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Cane toad fighters say they have culled 70,000 of the pests over the past four weeks as they approach the Northern Territory-West Australian border.
Stop the Toad Foundation's annual muster at the Bullo and Auvergne stations involved 90 volunteers at field camps, including West Australian author Tim Winton.
But rival cane toad eradication group Kimberley Toad Busters says it has killed 328,000 adult toads in three years, using much more scientific methods.
It boasts an operation of 12 months a year along six corridors lining the state boundary, compared with Stop the Toad's decision to concentrate on one migration route.
"We picked the Whirlwind plains mainly because it's a major access route into Western Australia ... for cane toads," Stop the Toad Foundation spokesman Russell Gueho said.
"Essentially it's like a low-lying plain between two ranges. Our approach has been to ... reduce the number of cane toads using refuge areas in the dry season."
This was the third year of the Stop the Toad Foundation's annual muster, but the first time they have used temporary fences of shade-cloth constructed around water holes and dams.
Toads collect near the plastic and are easier to collect by hand.
Their method is safer, simpler and more labour-efficient, a media release issued yesterday said.
Kimberley Toadbusters founder Lee Scott-Virtue tries to target toads of all stages of development: tadpoles in watering holes; the metamorphosed stage and adults.
"It's actually quite critical to get rid of the breeding ... otherwise if we left the breeding for a couple of months we've got an even more urgent situation," Scott-Virtue said.
"They've [Stop the Toad Foundation] concentrated their muster again in the same area they have for the last couple of years and it's well behind the front line.
"We haven't actually toadbusted in that area for probably close to a year, which probably accounts for the massive number of toads.
"So even if they go back to that area next year for their annual muster they'll probably pull out equally as many."
Kimberley Toad Busters tried to cover a broader area, Scott-Virtue said.
"At the front line at the six corridors that we're working on at the moment, three of those are only probably less than a month away from the West Australian border," she said.
The Wilderness Society said both organisations had their place in contributing to cane toad eradication, and said federal decision-making on eradication programmes was the real problem.
Time was running out to protect fauna in the Purnululu (Bungle Bungle) National Park, campaign co-ordinator Peter Robertson said.
"We met recently with officials with the world heritage section of the federal Department of Environment," Robertson said.
"But they clearly hadn't done any work at all either in terms of the likely impacts of cane toads on the World Heritage Purnululu National Park, or what it would cost to put in place some measures that might actually keep them out of the area at least in the medium term."
Environment Minister Peter Garrett recently announced a A$2.25 billion ($2.57 billion) package to protect native habitats, including money to reduce the impact of invasive species such as cane toads.
Of that, A$2 million would be used to develop management and eradication solutions to the toad menace, the minister's spokesman said.
"Cane toads are a priority, northern Australia is a priority, under [the] Caring for Country [programme]," the spokesman said.
- AAP
