Word: queenslanders
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Four years ago, geologists for Queensland Mines Ltd. came across a tiny plot of ground in Australia's remote northern Nabarlek region that turned out to be the richest uranium deposit in the world. Assuming that mining rights could easily be obtained from the aboriginal owners, the Australian company quickly signed contracts to sell $60 million worth of ore to Japanese firms. What the mining executives failed to take into account was the aborigines' reluctance to disturb the green ants who live near the site...
...Bufo, a South American native, was drafted into Queensland service by way of Hawaii in 1935 to help get rid of the cane beetle that was threatening the sugar fields. The Aussies got more than they hoped for. Supplementing its diet with varied and copious helpings of other insects and frogs, the cane toad may live for 40 years, grow to be eight inches long and three pounds in weight, produce up to 40,000 eggs a year, kill cats and dogs with a glandular poison it secretes, and upset the natural balance of some areas...
...toads have hitherto been confined to Queensland, in northeastern Australia, because dry areas adjoining the state hamper them from moving out to neighboring territory. But last month they turned up in two other places in Australia and promptly set off an all out toad hunt. When 18 Bufos escaped from a consignment to a biology teacher at steamy Darwin, in the Northern Territory, it was immediately clear that not all Australians regard the amphibian gourmands with the equanimity of Queenslanders, who have grown used to skidding in their cars along toad-covered roads. The cane toad, said one member...
...fearing that the toads would eat the dung beetles that eat disease-spreading flies, demanded that the education department pay a $1,500 reward for each toad, the federal government in Canberra countered that such an absurdly high bounty might lead to the clandestine import of more toads from Queensland. Anticipating that, the Northern Territory promised to fine all Bufo bootleggers...
Meanwhile, across the continent in Perth, the capital of Western Australia, buzzes of anguish rose from local apiarists (Bufo marinus, of course, also relishes bees), when several specimens got away from another consignment from Queensland. These Bufos, however, were quickly isolated near Perth Airport, and it remains only for authorities to check adjacent drainage every two days for the next three years to make sure that the toads or their progeny get no further...