FEARS about industrialising Western Australia's pristine Kimberley are held by many, but an even greater environmental threat to the region could be the toxic cane toad.

The dreaded amphibians are marching south towards Broome, and the Kimberley Toad Busters (KTB) group say they are invading bilby habitat systems for the first time.

They are also endangering other creatures including fresh water crocodiles, several species of goannas, turtles and quolls, which have been entirely wiped out in certain areas.

The species was introduced in Queensland in 1935 and it has taken several decades to get this far west.

It has been four years since the first cane toad was found in WA and the species has been expanding much faster than many initially expected.

Their quick spread in recent years has horrified local communities, and is alarming researchers and volunteers who have been left wondering how to save wildlife from local extinction.

KTB founder and president Lee Scott-Virtue said cane toads had already exploited about 50 per cent of the Kimberley in three years.

Although they would spread at different rates in various environments, such as the Pilbara, the poisonous critters could reach Perth in less than 10 years, she predicted.

"It is scary and it is critical that the government wakes up to this," Ms Scott-Virtue told AAP.

Ms Scott-Virtue said the first toad arrived on the Nicholson Station Homestead, at the southern research base east of the famous Bungle Bungles, last week.

She said the ugly toads were also entering Halls Creek and had now reached the Fitzroy Catchment, travelling 30km in the past two months to get there.

Toads were also travelling down the Gibb River Road and were expected to reach Kalumburu at the same time they reached Broome, Ms Scott-Virtue said.

"Despite the still visible impact on our native biodiversity, wherever toad numbers have been kept in control, we do see a visible difference in the number of deaths and impact on native biodiversity," she said.

"So the cane toad's human predator is still the only answer we have at present."

Ms Scott-Virtue has long been campaigning for stronger government support to combat the cane toad expansion.

She said volunteers had saved the state government millions of dollars by doing the job for them, but believed if the government did not step in soon, the toads could have a disastrous effect on WA.

"The government needs to be more consistent in funding volunteer organisations," she said.

"Without community efforts, we would not have any of this knowledge.

"We have managed to reduce numbers where we're working quite diligently."

But a Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) spokeswoman said WA had a strategy through to 2019 aimed at better understanding cane toads to minimise their impacts.

It also plans to develop and implement long-term management solutions for the toads.

The spokeswoman said the state government had invested $7.8 million since 2008 in research and on-ground activities by government and the community, including $1.5 million to the KTB.

"The strategy also involves ongoing community awareness-raising, as the biggest risk of cane toads reaching the south-west is by hitchhiking undetected in private or commercial vehicles," she said.

The DEC hopes to prevent the accidental introduction of cane toads onto Kimberley islands through widespread adoption of biosecurity precautions.

Work is also continuing nationally to find ways to reduce the impact on wildlife, including using taste aversion to stop native species trying to eat cane toads, and on novel techniques to reduce tadpole survival using attractants.

There is also hope for a future breakthrough in developing a biological control agent against the toads.

For the past three years, the KTB has been enlisting the help of backpacker tourists wanting to accrue volunteer hours towards their second year visa.

Kimberley residents have also been keeping an eye on their own streets to keep toad numbers in check, looking after their own backyards, indigenous communities and pastoral stations.

Ms Scott-Virtue estimated about 8500 volunteers had removed about 3.2 million adult toads - about 40 per cent of which were females.