Australian Diggers Called To Arms!

Australian soldiers (aka "Diggers") May be called into battle within Australia itself, if one group gets its way. There is an invasion of biblical proportions going on down under and the citizenry needs help. The army of invaders is making steady progress, killing native Australians by the thousands as they advance.

Freaking toads.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Environmentalists have asked Australia's military to wage war on cane toads, which have spread across the country's north in near-plague proportions.

The toads, introduced in a batch of 101 from Hawaii in 1935 in a failed bid to control native cane beetles, have spread 3,000 km (1,900 miles) from northeast Queensland to Darwin in Australia's tropical north. There are now more than 200 million.

"We need as many people on the ground as we can possibly get, and if the military can work out strategies for controlling toads on their ground, well that's fine with us," Frog Watch spokesman Ian Morris told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio on Wednesday.

Cane toads are one of Australia's worst environmental mistakes, ranking alongside the catastrophic introduction of rabbits.

The spread of the toads, whose skin is poisonous, has led to dramatic declines in populations of native snakes, goanna lizards and quolls. A quoll is a cat-sized marsupial.

Killing the hardy toads with anything from golf clubs to air rifles has become a northern Australian pastime, and their carcasses are turned into comic tourist ornaments and fertiliser.

Now a smart operator would start a toad golf league instead of calling in the troops. If done correctly, you could get people to pay you to drive toads all day. Oh, and if you were wondering, there are loons in Australia, too:

A Northern Territory lawmaker called in 2005 for a legislated national attack on cane toads, but withdrew the demand in the face of criticism from animal rights groups.

Mustn't kill the things that are killing off all your native species. Wait! I have an idea! Organize a "closest to the animal rights activist" toad driving competition. You'll make bazillions! I fully expect royalties. Foster's is good.