I was speaking to a mate a while back about Murakami’s What I talk about when I talk about running and how it had a big impact on him when he first read it. And when he revisited it more recently, it fell a bit flat and didn’t spark the same flames as last time. But it got me thinking and so a new series is born. Read the first story in the series here.

When I first crept around my backyard under the cover of darkness, I felt awful knowing what was in store for the hapless Cane Toads frozen still by my head torch beam. I mentioned my recent culling protocol independently to two locals who grew up around Cane Toads and they both gave me the same serene smile. The kind of smile where you’re trying your best not to scoff and laugh at someone’s privileged reaction to a situation they’ve experienced worse and countless times more often.

Cane Toads have no allies, no redeeming features (maybe one, more on that later) and are entirely easy to hate with the kind of unwavering hatred usually (and justifiably) reserved for people (who sometimes turn out to be your friend’s mum) that drive dangerously far below the speed limit. Both locals mentioned they had a set of golf clubs in the shed specifically for killing Cane Toads. That may sound savage to some and I winced at first but after going out night after night to an endless conga line of Cane Toads, I felt my remorse giving way to cold-blooded indifference faster than expected.

I’m trying to care less what people think but when you’re traipsing around in the dark armed with a head torch and a bucket while the over-the-road-and-up-the-hill neighbours are entertaining guests on their patio overlooking your obscure nightly shift as the harbinger of toad death, you wonder what they make of it.

I’d seen my fair share of animal violence as a kid. Growing up in the country does that. From skewering worms on hooks and bludgeoning fresh-caught fish, to wringing rabbits' necks with cousins while spotlighting, and watching Dad dispatch not-quite-dead birds that flew into window glass. One time, a family friend showed me a dead rat he’d nailed to a bit of wood, stretched out like Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Rodent. Then, he asked if I dared him to explode its head and swung the hammer before I had time to say no. He was laughing, I felt sick, the rat felt nothing.

Part of me feels ridiculous for feeling bad about killing such a destructive introduced animal that is quickly swarming down Australia’s east coast ever closer to Sydney and Melbourne. By which point it’s fair to assume they’ve probably evolved to be able to swim the Bass Strait to ruin Tasmania. I feel silly because so many things die so I can eat and live. Modern living has become so removed from the reality of how many things die so we can thrive. Not just habitat destruction for the cities and houses we live in – that’s too obscure, but the food we eat (no one asked, vegans), the cows that became your boots and couch, the kangaroo that made your burger, belt and that stuffed Kangaroo in your living room. The possums that made your Akubra, the horses in your sausages, the regrets in your dim sims and pies. Surprise, this is really about veganism. It’s not but I’m quite sure my diet would be different if I had to dispatch all the food I ate. I think I’d start working out how to filet Cane Toads to make a previously overlooked cross between fugu and cuisses de grenouilles (frog’s legs) just so I could sleep at night. Although I’m sure I’d convince myself I was absorbing their rage a la Dracula consuming the souls of his victims.

It took a couple of months in our new house before I realised there were Cane Toads around. Half an hour north it’s common to see them spread across the road like oversized pepperoni on a pizza. I forgot to put the bins out one week and went out at night with a head torch on and saw a gaggle of the bastards crouched by a rocky retaining wall, their frowning brows looking at me like I’d just interrupted their best take yet at singing Under the boardwalk by The Drifters.

My heart sank knowing toads had besmirched our wonderful garden. It felt like a violation. Just as science agrees sharks are angry dolphins, Cane Toads are just really angry frogs. Rage has shaped their faces, thanks largely to their protruding brow ridges that give them a permanent, furious frowning expression. They’re bumpy, lumpy and have murky brown and piss-off green splotchy markings. Their bellies are white with black forked-lightning patterns. They look like a cross between the vampires from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and angry Jabba the Hut (from the Star Wars, dear). But they’re also basically frogs (how good are frogs) so it’s hard not to feel something when catching to kill.

The first Cane Toad I killed at our place I saw near the compost bin. I wanted to give it a quick death and hadn’t yet googled the most humane way to do it but didn’t want to let it go so it could breed and further ruin the ecosystem. I grabbed a shovel then put it back and opted for an axe instead – I could get a better swing velocity and figured that meant a quicker death. I’d just turned the soil over to plant a veggie patch so the soil was soft. I brought the axe down so hard I killed it and effectively buried it in the one movement, but not before I saw a boggled eye looking up at me. Only its rear legs remained above the ground, they twitched accusingly.

It took me a while to build up to the culling protocol after that first bludgeoning. I knew I couldn’t stomach braining however many Cane Toads I found each night so asked Google because apparently, Jeeves retired some time ago. The New South Wales Government recommend placing your captured Cane Toads in a container with breathing holes in the fridge for a few hours to calm them down and then the freezer overnight to kill them. And then, they say, they make great fertilizer – so maybe there is one redeeming feature of Cane Toads.

The first week of culling, I caught over 50 toads. Our freezer was quickly overwhelmed. We had some eggplant curry in the freezer which, it turns out, is an exact Pantone colour match for frozen Cane Toad, or so my partner discovered with a scream (I thought she just wanted ice cream). I ventured out with a head torch and the biggest Tupperware we had. They congregated around the newly replanted garden and under the mango tree near the veggie patch and compost bin. They didn’t run, which made me feel slightly less predatory and the whole murder spree more efficient, which made me feel more murdery.

My strategy was to put the Tupperware in front of them, tap them on the bum with the lid to make them hop in. In the beginning, it was a bit of a Toad Time Warp – a toad to the left, and then a toad to the right, put my hands on my hips, then stuff the toads in tight. And when the Tupperware began to fill up, it turned into a nightclub – one in, one out, mate. So I had to adjust my technique and in came the dog poo bag – for grabbing. I could feel the locals laughing when I did that, ‘just pick them up, they won’t bite’. But I preferred to bag it so there was less chance of tracking the poison they excrete from glands on their shoulders inside. After a lap of the house, it was inside to the freezer for a humane death before an unglamorous burial (bag > bin > tip).

The first night I went out and didn’t see any Cane Toads, I found the biggest python I’ve ever seen and the first I’d seen at our new place. It was in our compost bin searching for rats. It looked well over two-metres long. Sometimes they eat cane toads and die, so I was stoked to see the snake. I couldn’t help but feel responsible for its return. Remove the Cane Toads, nature heals, Green Tree frogs return, snakes return for the tree frogs (but can’t eat them all), and native fauna win thanks to a human-aided competitive advantage over the now reeling local Cane Toad population. So if I have to kill anything, and in this instance I do, I’m glad it’s Cane Toads and not the food I want to eat each day. Can you imagine trying to get a cow into a Tupperware?