For 14 years Zoologist Raymond Hoser was a lone voice against the Cane Toads (Bufo marinus) and their rampage against Australia's wildlife. In the process he was vilified by wildlife officials for taking a stand against their inaction. Now at last a second zoologist has finally come out and stated the obvious.
Today, Graeme Webb a crocodile farmer of the Northern Territory has likened the Toads rampage across Australia's top end to that of the holocaust during the second world war.
Webb today accused authorities of hypocrisy in understating the impact of cane toads on Kakadu National Park.
Raymond Hoser is glad that finally a second zoologist has risked their standing with wildlife authorities by daring to challenge their policy of inaction against the toads.
Today Hoser said that he could understand the reluctance of other zoologists to come out and attack the official inaction because it would inevitably mean that their academic opportunities, permits to study wildlife and the like would be severely curtailed.
Hoser said that "they've done this to me for years simply because I say things as they are and that gets a lot of fat-cats upset".
Like Hoser, Webb has now come out and said authorities were understating the likely damage caused by the Toads.
Webb's statement "There's a hypocrisy in the fact we put people in jail for having a pet lizard or snake but won't accept that there's a major problem with large-scale reductions of species." is essentially the same thing Hoser put in his definitive books "Australian Reptiles and Frogs" and "Endangered Animals of Australia" published way back in 1991.
In those books Hoser spoke extensively of the damage caused by Toads.
At the time government fauna officials dismissed Hoser's statements as "scare mongering".
Hoser welcomes Webb's stand against the Toads at this late stage, but is disappointed that other zoologists didn't run the gauntlet of official condemnation and even sanctions for trying to raise the matter way back in 1987 when Hoser did … when there was still time to save the top end from an invasion by the toads.
In response, Hoser now says to Australians, "If you want to see Kakadu in it's natural state and with wildlife in it's original numbers and diversity, then hurry up … time is running out fast".
For further details go a letter published in 1987 specifically relating to the Cane Toads and published by Hoser in several newspapers and magazines now online at: