, 13th best movie of 1988, 93rd best of the 80's, 613th best overall This was actually a pretty decent movie. Apparently back in the 30s there was a huge problem in Austrailia with some bugs that ate sugar cane. They brought in cane toads from Hawiaii to eat them. The cane toads didn't eat those bugs, but they did eat everything else. And they soon spread over much of eastern Austrailia. Anyway the movie discusses how the movie effects the nation of Australia and the people that inhabit it. It introduces many interesting characters and lets them share their stories of how the cane toads have effected their lives. Now let me be honest with you for a second. If I had sat down and watched a two hour movie about cane toads, I probably would have gotten very bored, and in turn given this movie a bad review. However, this movie is not 2 hours long, it's actually only about 45 minutes long. Just enough time to get you interested, keep you interested, and than end. Was I doing back flips in my chair because I was having so much fun watching this movie? No, but it was still interesting, informative, and overall, a pretty good movie.

"Cane Toads: An Unnatural History" still ranks as one of the funniest movies I've seen. Don't get me wrong: in Australia's tropical North, cane toads themselves are no laughing matter, especially among despairing conservationists. This short film stands as a memorial to human folly in importing the beast from Hawaii in the first place to deal with a sugarcane beetle which in the event it had zero impact on, preferring to lay waste to the local fauna instead. It is also a monument to human eccentricity - less about the despised, amazingly opportunistic cane toad than the reactions it has inspired among the human populace. I still treasure the memory of the local resident who wanted his town council to erect a memorial to the outstandingly ugly amphibian in the main street - presumably on the grounds that nobody could think of anything else worth memorialising there. (Inexplicably, his visionary proposal received scant support.) Overseas viewers may not appreciate that to other Australians, the movie's eccentric cast of characters came as no great surprise. North Queenslanders actually take some pride in being a little different. I'd like to think that the lesson has been learned, but the news that ravenous 400-lb carp are being released into a Texan lake in order to deal with a water weed infestation gives me no confidence.

This is a serious review of the ecologic trauma Queensland, Australia, has suffered after the scientifically foolish introduction of Cane Toads. And, it is a gut-busting look at people (Michael Moore style) talking about the Cane Toads with which they share their corner of the world. And, it is a pretty good parody of some sci-fi monster movies.

A total delight!

Fairly interesting documentary about the deliberate introduction of the Giant toad (Bufo marinus) or Cane toad as it is called here, into Australia and the ecological havoc it has wrought there. It seems years ago, scientists thought this toad would help control pests that were destroying Australia's sugar cane crop. The toads did little to control the pests that were destroying the sugar cane crops, but they did manage to survive and thrive, reproducing in great numbers. They have brought havoc on local wildlife ever since. This could serve as a future warning to any scientist who gets the brilliant idea of introducing a new species to area it is not native.

While I found this documentary interesting and fun to watch, as an amateur naturalist with an interest in amphibians, a lot of important information about this creature was left out. For example, the film states the toad was introduced from Hawaii into Australia. It never mentions that Cane toads were also introduced into Hawaii, and are not a native species there either (Hawaii has no native amphibians.) Bufo marinus is a native of Latin America. For the record: its natural range extends from Patagonia north, throughout much of South and Central America, into central Mexico, where its range extends through a narrow band into to Northern Mexico where the toads natural range just enters the United States in the Big Bend region of Texas. The film also doesn't mention these toads had little effect on pests destroying the sugar cane crop in Hawaii either. Nor does it mention they were introduced in Florida for the same reason, with little positive effect there as well. With this toads introduction being a failure in so many places, I was hoping this film would raise a few questions on just what was going on in the heads of all those scientists back in early 20th century who spread this creature all over the world.

The unnatural history of the introduction of cane toads into Australia is a hilarious documentary about what is certainly one of the most foolish of history's human attempts at changing their environment for their own advantage. It is almost sickening to consider the sheer numbers of these hideous creatures that were crawling all over north eastern Australia, as well as the absolute, unfiltered stupidity that led to their being brought into Australia in the first place. There does not appear to have been much more thought put into their introduction onto the continent other than they share part of the name of the pests that they were brought to eradicate.

I doubt very much, for example, that anyone looked much deeper into the nature (most importantly the feeding and mating habits) of the cane toads before they were brought over. Mating habits is something that most certainly should have been investigated, as the cane toad's sex drive is proven to be so strong that they are willing and able to attempt to mate with everything from a shoe to a human hand to a squashed and VERY dead cane toad. It's almost as though the people who brought these things into Australia said `CANE toads, CANE grubs. Of COURSE!!'

From the frightening shot of the little girl early in the documentary lovingly playing with one of the ridiculously unattractive toads to the other little girl playing with one of the ridiculously unattractive creatures near the end of the documentary, Cane Toads is a testament to the sheer extent of the human capacity for stupidity. It's amazing to me how friendly some people became with the creatures, which seem to be some of the most resilient creatures on earth, due to their ability to eat just about anything smaller than themselves and their almost total lack of any predators (except, of course, for the speeding tires of fed up Australians). Resilience, however, does not equal aesthetic appeal, as the cane toads are some of the most repulsive creatures I've ever seen.

Cane Toads takes a natural approach to looking at an environment plagued by a pest that was destroying a certain crop, and then takes a strange turn when it introduces the fact that humans introduced another pest in hopes of reducing the problem but succeeded only in greatly increasing them. It's an extremely unusual documentary, and it shows the perspectives on what I can't escape calling some of the more backwards specimens of the human species. Definitely an entertaining documentary, just remember that one of the natural rules of life requires that you do not look at a cane toad while you're eating. I only tell you this because I wish someone had told ME that before I watched the movie!