It sounded like such a good idea. Sugar producing farmers faced the problem of a beatle eating their sugar crops, and ruining large portions of the planting in the process. In Hawaii, toads from South America were introduced to get rid of a similar problem and that worked out fine. So the idea was simple: let’s bring those toads to Australia and they’ll eat the beatles – the sugar crops won’t be ruined to such an extend and harvesting will be a lot more successful. Happy days!
In 1935 the government brought 102 cane toads over from Hawaii to Northern Queensland and set them free. It then turned out that toads don’t climb two meters up the stem of a sugar crop, exactly where the beatles were doing their devastating job. So the cane toads were now in Australia, but to no evail.
Fast forward 75 years later, their numbers have grown from the 102 introduced to an estimated 1.5 billion! They’ve spread across the top half of the Australian continent, having recently crossed the border with Western Australia and killing all their attackers on their way with their poison – even freshwater crocodiles.
Mark Lewis’ 84 minute ‘horror documentary’ Cane Toads: The Conquest tells the cane toad story as described above in both an educational and entertaining manner. The focus, however, is on humor. The director can hardly resist cracking a joke at the expense of the toads, but is careful enough not to over-do it. The way he shows a dog getting high after licking a cane toad is hilarious. The talking heads – which fill a large portion of the doco – entertain the viewer with a good portion of Australian sarcasm.
The people in the documentary all have their own way of dealing with the ugly buggers. A taxi driver says that “Practice makes perfect” and uses the tyres of his vehicle to splash the toad’s brains out, being all over the road and rarely missing any toad after two months of practice. Kev (“I can’t read or write, but I’m really good with my hands”) decided to capture, kill and stuff toads and put them on display in bizarre situations. In the film we see how he made boxers out of toads in a miniature boxing ring, how he created a crash scene with toy cars and has toads dressed up as policemen, ambulance personnel and victims. He explains: “You get the organs out through the mouth and then stuff with the same stuff you’d put in pillows. That way, you don’t have to cut them open.” Kev’s Travelling Toad Show has never been really successful. One woman puts toads in her freezer, to ensure a ‘humane’ death, whereas the man in the next scene claims that to be ridiculous: “I ain’t putting toads in me freezer!”
The people in the documentary make the film what it is, in addition to Lewis’ stunningly entertaining talents. The doco reminds of the style Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 911, Sicko) uses, but tends to be a lot more funnier (also due to the much lighter subject Mark Lewis touches). The film is an 84 minute laugh and learn vehicle, which no-one in Australia should miss out on.
The screening on the early evening of Sunday September 11th in Kununurra’s Picture Gardens ended with nothing but positive comments. I know now that every time that when we smash a pumpkin on a cane toad, we prevent the laying of 30- to 40.000 eggs (“Sometimes twice a year”), but it has become a vast problem in Australia that can’t be rooted out. Introducing 102 cane toads in 1935 was a hell of a mistake.
