Canine portraits and a dog trained to prevent unwanted hitchhikers

Loading...

If you cross into Western Australia, from the Northern Territory, you may hear about Nifty the Cane Toad sniffer dog.   I met Nifty and his handler in 20o9. Some of their work involved public relations, assisting in educating travelers about having not to accidentally bring cane toads into Western Australia from the Northern Territory with them. Obvious things you can do is to wash down your vehicle before driving from a cane toad infected area to one that is less infested, or clear of cane toads. 

At the border quarantine station, people are asked to open their caravans and car boots for inspection and asked to hand over all fruit, vegetables, honey, and containers that may have stored these items. 

Australia now has a population of millions of cane toads. This began through greed, when the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations, now the Sugar Research Australia, introduced the cane toad. The cane toad is a native species to South and mainland Middle America in June 1935. They hoped that it would control the native grey-backed cane beetle (Dermolepida albohirtum) and Frenchi beetle (Lepidiota frenchi,) and gave insufficient consideration to how this introduced species might upset Australia's ecology and our wildlife population. 

My Pastel Pencil Canine Portraits