Re: Scientists Produce Cloned Embryos of Extinct Frog

Oh, great, that's all Australia needs of more frogs/toads. Down there the cane toad has caused a lot of environmental damage. THAT is what they should be doing; somehow changing the DNA of that toad so that it croaks in a few generations.

Great, maybe this will lead the USFS to someday build up the frog populations in the Sierra Nevadas and allow more fish again in the backcountry lakes. They're even using nets in some lakes tryng to wipe out the fish to save the frogs and toads. Perhaps it will soon be time to bring in the clones.

I'm pretty sure that many of those lakes, historically, had no fish in them.

Native to Central and South America, Cane toads were introduced to Australia from Hawaii in June 1935 by the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations in an attempt to control the native cane beetle. Because of the lack of predators, the cane toad population exploded. It was later found that the cane toads had no effect on the cane beetle population.

That's like the mongoose problem in Hawaii. They introduced the mongoose to eat the rats that were eating the sugar cane. The mongoose is out during the day, the rats at night. They rarely met. Now the mongoose has out bred the rat and is causing problems eating everything but the rats.

It seems all the problems started with the introduction of humans.