Brent Batten: Let's be humane, but sensible too, with invasive toads, pythons, lionfish

Just when you think you’re making progress against the reptiles, here come the amphibians.

On Tuesday, the South Florida Water Management District announced the capture of the 1,000th python by hunters working to eradicate the invasive reptile from the region.

But as soon as that milestone was reached, officials began warning us of the dangers posed by the cane toad.

These large, ugly creatures — their population boosted by recent rains — secrete a poison that can be deadly to pets and toxic to humans.

When seen, cane toads should be killed, the experts agree.

But this is where it gets crazy.

To humanely euthanize a cane toad, we’re told we should capture it, rub a 20 percent benzocaine gel on its belly, then freeze it.

Capture it? Should I put on my hazmat suit first?

Rub its belly? Is this a deadly toad or a puppy?

Freeze it? Hey honey, should I put this benzocaine-coated live toad next to the ice cream or the pizza in the fridge?

Oddly enough, you can find recipes for sauteed cane toad legs on the internet. I don’t care how dangerous — or tasty — cane toads might be, my wife would let 100 of them hop around our yard before she’d allow one in the freezer.

How about this? When I see a cane toad, I’ll stab it with a frog gig. That spear-like device used for — you know — gigging frogs.

Or maybe I’ll shoot it with my kid’s pellet gun. One shot, back of the head. The toad won’t feel a thing.

I don’t mean to sound heartless, but sometimes we get carried away in our struggle to be humane.

A toad certainly would be more distressed to be picked up and handled by a human than it would be to be quickly dispatched.

The toad experts probably think they’re providing a measure of comfort for the most empathetic animal lovers among us — and let’s face it, it’s difficult to conjure up empathy for a cane toad — by describing the frozen benzocaine method of eliminating them.

I ascribe this superfluous advice to political correctness. Authorities have to say something to pacify the handful of people who worry about the last moments of a toad’s life.

Simply saying, “Do it quickly, don’t be cruel about it,” isn’t enough. We must provide step-by-step instructions that will never be used in real life.

The South Florida Water Management District has put a lot of thought into how to deal with the pythons captured on district land under its eradication program.

The conclusion it came to: “A firearm shot to the head or a knife and a quick blow to the brain,” said district spokesman Randy Smith. “We did a lot of research,” Smith said, including consultations with the American Veterinary Medical Association. “That’s what they considered the humane way to dispatch the snakes.”

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission runs a similar eradication program on state-owned land and private property.

The Conservancy of Southwest Florida, on the other hand, has its python hunters bring the snakes to a local veterinarian to be euthanized with a lethal injection.

Smith said the water district specifically prohibits that.

“No live snakes can be brought in,” he said.

Note that none of the python hunters advocate a slow, supposedly humane death by freezing.

If you see a cane toad, kill it as quickly and humanely as possible.

Cane toads, pythons, lionfish and other invasive species don’t belong here. They threaten our environment and, by extension, our economy.

Let’s not let our determination to be humane get in the way of doing what needs to be done.

And let’s keep our ice cream separate from our cane toads.

Connect with Brent Batten at brent.batten@naplesnews.com, on Twitter @NDN_BrentBatten and at facebook.com/ndnbrentbatten.