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Animals in the news
Film will document cane toad
havoc
Wednesday, 7 July 2004
INDEPENDENT film maker David
Wright will
be taking advantage of the array of rare snakes at Ballarat Wildlife Park
this
week as part of his latest project documenting the havoc caused by cane
toads.
The film, which is expected to take three months to complete, will focus
on how
the cane toad has effected Australian native flora and fauna since being
introduced in 1935.
"One of the big challenges is because of the destruction caused by
the cane toad
it's hard to locate the animals being effected," said Mr Wright.
An Australian native, the death adder was vulnerable to being killed by
the
toads, because it lived on a diet of frogs, Mr Wright said.
Numbers of the snake had declined with the species being poisoned and
dying
after eating the toad.
Mr Wright will spend the next few days filming some of the rare snakes
kept at
the park, including the death adder, transforming the settlers hut into a
temporary film set.
The reptiles may not have the usual film star requests but they still
need
special conditions forcing Mr Wright and park owner Greg Parker to ship
in large
heaters to warm the hut to the right temperature for the animals - around
27C.
"We need to recreate the Northern Territory heat and it's a bit
challenging in
Ballarat at this time of year," joked Mr Wright.
The filming of the documentary, which will air on the Discovery Channel,
followed Ballarat's own brush with the bufo marinus, or cane toad, with a
young
female toad handed to the park last week after being discovered in a
crate of
fruit.
Mr Wright said hitchhiking had been a well documented cause of the toad's
spread.
However, it was unlikely the toad would spread successfully to southern
Victoria
because of the cold climate, he said.
After completing his filming in Ballarat, Mr Wight will travel to the
Northern
Territory to document the toads' spread and the effect on native
animals.
Source: Newspaper, The Courier (Ballarat), July 08 2004
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