Let’s start thinning out.
Alligators may eat your pets, but there are more insidious predators lurking, waiting to harm your furriest family members — unless you live in watery South Florida.
Especially during the rainy season, the Sunshine State’s four-legged friends are under threat from an invasive species called the cane toad, which can kill small animals in just a few minutes by just sitting there.
They don’t need to physically attack: a poisonous milky venom secreted from glands behind their eyes does the job.
A curious cat or puppy licking one of the foolish creatures often brings the curtains back in. The toxin is also found in cane toad eggs and tadpoles, reports The Naples News.
Native to South America and traditionally found as far north as the Rio Grande, cane toads were reportedly introduced to Florida in the 1930s and 1940s to control pests on sugarcane crops.
To humans, they are a nuisance, mainly due to their loud nocturnal calls, but we still want to avoid touching or ingesting this filth.
Cane toads, which are brown in color with lighter undersides and have been described as yellow or beige, can be removed by Florida law if spotted with the landowner’s permission.
You can’t keep an eye on everything your pet does outdoors, so how do you know if your pet has cane toad poisoning?
Experts recommend watching out for symptoms like drooling, foaming at the mouth, vomiting or diarrhea, or red gums or discomfort in the mouth.
Eventually, symptoms may include seizures, difficulty breathing, loss of balance, tremors, and changes in resting heart rate.
How do you treat sugar cane poisoning in pets? The first thing to do is to hold the pet’s head down to prevent it from being swallowed or inhaled, and rinse its mouth with plenty of water.
Next, rinse your mouth, face, and eyes as thoroughly as possible.
After wiping the gums and tongue to remove every last trace of toxin, take your baby to the nearest veterinarian.
There’s no way to completely prevent poisoning other than keeping them in the house, but a good place to start is to limit their outdoor time to daytime hours, as cane toads tend to be more active after dark.
Alternatively, create a protected outdoor area for your pets – to be completely toad-proof, your fence should have no gaps.
To ensure they are comfortable, also make sure there is no standing water within the boundaries.
And finally, keep your lawn mowed as short as possible to give cane toads less room to hide.
If you find one or more cane toads, it is legal to kill them, but you must have permission from the owner of the land on which you are killing them.
The good news is that culling a herd of animals is as simple as tossing one in the freezer and throwing it in the trash. Always wear gloves and safety glasses when handling animals.