We have a small pond in our back yard with gold fish. Several Cane Toads have moved in and are driving us crazy!!! They screech all night. They have layed eggs, which we spent hours removing. We didnt' get them all, so now we have tadpoles. We did catch one of the toads and relocated it, but I think there is still at least one left, maybe two.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to keep them away? We don't want this to be an ongoing problem. The fake alligator floating in the pond isn't fooling them. And we are not able to put up any kind of fence. Any other ideas?

Grandma, that's sleeping music. You'll get used to it.

It must be mating season at your place. Mine will do the same thing for a couple weeks, then it slows down. They're a sign you have good water.

I don't know how you get rid of them. Increasing salt content may do it; seems last year when I added pond salt, everything left but the fish. Figured afterwards I probably added in enough pond salt for a 0.1% solution, medication level for fish, much more than I intended.

This year my frogs are back so I'm happy.

Oh my gosh. I don't know how you stand the noise. Our houses here are very close together, so it's driving the neighbors crazy too. I tried cotton in my ears, and my pillow over my head, but I could still hear them. I didn't sleep all night. This is the second time in a month it has happened. I got rid of as many eggs as I could, but we still have a few hundred tadpoles. I'm going out this morning to catch as many of them as I can, and relocate them. Toads don't try to find their place of birth, do they? Like salmon?

I have salt in the pond. But since rain water overflows the pond, it could be diluted a little. I'll add some more. It's hard to know just how much salt is in it right now. I know I can add quite a bit without hurting the fish. Maybe that will get rid of the toads. I'll try it. Thanks for the suggestion.

Grandma

I dunno Grandma, about frogs returning to their birth place. May depend on type. I think my frogs, at least the most, are land frogs. I typically only see them during mating.

I also think Robyn may tell you frogs will tollerate the salt; but my experience was they left. Maybe coencidence. I get lots of tadpoles, soon as they get legs they're out of the water. The count of tadpoles compared to the count of frogs at my pond, after 3 years, I'd say most don't come back.

My frogs have a real high pitch rapid-swirl sound; almost like a cricket.

I remember in CA. we had bull frogs; sounded like bull horns, real deep and loud! I wouldn't want that.

Good luck.

These little critters sound like a referee whistle. High pitched and shrill. Just horrible!!!! I think there were 3 of them because it sounded like 3 distinct voices. We caught one, but couldn't find the others. I heard one again the next night (not nearly as loud with only one), but not since then. Maybe they left. Hope so.

I've been outside catching tadpoles. I caught hundreds, but it seems there are still hundreds still there. If I hadn't already removed thousands of eggs, I can't imagine how many there would be. I'll work on it all day. Then I'll relocate them to a nearby golf course pond.

I also added more salt. We may never know if it works, since the adult toads seem to have left already(no screeching last night). But it can't hurt to try. If they never come back, I'll assume that it helped, and I'll keep the salt level up.

Any idea how often this might happen? Do they just reproduce in the spring? Or all year long? I read that they only do it around April. But we had it happen in June, and again this week, so obviously that can't be correct.

Thanks agian. :rolleyes:
Grandma

Grandma, are you sure they're cane toads? Cane toads are an invasive species in Florida, Texas, and Australia. They are much larger than regular native toads. They are also much more toxic. Where they are invasive, the law says if you catch any (I assume that includes the tadpoles), you should kill them. I am not for killing animals; I'm just stating the law. You don't want them in your pond because if a "stupid" fish eats a tadpole, they will probably die. You never want to "get rid of" any toad or amphibian without knowing for sure which species it is though.

Once the breeding is over in a few weeks, the adults should leave. There are web sites with recordings of the various amphibian calls that you can listen to to compare to what you're hearing. The toads make a trilling sound.

The best way to keep them out of the pond would be to fence it if you could.

Toads don't like a lot of salt but you'd have to add so much to the pond to deter or kill them that that much salt would also kill off the pond animals and plants that you do want. As far as toads go, cane toads are more tolerant of salt, hence their other name, marine toads.

Amphibians do tend to want to stay at the pond from whence they morphed (went from tadpole to adult). I don't know how much they remember from their location as tadpoles.

In temperate areas, toads tend to breed in April and May. In warm areas, they may breed at different times. They usually only spawn once per year.

Some pages on my site:

http://www.fishpondinfo.com/frog.htm#link - frog/toad links including sound recordings

http://www.fishpondinfo.com/toad.htm#marine - Marine (cane) toads

http://www.fishpondinfo.com/frogs/frogdeter.htm - deterring frogs and toads

Thanks for the link, Robyn. I listened to the sounds, and it is an American Toad. You say they only spawn once, so we've had two different toads spawning, one about a month ago, and one this past Monday night. The description of the eggs, on the web site, was exactly what we had. I got most of the eggs out, but I have caught hundreds of tadpoles today. I want to get the tadpoles out because they might take up permanent residence here. My neighbors would love that - not! Since they only spawn in late spring and early summer (this is July!!), maybe it won't happen again till next year. A fence of any kind is out of the question. So we'll just have to do our best to catch and relocate them when we can.
Thanks.
Grandma
:rolleyes:

Ok, American toads are much better than the cane toads! A few of them in your pond shouldn't be a problem.

The toads you have visiting must have gotten a late start, perhaps because of the screwy weather that fluctuates hot, cold, wet, dry, etc.

Acutally, we're just hot and humid all the time. It's been very hot for a long time - in the 90's. Central Florida is the lightning capital of the world. Storms threaten almost every day, all summer long. But then it hardly ever actually happens. Lots of lightning and thunder, but practically no rain. And we need it badly!!!

Do you remember the ground hogs day tornado in Lady Lake Florida? That was us. We live in a wonderful retirement community named The Villages. Part of it is in Lady Lake. CNN always kept saying the tornado was in Lady Lake, but it was actually in The Villages. Our neighborhood was the worst hit. Just 2 blocks away, houses were completely blown away. We have several friends who lost everything. Many others with severe damage. It's amazing no one was killed. Just one block away, the golf course was badly damaged, and the club house was destroyed. We also have an eagle preserve here, with one active nest. The female eagle has never been found, but the injured male and a few eaglets were found and nursed back to health. The nest was destroyed. While it went right down our street, no houses on our street were damaged, except for a few lost shingles. I don't know how we got so lucky.

Areas near us were not so lucky. 19 people in all were killed in a mobile home community near us. And a church down the street from us was totally flattened.

It's an unbelievable sight. Pictures on TV don't begin to describe it. It's unreal to be standing in the driveway of a house that has just been flattened. Or to stand next to a car that is on it's roof or against a house. Or a man cleaning his motorcycle, in front of his house that is no longer there. It's a sight I will never forget.

Things are finally getting back to normal. Most houses are repaired or rebuilt. The golf course is open again, but the clubhouse is still being rebuilt. We're back to golfing almost every day on the 22 executive, and 9 championship courses , and eating in the many wonderful restaurants that are here for us. And of course, playing with our fish in the evenings.

Thanks again for your help.
Grandma

Wow. I couldn't imagine going through that. You were very lucky. I'm getting all emotional just trying to fathom it.