AgVic Talk Season 11

Speaker 1:

Welcome to AgVic Talk, keeping you up to date with information from Agriculture Victoria.

Drew Radford:

The fox of the skies. It's how the Indian house crow is often described. It's an invasive pest that hitchhikes on ships. And should it get into Australia, it would wreak havoc on everything from native species through to crops. G’day. I'm Drew Radford and keeping it out and many other unwelcome pests depends upon the vigilance of both authorities and the public. Vigilance is pretty much part of the job description for Ryan Melville. He's a Leading Biosecurity Officer with Agriculture Victoria, and he joins me for this AgVic Talk podcast. Hello, Ryan.

Ryan Melville:

Hi, Drew.

Drew Radford:

Ryan, biosecurity, it's something you've been involved with for much of your career, but you actually did an agricultural degree, I understand. It's a bit of a segue from where you started.

Ryan Melville:

Yeah, yeah. So, I sort of moved in from that degree and worked within the department working with landholders and farmers and the like, and mainly focused in the biosecurity area, trying to prevent whether it's weeds and pests from establishing and impacting on those communities, whether in farming and horticulture or agriculture, even just those small allotments. It was a really good way to develop and learn those industries and helping those communities.

Drew Radford:

And then I understand though you went to actual exotic stowaways.

Ryan Melville:

Yeah. So, since about 2012, I've been working in the high-risk invasive animals team that's really focused on that early stages of biosecurity. So, we're talking about new and emerging exotic pests. So, we're not talking about the really established species in the environment like rabbits and foxes and the like. We're talking about things that aren't in the environment, and we really hope will never become an issue in the future, whether that's being part of the exotic animal trade or legal keeping or exotic animals that come along as hitchhikers or stowaways.

Drew Radford:

What do you mean when you say they're stowaways or hitchhikers? What are we talking about?

Ryan Melville:

So, we're sort of talking about animals that aren't found in Australia and come from abroad, and they use human assisted means to come into Australia. So, whether that's been in a suitcase or a parcel or a shipping container or just on a ship that's sort of come into Australia. So, these might be things like Asian black-spine toad which is very similar to what a cane toad is but has greater impacts in Victoria or something like an Indian house crow that some people consider to be like the fox of the skies that can come along on shipping containers as they go from port to port, they just sort of fly along with them.

And they can be quite a diverse range of species. So, we're talking about a lot of reptiles and snakes and insects that might find a nice home in a shipping container or, like I mentioned, the exotic birds that might come along with ships or a lot of the things like Asian black-spine toads or geckos and lizards can sort of crawl into suitcases and parcels.

And even within Australia, you think about things like cane toads that come down from Northern Australia in banana boxes or in parcels, that sort of thing happens quite often.

Drew Radford:

We're a trading nation. There's a lot that goes through our ports and whether they're airports or seaports. So how often does this occur?

Ryan Melville:

Look, it happens probably a lot more than you might expect, and it can be very random. So, you can't sort of predict when they do happen. And for example, between 2010 and 2017, we know for sure there was 150 detections just in Victoria of stowaways, and that's from abroad. So that's not even the ones that might not be reported or found. So, we expect that there's probably still more slipping through. And that's why we think it's important for people to report through to us anything they might find. And it can be out of the blue, and you're not expecting it.

Drew Radford:

In terms of being quite out of the blue then, can you talk through some specific examples? You gave some broad brush strokes of some of the creatures that might turn up, but what might jump out of my suitcase or parcel, for example?

Ryan Melville:

Probably a good example would be something like an Asian black-spine toad. So, if you think about people going on holidays to a Southeast Asian country like Bali or Phuket or something like that. So, you can imagine holidaying in your nice little villa and you got your shoes out in the back deck, you've got your bathers or your swimmers hanging over the furniture, and then a Asian black-spine toad might find your shoes on the back deck there and think, "Oh, that's a great little hole that they can sort of hide and burrow into."

And your bathers are over the back towel and a gecko might get in there once it's dried. And someone might think, "Oh, I've got to quickly pack for the airport, and they're running late." And then they just grab everything. They don't really think to check anything. And then they grab their shoes. It's got an Asian black-spine toad in there, or they grab their swimmers or their towel that's got a gecko nestled in there, chucked in their bag, and then head back to Australia and don't even think to have a look, and they come along as stowaways there.

So, a really good example is we had a traveler that was staying at one of the high-rise Melbourne hotels. And suddenly, they had something jump out and we were sort of really fortunate that the hotel reception there were really quick thinking, grabbed the box and caught it before it really got away. So, we really got on top of that one quickly.

Another example is we had someone in metropolitan Melbourne just found an unusual looking toad in their backyard out on their deck and thought it looked a little bit like a cane toad. And we saw a photo of it and realised that it was an Asian black-spine toad, and we could talk them through and set up a trap to be able to successfully catch that toad. And we might be only sort of talking about one individual, but these things happen quite regularly, and they can come in more than one at a time so they can set up a breeding population within the country.

Drew Radford:

You make a good point there, maybe more than one comes in. Is that crucial though in terms of establishing a breeding population? I imagine it would be. Regardless, you still don't want it here surely.

Ryan Melville:

Yeah. And depends on the species. Say something like an Asian black-spine toad, they have very similar consequences to say a cane toad. They have the parotoid gland that can kill animals. And if you've got a pet or a dog or something like that, it could either kill them or make them potentially really sick. So even though it might not be the population, it could still have direct impact to that community or the individuals. Some species of reptiles can breed without partners through either parthenogenesis or they can just lay eggs unisexually. So, some species can still survive and start a population with just one individual.

Drew Radford:

So, something obviously to be very conscious of, and capturing them could be problematic as well, I'd imagine, especially if it's a snake.

Ryan Melville:

Yeah. Yeah. 100%. So, we would always ask if you can capture it, try and do so. But if it's something like a snake or something like that, contact a local snake catcher. I've been trained and deal with this sort of stuff quite a fair bit, but I know most people aren't nowhere near as comfortable with dealing with those sort of things. So, you're always calling someone that can help you. But, yeah, if there's no one available, give us a call at Agriculture Victoria on 136 186.

You can always report things through to our email at highrisk.invasiveanimals@agriculture.vic.gov.au, or we do have an online reporting method at our website, so you can locate us that way, and you will come around and collect it and have it humanely euthanized, so prevent it from establishing.

Drew Radford:

I imagine you can't just send it back to where it came from.

Ryan Melville:

No, unfortunately, we can't because, well, sometimes we don't know where it actually arrived from, but often these species might be carrying diseases to other animals and you're actually then spreading it from one region to another. It might carry a disease that can pass onto humans like a zoonosis. So, we don't really want that to happen. So, in most cases, we just have to humanely put it to sleep. And it's not something we particularly like to do. It's part of that biosecurity approach that protects us, our native species, and our agriculture and livestock industries.

Drew Radford:

Yeah. It's an interesting thing to weigh up, isn't it? Because I imagine some people would be going, "Oh, I don't really want to see that happen." But you got to go, "Hang on, there's a bigger picture here." It's one versus many.

Ryan Melville:

Yeah, 100%. The biosecurity, we're really fortunate being an island country that we do have some solid barriers to preventing things from moving quite readily. So, it's one of our unique situations, and it's something we really want to protect because it does protect a lot of livelihoods.

Drew Radford:

Ryan, earlier, you mentioned another one. You referenced it as the possible next fox of the skies.

Ryan Melville:

Yup.

Drew Radford:

You're not talking about something that's a migratory bird though, are you?

Ryan Melville:

No, no, no. And definitely not talking about any migratory or vagrant bird species that do arrive in Australia from year to year or time to time. So, what we're sort of talking about really are a few bird species that seem to particularly like to ride on cargo ships such as oriental magpies or the Indian house crow.

In particular, the Indian house crows are quite concerning as they're highly invasive birds. And that's why people sort of gave them that moniker, the fox of the sky. So, if you can imagine something like an Indian miner, but in our landscape, but a lot worse. They're established as a pest in many parts of the world in locations that are on major shipping routes and at ports, and they do turn up quite readily from every year or two around Australian different ports. And they can sometimes come in small little groups. So, they're quite a concern.

Drew Radford:

Why are they such a concern?

Ryan Melville:

They're gregarious roosting birds. So, they like to nest in large numbers, and those numbers can get up to around 3,000 individual birds. So that sort of impacts things in their droppings and the roosting areas that they can start damaging building infrastructure and power lines and causing things like shorting out and stuff around the world.

And also can sort of ravage crops and make a big impact for horticulture and agricultural industries that way. And they can predate on young livestock and poultry as well. So, they can have significant impacts beyond what you would expect a lot of bird species. And that's not just even some of the environmental impacts that would have on our native species, competing for roosting and nesting places and displacing them from where they would normally reside. And they do these sort of things by killing chicks and destroying eggs and taking over those locations that they would ideally utilise.

So even in this sort of situation where it might be one bird that might show up, for instance, we would try and prevent them from hanging around because birds do turn up quite frequently, and we don't want them to hang around and wait for another mate to turn up and start a breeding population, or some species do sort of migrate in small groups. So, there might be two or three that sort of come along with a ship.

And we might have only seen one, but there's a couple of others out in the environment. And because we do have native corvid species like ravens and the like, we're concerned that one might turn up and start hybridising with our native ravens and something we don't want to see in our environment.

Drew Radford:

They sound horrendous to say the least. What do you do though once they turn up here? How do you actually go about capturing them? I mean they're birds.

Ryan Melville:

Sometimes, it comes back to the location that they're found. We do have some options, things like trapping or shooting or baiting, but these are always location and circumstance specific. So, we can't necessarily walk down a busy street with a firearm or even things like baiting might be quite difficult if there's native species in the same area. You don't want to have off target impacts to, our native population and the like. So often, what we might do is do some surveillance and observe that bird behaviour, maybe encourage the bird to do some free feeding and maybe move to a location that's more applicable.

Drew Radford:

For Ryan and his team to be successful in keeping these pests out of the country, they also depend upon a vigilant public, people like Claire Blom who found something unusual in her backyard.

Claire Blom:

Yeah, that's correct. And I noticed something jump under my legs, and I saw it was a toad. So, I took a few photos and then posted it on a Facebook community group, just put it out there to see what other people thought it might have been.

Drew Radford:

It's very proactive of you. What made you think that it might be something unusual? Because a lot of people would just look at it and go, "Oh, there's a frog."

Claire Blom:

Yeah. Well, I have never seen any frogs or toads in our area before. So, I knew it was very strange, and I definitely recognised that it was a toad, and I've never heard of any local toads or any native toads in our area.

Drew Radford:

Right. Okay. So, you've seen this. You thought, "This is unusual." You put it up on the Facebook community page. What sort of response did you get?

Claire Blom:

So, a lot of people commented thinking it was a pobble bonk frog. So, I Googled that. It didn't really look like a pobble bonk frog. Another person also suggested... They gave me a link to the Agricultural Victoria webpage. And there, it had some images and some descriptions about certain frogs and toads and introduced ones. And I was able to liken the characteristics of this toad to the Asian black-spine toad, which was on their webpage. So, I emailed Agricultural Victoria. I attached the pictures I took and a bit of a description of it and sent it in.

Drew Radford:

Wow. Okay. That's been really proactive, which is what we need in Australia to keep invasive pests out. Had you caught it at this stage, or you had the photos and sent them off?

Claire Blom:

Yeah, that's right. So, when I realised it was probably not good for the environment and introduced species, I went back outside, and I tried to catch it, but by then it had already disappeared.

Drew Radford:

What happened from there?

Claire Blom:

I got a response from Ryan in Agricultural Victoria almost straight away. And he came over, and he searched our entire property all through the bushes, under all the tree debris and everywhere. He even searched the neighbor's properties as well. And he couldn't find it anywhere. He suggested that it could probably be hiding under our deck because he wasn't able to get under there to have a look. So that was the only other place he thought it would be.

Drew Radford:

Then what happens? Do they set up a trap or just keep coming back?

Claire Blom:

Ryan told me how to set up a trap. He also gave me some mating calls. So, I could play them outside. And hopefully, it would draw it out so I could catch it. This was the first attempt. The second attempt was probably about three weeks after Ryan had come out. My dog was looking at something in the bottom of the yard, and he was looking at it really weirdly. I haven't really seen him look at something like that.

So, I went down, and I saw the toad. So, I rushed into the laundry, grabbed a bucket, and then came out and threw a bucket on top of it. And then I put a brick on top of the bucket. I contacted Ryan again, told him that I finally caught it again. He said he would send someone the next day. So, I wake up in the morning. I check under the bucket, and it's disappeared.

Drew Radford:

Oh, no.

Claire Blom:

I actually forgot it had claws, so it was able to dig its way out from under the bucket.

Drew Radford:

Oh, wow.

Claire Blom:

Yeah.

Drew Radford:

Right. So third time lucky.

Claire Blom:

So the third time, we had some friends over. We were sitting out on the deck, and I was telling them about my toad. And I got off the deck, and I was pointing to where I'd found it. And then it was just there exactly where it was before. It tried to escape again. And, luckily, one of my friends who was there, he was able to stick his hand under the deck and flick it out.

And he actually scooped it pretty hard that it actually flew towards me and dropped at my feet. And then we grabbed the bucket again, was able to push it inside the bucket this time and flipped it up the other way around and covered it over and then put a brick on top of it. And that was it. We finally caught it.

Drew Radford:

So, no escaping that time. And I assume also you would've been worried about this thing being in your backyard because they've got toxic secretions. I don't know if they're dangerous to dogs.

Claire Blom:

Yeah, that's right. So, I wasn't exactly sure whether it was poisonous or not. Another reason why I contacted Agriculture Victoria. I was afraid that my dogs might get poisoned. I know they probably wouldn't eat it, but even if they just sniff it or lick it. And also I was probably more concerned about the wildlife because we'd have some kookaburras in the area around that time. We could hear them, and I was concerned that one of them might eat it and poison the kookaburras.

Drew Radford:

And at that point, did Agriculture Victoria come and collect it for you?

Claire Blom:

Yeah. So, the next morning they came and collected it and bought it back to their office.

Drew Radford:

And lastly, any idea how this thing ended up in your backyard?

Claire Blom:

My partner, he imports some merchandise for his business. And so he had imported a whole heap of backpacks, and we were away when they got delivered. So we asked the neighbour to move it all into the back deck. He also asked his niece to go and have a look at it, just open one of the packages, try on the backpack, and she said that one of the bags had some condensation in it. So that kind of made us think that it probably came through the delivery because it was coming from Vietnam.

Drew Radford:

Ryan, we heard from Claire there that she was able to identify this invasive toad through the Agriculture Victoria website. Where do people find that specific information and then how do they get in contact with you and your team?

Ryan Melville:

On our Agriculture Victoria webpage, we do have some dedicated pest animal species information pages and notes. And then you can go to the species profiles. And we do have some guides there for some of our exotic toad species because some of them do look very similar to some of our native frog species like pobblebonks, for example. So, we don't want people sort of indiscriminately controlling our native wildlife. So just go there. Check them out. Otherwise, there are many online identification apps that people can use.

There's a great guide from Museum Victoria. There's also Australian Museum put out a great frog ID app or go to online sources like iNaturalist. They're all really great starting points. But if anyone ever does find anything and you're still unsure, we'd love to hear from you. Give us a call on 136 186 or through our reporting form that's on our website or email us at highrisk.invasiveanimals@agriculture.vic.gov.au.

Drew Radford:

Ryan, it sounds like really good advice if in doubt, just get in contact because Australia can do without any more of these exotic invasive species coming into our country. All the more power to you and your team for stopping them. For now though, Ryan Melville, Leading Biosecurity Officer with Agriculture Victoria, thank you so much for joining me for this AgVic Talk podcast.

Ryan Melville:

No, thank you, Drew. Thanks for your time.

Speaker 1:

If you'd like to speak with someone from Agriculture Victoria, call 136 186. All information is accurate at the time of release. For more AgVic Talk podcasts, visit agriculture.vic.gov.au/agvictalk. This podcast was developed by Agriculture Victoria, authorised by the Victorian Government, Melbourne.

Sharyn Williams:

Hello, and welcome to another season of the AgVic Talk podcast. I'm Sharyn Williams, acting Executive Director of Biosecurity Victoria. My role as the Executive Director of Biosecurity Victoria is to lead the design and delivery of Victoria's biosecurity strategy, operational policy, and regulatory services to manage biosecurity risks that minimise impacts to the economy, environment, and public health and safety.

I'm excited to introduce season 11 of the AgVic Talk podcast series, Victoria's biosecurity frontier, the hidden world of high-risk invasive species.

During this season series, we'll talk about what biosecurity risks are out there, where they pop up from, and how you can pitch in to help keep Victoria safe from these pests. Biosecurity is all about working together to protect what matters to us, our communities, our economy and the environment.

In this series, we'll explore the day-to-day operations of our frontline biosecurity teams. They work persistently to protect the things we love most in Victoria, our farms, parks and gardens, native plants and animals, our pets, the cultural integrity of our landscape, our food safety and the success of local industries.

The risk from increasing land use, trade and travel are putting new pressures on our biosecurity systems. The cumulative burden of managing incursions is growing significantly. At present, invasive species are estimated to cost Australia around $24.5 billion a year.

For the Agriculture Victoria staff dealing with high-risk invaders, it's all about stopping trouble before it starts. Our focus is on prevention and doing whatever we can to reduce the chances and the consequences of weeds and pest animal incursions. Early detection and eradication are key to our collective biosecurity success.

With all this going on, everyone, industry, community, and government agrees it's time to step things up another few notches. If we want to stay on top of biosecurity risks, we all need to understand the threats and consequences of what they can do. Biosecurity isn't just for the experts, it's everyone's business, and we all play a part in keeping Victoria protected.

Over the years, biosecurity has had to adapt to all sorts of new challenges. We've seen big retailers accidentally selling one of the state's worst weeds, being Mexican feathergrass. We've seen dodgy online sales of banned plants, marine pests sneaking in on ships, stowaway toads, runaway turtles, and more recently, we busted the biggest illegal exotic pet smuggling network this country has ever seen.

So tune in for this series on invasive biosecurity. It'll certainly be an eye-opener.