You're not likely to find them at your local cafe alongside smashed avocado, but cane-toad sausages will soon be on the menu for wildlife in NSW. It's all part of a program designed to stop cane toads wiping out native predators, such as the spotted-tail quoll.

Professor Rick Shine at the University of Sydney last year won the Prime Minister's science prize for his work protecting native predators in Australia's north from the cane toad invasion.

Now, thanks to a grant from the NSW government, Professor Shine will apply what he has learnt in the Northern Territory to fight on the invasion front in northern NSW.

Feeding native predators cane-toad sausages laced with a nauseant, means that species such as lace monitors, land mullets, quolls and other reptiles learn to avoid the deadly toads.

It's a strategy that has helped save native carnivore populations in the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

In the tropics Professor Shine has used juvenile toads – which aren't lethal – to teach this "conditioned taste aversion". 

"Given the invasion front is moving much slower in NSW, I don't want to be dropping cane toads where there aren't any," Professor Shine said.

"This means sausages are the way to go – it's going to be very much a sausage-based program down here."

Cane toads were imported into Queensland's sugar cane fields in the 1930s in an attempt to control cane beetles. It was a disaster. For 80 years the amphibians have been spreading like topsy. As well as outcompeting native amphibians, the toads produce a toxin that is deadly to the reptiles that eat them.

"Up to 95 per cent of reptile predators can be wiped out when toads first arrive in an area," Professor Shine said.

The invasion front in northern Australia is moving at a breakneck 60 kilometres a year. In NSW it is slower, moving at about five kilometres a year.

Part of the research will explore this difference, which Professor Shine suspects is linked to climate and the breeding mix of toads moving south.

"In NSW we find a lot of hitchhiker populations. The toads are very good and jumping on trucks and moving south," Professor Shine said. 

This leads to a different mix of toads on the NSW frontline compared with the fast-moving frontline in the tropics.

The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage is providing $50,000 to Professor Shine as part of its $100 million Saving our Species program. And the NSW Department of Primary Industry is adding $25,000 from its Biosecurity and Food Safety program.

Ben Russell is the senior team leader for pests and weeds for the NSW National Parks and Wildlife service. He said they have identified cane toads as a "key threatening process" and want to work with Professor Shine to help control them.

"The front line is now the Clarence River," Mr Russell said. "We are aiming to hold them there and the knowledge Professor Shine provides will allow us to better target our efforts."

Professor Shine said he is keen to work with conservation groups in northern NSW.

"Toad busting doesn't seem to have had much impact in the tropics, but it's a very different story down south," he said. 

Scott Lenton is the "toad-busting" co-ordinator for the Clarence Valley Conservation in Action Landcare group. Every week he and a dozen locals head out into the night to hunt cane toads.

"Every Friday night we select an area on public or private land to find the toads. Last Friday 10 of us caught more than a thousand in two hours," Mr Lenton, from Yamba, said.

Once they catch the toads Mr Lenton said they euthanise them humanely in a freezer.

Despite his efforts to eradicate the animals, he said they are amazing creatures.

"They do grow on you," he said. "It's not their fault they were brought here. And they are amazing creatures to have been as successful as they are in a foreign environment."

And what about the sausages? Professor Shine said: "What you are talking about is minced-up toad flesh. You don't include their shoulder glands and don't include too much skin [which are toxic].

"You combine this with a chemical that induces nausea. We usually use an agricultural chemical called Thiabendazole, which knocks out parasites in cow guts."

Mr Lenton said this summer 84 different volunteers working with the Clarence Valley group have collected 12,394 toads and 25,245 toad tadpoles.

"We still have two to three months of this season left," he said. "Watch this space!"

The Office of Environment and Heritage warns that some native frogs can be easily confused with juvenile cane toads. Please report any cane toad sightings to the OEH hotline on 1300 361 967.