What if I told you that the frogs, or more specifically the cane toads, are making the crocodiles have more babies?

And yes, I know that does sound familiar.

[From the video]

I know. I don’t like them putting chemicals in the water that turn the freaking frogs gay. Do you understand that? [End video]

I—I—I know. I know how I sound right now, but that’s not what I’m saying. What I’m talking about is how cane toads have caused the explosion in crocodile numbers in the north of Australia, leading to calls for them to be culled in a big way and creating perhaps one of the most spectacular examples of government mismanagement in Australia. It is a mistake that was made 90 years ago and is still causing trouble today. And it’s not actually a hard problem to fix. Crocodiles can be shot, after all. But yet again, it’s the government who are stopping us from doing that, too.

My name’s Topher Field. This is the Topher Project. And yes, I’m completely for real. The cane toad decision from the 1930s is to blame for people being bitten in half by crocodiles today.

[From the video]

A crocodile came up, bit my guts out and bit me into parts, pieces, and even my leg went that way and even my head went that way. [End video]

And that’s really a metaphor for what happens every time the government helps us. Here at the Topher Project, I help busy people like you to keep up with the world as it changes around us and maybe to crack a smile or two along the way. I am 100% viewer supported. So, if you appreciate this sort of content, then please buy me a coffee via the button at topherfield.net and check out my books and DVDs and merch from goodpeoplebreaklaws.com.

Okay, this story starts back in the 1930s. Sugarcane was a lucrative cash crop and growers were getting tired of their hard work being eaten by the Frenchy beetle and the greyback beetle and a host of other little creepy crawlies. And the cane growers did what they’d been doing for decades already up to that point. They went to the government and said, “Hey, you need to do something about this.” And of course, the government is only too happy to do something. In fact, that’s one of their favorite things to do, even if they have no idea what they’re doing.

I discussed this as one of the key perverse incentives of politics in my book, Good People Break Bad Laws. I dedicated an entire chapter to this particular problem, Chapter 18, titled “Perverse Incentives and the Do Something Reflex.” Now, at that time in Queensland, they had a thing called the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations. This was a government department formed for the purpose of helping the sugarcane industry. And they have done some useful things, things which I would argue could and should have been done by the sugarcane industry itself. But nevertheless, the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations was responsible for things like bringing new varieties of sugarcane in from places like Papua New Guinea and then figuring out which ones grew well in Queensland and then cultivating them for mass distribution.

Now that sounds like a job for private industry in my opinion, but even so, it does sound like the department was being useful, in stark contrast to government departments today. And it was to this Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations that cane growers turned once again, demanding that they do something about this beetle problem ruining their crops. And that demand to do something ended up on the desk of a man by the name of Reginald Montgomery, an entomologist for the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations. And boy, did he do something. He introduced the cane toad to Australia.

Now, it’s easy to laugh in hindsight. We now know that it was a really bad idea because cane toads are toxic.

They kill pets. They kill lots of native wildlife more on that in a minute. And they don’t actually eat the beetles that were harming the cane crops in the first place. Yeah. So, their introduction into Australia has been all downside and no upside for anyone. Not even for the cane farmers.

But the thing is, they didn’t necessarily know that at the time. Reginald was just following the science, and all the experts agreed that this was the right path to take, and they had the evidence to prove it. You see, the cane toad originates from South America, but had just recently been imported into Hawaii to help them with their beetle problem. And at the time it looked like it was working. I say “looked like” because in 1935, when Reginald went and collected some of these cane toads from Hawaii to release into Australia, they’d only been in Hawaii for less than three years, which was simply not long enough for anyone to really know what the unintended consequences might have been.

But they were in a hurry. The people, well, they wanted the government to do something and by gum, the government were going to do something even if it turned out to be the wrong thing. See, that doesn’t actually matter, because by the time enough time has passed for everyone to figure out that it was the wrong thing, well, by then everyone’s moved on to the next thing in any case. So really, so long as they did something, they couldn’t lose.

Sir Reginald, with the full support of the Queensland government and all the experts, triumphantly returned from Hawaii and introduced this pest into Australia.

Now, you won’t be surprised to learn that the cane toad in Hawaii has now turned out to be a disaster as well. They breed prolifically. They eat lots of beneficial bugs as well as the bad ones. And they’ve become a huge problem in and of themselves in Hawaii whilst providing very limited benefits for the sugarcane industry or anyone else.

Now, if Reginald and the Queensland Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations had just waited another few years to see what happened with the cane toads in Hawaii before they brought them to Australia, then they would have known better than to bring that problem here. The trouble is that politically and in terms of public perception, there is no public reward for waiting. And in fact, telling everyone to hold their horses and just wait a minute until we need a bit more evidence, more data before we do this well, that’s a surefire way to get fired.

So, when the people come to the government demanding that the government do something, the incentive on the politicians, on the bureaucrats, and all their various advisers and hangers-on is to act now decisively and any delay is harmful, at least from a political and public perception perspective. So caution and indeed science goes out the window, as it always does anytime there is a mad rush to do something.

I’m mindful of the Chinese dictator Mao Zedong’s Four Pests Campaign in 1958.

China was in the grip of a famine caused by the communist practices which Mao had forced upon the people of China. But Mao needed a scapegoat. He needed to be seen to do something about the famine. So he told his people to go and kill these four pests that were supposedly eating their food and causing ill health those being rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows. And it worked. Well, it worked in the sense that people dutifully caught and killed huge populations of sparrows and every other bird along with them.

But then of course, as a result of this, the insect population exploded out of all proportion because, well, they were no longer being eaten by all those birds. And this vast swarm of insects then set about eating what little crops there were. And the famine became the Great Famine because the government did something.

But we wouldn’t be that silly here in Australia, would we? Well, I find it telling that in this vast 400-page historical piece published by the Queensland Department of Primary Industries it’s all about the Department of Queensland Primary Industries and its first 100 years of quote guiding Queensland agriculture that they have a whole section on the sugar industry and on the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations, which goes on for pages. And yet nowhere in this section do they mention the fact that it was the Queensland government and the sugar experiment stations specifically who introduced the cane toad in the first place.

Now, cane toads do get a mention in this report on page 132 buried inside a section about pest control, where they mention the fact that in the less than 6 months that the 35 female cane toads being bred in captivity were there before any of them were released, they produced over 1.5 million eggs in 6 months. And then knowing that, they released them into the wild anyway.

But enough about the cane toad and the fact that the nine scariest words in the English language truly are “I am from the government and I’m here to help.” What’s all this I’m saying about how cane toads are responsible for our crocodile infestation in the north?

Well, cane toads breed prolifically. We know that. Seemingly they breed at a rate of about 1.5 million eggs per 35 females every 6 months, if their fertility in captivity was anything to go by. And cane toads spread. And everywhere they go in Australia, the goanna population is decimated by about 90%. Because from a goanna’s perspective, a cane toad is a fat, slow, and stupid little snack. The trouble is, they’re also toxic. And just having one in their mouths for as little as 10 seconds is enough to kill a goanna.

So cane toads kill goannas. But how does that lead to an explosion in crocodile numbers such that in some places they are being spotted every 50 to 100 meters along river banks? Well, because goannas eat crocodiles. Not when they’re fully grown spicy handbags adorned with grinning teeth and filled with the kind of rage normally reserved for people stuck behind slow walkers. No. No. That would be a silly thing to do. And goannas are not silly.

They eat the crocodiles when they are little eggs filled with yummy protein and nutritious yolk.

They eat the crocodile eggs. And they used to do it in large enough numbers that it naturally kept the crocodile population under control. But then the Queensland government introduced these little meat sacks, which may not look appealing to you and I, but goannas think they are the best. And because these little meat sacks are not protected by an angry pair of cowboy boots with teeth, eating the toads instead of the eggs seems like a good idea. Or at least it seems that way until they die.

This one obviously didn’t die from a cane toad. Or if it did, then it was a very clever cane toad who figured out how to drive a car despite the obvious physical challenges that that would involve. But never mind, it illustrates the point. Goanna eats toad. Goanna ends up dead.

And that’s how we end up here with an out-of-control croc population in Queensland that is literally a danger to the lives of the locals who live up that way, but which they’re not allowed to cull because the government the same government that created this croc population explosion in the first place won’t let them cull the numbers nearly enough to fix the problem and make themselves safe.

So, let’s take stock of the situation. Crocodile populations today are dangerously out of control because goannas have been decimated because they eat cane toads, which were introduced hastily by the government, despite some pretty clear warnings that they were going to breed prolifically. Because the people had a problem, and instead of figuring it out for themselves, they turned to the government and said, “You do something.”

Yeah, that’s how it started. And now the government is telling the locals whose lives are at risk from these crocodiles that they are not allowed to cull the crocodiles without the government’s permission because clearly, the government knows what it’s doing right now.

If you happen to be able to see parallels between this historical account from the last 90 years and I don’t know maybe some things that have happened a little more recently, well, yeah, that’s because those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But the trouble is that those who do learn from history, well, we’re doomed to stand by helplessly watching on as the people who didn’t learn from history repeat it. And that’s where we are in Australia today.

Do not ask the government for help because they will help you, and you will regret it. Sooner or later, every single time, you will end up wishing you’d never asked for the government’s help in the first place.

My name’s Topher Field. This is the Topher Project, and I help busy people like you to make sense of the nonsense that surrounds us. I am 100% viewer supported. So if you appreciate this sort of Australian content by an Aussie and for Aussies and you’d like to help me to help others to learn from history and from our mistakes, then please buy me a coffee via the button at topherfield.net and check out my books, including my first book, Good People Break Bad Laws, which includes lots of discussion about perverse incentives and the do something reflex along with lots more, of course. And you can also buy my second book, my DVD, my merch in a range of different designs, all from goodpeoplebreakbadlaws.com. Thank you so much for watching to the end.

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Comment with your own examples of when asking the government for help has gone horribly wrong.

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