Toad stikes back

Queensland’s gift to Australia, the toad, just keeps on giving. A woman in the Territory comes to grief and is temporarily blinded when killing one of the beasties.

“I hold them just above the knees, I take them to my execution block with my big steel mallet, I flip them onto their back and bash them once and it’s all over, you know, it’s quick and clean,” she said. But this time the slippery pest turned itself over and the weapon came down on the toad’s poison glands, spraying the liquid into Ms Sobeck’s eyes, leaving her virtually blind for 10 hours.

Bad move Ms Sobeck. Never, never pick them up. Get yourself a long range weapon. When I first moved to Brisbane the toads would gather under the street lights in their dozens waiting for flying food packages attracted to the light. Many a lightpole was taken out by drivers trying to run over the gathering and misjudging the swerve factor. My neighbour and I, being patriotic servicemen, took it upon ourselves to help the country and kill as many as we could. It worked as today there are very few around here. Maybe they have all gone to the Territory and NSW but there is hardly a toad to be seen in Brisbane suburbia these days. After a belly full of rum and prime steak consumed at the Saturday night BBQ we would stalk the toads with an air pistol (no your Honour I didn’t say that) and neck shoot them. Worked a treat. I was posted to Townsville and then Swanbourne, WA and on return my neighbour had had discussions with his Honours representatives and was no longer armed with an air pistol. In fact his entire armoury had been purloined, including the .30 cal that he used to try and kill a fruit bat on the wing and unexpectedly misssed and hit the brick along side my upstairs bedroom window. What were you thinking, John? What’s that you say…Bundaberg rum? Anyway we had to de-escalate and took to nine irons or spades. Spades are good…never seen a quadraped hop well with only two legs per body portion. I used to have a cigarette upstairs on the balcony and flick the butt over near any toad I could see on the lawn. The toad would hop over and greedily consume the hot tip and then conduct a try-out for Circus OZ gyrating and double flipping while trying to rid himself of the burning sensation in his stomach . Smoking was definitely bad for the local toads and, like us humans, they never learned. There was always one ready to try the old nicotine. I am an animal lover but draw the line at species that can damage me or my family or who think they are higher up the evolutionary tree than me. I also thinks it’s unpatriotic not take every opportunity to kill feral animals. Pigs are just as bad as toads but don’t have the same PR agent. Feral cats in the bush do terrible damage and so do domestic varieties and rabbits…well I used to make good pocket money killing them on the farm with my Dad’s .22 with the local council’s 5/- (.50c) bounty payable on receipt of two ears and a tail. Now if we can just convince the pigs to move South of the Tweed and west of the Barclay Tableland all will be well again in Paradise. We are such a giving people up here in Queensland.