Red-eared slider turtle not wanted in Oz

from w
Lorna Edwards wrote in the Age newspaper yesterday about an unwelcome pest that has invaded some of our waterways, even dumped in a pond in Blackburn Lake Sanctuary in Melbourne. This is the red-eared slider turtle who gobbles up everything in sight. Illegally importing reptiles like this one can get you 10 years in gaol!

Other uninvited pests in Australia include the rabbit which was brought to the Geelong area in 1859 by Thomas Austin and they soon were in plague proportions across eastern Australia and by 1894 to West Australia.

And of course the horrid cane toads! About a hundred of them were brought from Hawaii to control cane beetles in Queensland's sugar crops in 1935. Now they are eating their way south and westwards!


BUT I do like little frogs. Just look at those slitted eyes, the eyes of a prince in waiting, sly with a little bit of cunning as he holds his grip on life, awkwardly allowing his limbs to look unseemly, belly up, making him less attractive that he really thinks he is. I do like him.