The humble cane toad does not have many redeemable qualities.
It has a back like a wet nest of warts, venom that sends pets to delirium or death, and an utterly unappreciated habit of hiding in the business end of boots.
But a handful of creative Australians have conquered Pavlovian disgust and come to consider these amphibian interlopers as both pest and resource.
From taxidermy to high-end fashion to a source of bush tucker (with dire warnings attached), this small group of innovators are determined to put the cane toad on the world stage.
Unsurprisingly, their methods seem barely a hop’s breadth from madness.
Stuff of nightmares
Nothing screams Queensland like a taxidermy cane toad swinging a miniature bottle of rot-gut rum.
It’s a classic souvenir in tourist traps from Caloundra to Cape York.
But cane toads don’t stuff themselves.
In north Queensland on a 30-hectare rainforest block at Garradunga, Jack Hasenpusch has carved out a remarkable existence.
He has been operating a commercial insect farm just north of Innisfail for the past 40 years.
And he’s also a cane toad taxidermist.
“It started as a joke over 30 years ago,” he explains.
“We were all sitting around a barbecue and a couple of my mates heard that I was learning taxidermy and they said, ‘Why don’t you stuff these things hopping around the barbecue?’
“And just as a joke, I did one.”
Jack keeps about 2,000 toads ready in the freezer to be thawed whenever inspiration strikes.
The process involves stuffing a toad with sawdust, preservatives and a wire skeleton, then drying it and applying varnish and final artistic flourishes.
But first it must be peeled.
“To skin them you basically turn them inside out like a sock, so there’s no sewing them up anywhere,” Jack says.
His creations sell all over Australia, Asia and Europe as standalone pieces or custom orders.
“They’ve sold as fast as I could make them lately,” he says.
“The strangest [request] is probably mating toads.
“I don’t make many of those.”
Hopping on the catwalk
Cane toad trauma — if you’re from Queensland, you’ve probably got it by the bucketload.
But Lia Tabrah and Perina Drummond hope that instinctive revulsion has not yet reached the fashion-forward European glitterati.
They’re behind burgeoning fashion house Vermin the Label , and they’re on a mission to get cane toad leather on the runways of Paris, London, Milan and New York.
It’s a big ask.
The pair source raw material from culls on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait, where Perina lives alongside toad populations that were first detected in the 2000s.
Lia is based 3,000km away in Melbourne but a shift to Cairns is in the works amid plans to establish a toad tannery in the tourist city.
The pair have been working for several years to perfect a chemical-free tanning process that weighs durability against the innate suppleness of cane toad skin.
They want toad leather in everything from shoes and handbags to couches and lampshades.
“A lot of the big European luxury fashion houses have stopped using snake and lizard,” Lia says.
“The concept is to introduce cane toad leather as an ethical alternative, but also for furniture upholstery and interior design.
“It’s quite a luxurious product.
“It’s slow fashion and there’s a lot involved in the process, so that adds a few more dollars.”
The key question is obvious: Will anyone actually wear cane toad leather?
“Even in Victoria, they haven’t grown up with that classic story of going to get ice cream out of the freezer as a kid and seeing a bag full of dead toads staring back at you,” Lia says.
“People in Queensland can’t grasp how we can physically do everything from the euthanasing to the skinning.
“But the finished product doesn’t look gross – we don’t have the legs and heads dangling off.”
Cane toad tacos
If stuffed amphibian and cane toad stilettos test your sensibilities, look away now.
Jake Cassar is a bushcraft teacher and tracker who’s so committed to survivalist lifestyle that he’s lived in a tent on a property an hour outside Sydney for the past seven years.
He recalls undertaking a challenge a few years back to live entirely off the land for a week at Maleny on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
“I’ve always been a big believer, wherever possible, in utilising introduced flora and fauna – so weeds, wild pigs, goats, deer,” Jake says.
“I could find plenty of plant food and I was catching the occasional yabby but I didn’t want to put too much of a dent in the population.
“Then I heard the cane toads going off.”
Readers, just a pause now for a very important point.
Cane toads carry a toxic venom that can cause serious harm, or even death, if ingested by human or animal.
Symptoms of bufotoxin poisoning can include nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, rapid heart rate, seizures, and in severe cases cardiac arrest or respiratory failure.
They should not be eaten by humans.
But Jake is a survival expert and previously received training in the safe preparation of cane toad legs.
“In that seven or eight days, I’d normally notice a bit of muscle wastage from not eating regular three high-protein meals a day,” he said.
“But on cane toads, I was in great nick at the end of it.”
Bear in mind, this comes from a fellow who also dines on roadside delights on a semi-regular basis.
“You don’t get much more ethically sourced than roadkill,” he insists.
Liquid lunch
Recognition that even the most destructive pests can possess utility as a resource is nothing new.
Australia exported 210 million kilograms of rabbit skins during the first half of the 20th century.
Buffel grass has played a key role in livestock production for decades despite being declared a weed by various jurisdictions in recent months and years.
And a couple of decades ago, the cane toad made its mark on this pest-resource continuum with the invention of a fertiliser product called ToadJus.
Darwin-based environmentalist Graeme Sawyer headed up the project, inspired by a Mataranka nursery owner who swore by placing a frozen toad at the bottom of every pot plant.
“Basically it was putting a lot of cane toads in a big vat with a few chemicals – and they melted down into a nutrient juice,” Graeme explains.
“There were some issues with the first batch where we didn’t let it sit long enough to stop fermenting.
“One of my friends who was testing it copped a mouthful and a spray everywhere when he opened a bottle one day.”
The project fell apart after a change of government slashed cane toad management funding right when ToadJus needed to scale up production.
Graeme believes the concept could still be revived.
But he’s not convinced any amount of juicing toads – or stuffing, wearing or eating them for that matter – will make a meaningful dent in the population.
“These things are only playing around the edges,” he says.
“Unless we get a proper government response around doing something with genetics, I don’t think we’ll ever get rid of the horrors.”
