The film reports on controversies concerning and within the animal rights movement. These include external conflicts between animal rights advocates and medical researchers and restaurant operators, and internal disagreements within the animal rights movement between the animal shelter operators and the confrontationalists who demonstrate outside homes of corporate opponents. The film also discusses the comparison between animal liberation activists and political terrorists, including the FBI's ranking of animal-rights activists as the nation's No. 1 domestic terrorism threat.
The film combines old newsreels, nature footage featuring cane toads in action, re-enactments of toad-related events, and the first-hand accounts of people's interactions with the toads. The story begins with the toads in full form 15 million years ago, and fast-forwards to the 1935 introduction of 102 cane toads to Australia in an ill-conceived attempt to take on the cane beetle devastating sugarcane crops. The toads' proliferation got out of hand, and they became a seriously invasive species, marching across Australia, capturing huge swathes of territory over the decades. Various characters, including scientists, farmers, and everyday people, provide testimony about the creatures.