Exclusive look at the dingo Buffy the toad Buster in action
Mood:
incredulous
Topic: Articles
Here is an exclusive look at Buffy's first bust after an extensive training period. The photos and article were sent to me by Sarah Fyyfe, the dingo trainer that taught Buffy how to be such an asset to the fight against the invasive Cane Toad. The copyrights belong to her and cannot be used without permission.
After 10 weeks of training in Perth with frozen toads and toad urine, trainee toad buster, “Buffy” the 4 1/2 month old pure bred dingo well and truly proved herself in the field over the weekend on her first ever real life toad bust.
She ignored the hundreds of native frogs that were jumping around at her feet and using not only her sensitive little nose, but also her alert eyes and ears she tracked the path of toads on the move, bringing us to many tricky hiding places. She also found toads that were in the water and quickly worked out the sound the toads make when moving through the grass.
She proved a great asset following behind the human toad busters, alerting us all to approximately 30 toads that had avoided human capture.
Buffy worked for three hours straight, intelligently “cat-napping” whenever we stopped briefly.
Sunday morning she was dually rewarded with a big meal and a swim in the creek. Hopefully before she goes back to Perth next week she will go out again for a daylight bust, and then come up on a monthly basis before moving here permanently early next year.
Sarah is doing great work with the dingoes proving what a remarkable animal they are and helping so much with the Cane Toad problem. I was very amazed that Buffy left alone the natives and focused only on the
invasive toad. A big problem I have read about is that many of the human volunteers don't know, or in some cases care about, the difference between the toads and the native frogs. Best of luck to Sarah, Buffy and the rest of Team Dingo in the making the movement of the Toad, implode.
Posted by wendellsfrogblog
at 3:14 PM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, 27 September 2006 3:33 PM EDT