click to enlarge A Sonoran Desert Toad. Courtesy of Heather Bateman In August warnings from poison experts circulated that a poisonous species of toad was unusually populous in the Phoenix area. “Leave these toads alone and keep your dogs away from them,” warned Maureen Roland, executive director of the Banner Poison Center, in an announcement from the center last month. The Sonoran desert toad, or Colorado River toad, is found throughout the southwest and has glands containing psychoactive toxins that are powerful enough to kill a dog. At over half a foot in length, it is the largest toad native to North America – one reason why its venom is so powerful. The toxins can also pose a danger to humans, wrote the center, but mostly only if they are ingested. Related Stories I Support Local Community Journalism Support the independent voice of Phoenix and help keep the future of the New Times clear. But while poison centers worry, herpetologists are celebrating. It has been years since toads were seen in such numbers in the Phoenix area. Their absence had raised concerns about the impact of climate change on their populations. Now it seems like the toads are thriving again. Brian Sullivan, a professor and herpetologist at Arizona State University, has been monitoring Sonoran desert toads in Phoenix for four decades. It has been several years, Sullivan told Phoenix New Times, since he saw the toads at his research site on Carefree Highway in northern Phoenix. A series of unusually dry monsoons had kept the creatures underground where they normally hide, unless there is enough rain to allow them to surface. “They hadn’t bred successfully there in four years,” he said. The summer rains revived them. This monsoon season has caused beetles, poisonous mushrooms, and other amphibians to thrive in Phoenix. There are many new tadpoles in the Sonoran Desert at Sullivan’s location, he says, and toads that were buried are back in action. However, it is not clear whether this summer will produce more toads in the long term. At the moment, Sullivan said, this year just “kept them from the abyss”. Heather Bateman, an ASU field ecologist who specializes in amphibians and reptiles, says “It’s been an amazing year” for toads, she told the New Times. Bateman argues that while you should probably keep your dogs away from the poisonous toads, unless they’re literally in your mouth, the creatures pose no threat to humans. It was safe to pick her up, she said, although she advised washing her hands afterwards. It is also true that Sonoran desert toads are sometimes illegally poached by humans to extract their toxins, which can be used and sold (illegally, at least in the United States) as an intense hallucinogenic drug. In 2019, the venom of the Sonoran desert toad was hailed as “the new trendy hallucinogen”. Given the abundance of toads, has the Arizona toad black market gotten busier this summer? Not that the state of Arizona noticed. “Illegal catches of Sonoran desert toads have not increased,” wrote Scott Fischer, law enforcement director for the Arizona Game and Fish Department, in an email to the New Times. Sullivan said that in his years of watching the toads, he hadn’t seen any noticeable effects of poaching on their population numbers. More worrying for the creatures are the impending climate changes. “It’s getting worse – because we’re going to have more dry monsoon summers in the next 50 to 100 years,” he said. “And that is the big question: will you survive this? can drive the poisonous toads out of Phoenix.
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