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Fire ant fact finding mission

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When hire car assistant Nicole, who lives in the US, heard that Australia has a chance to eradicate fire ants before they get out of control she had just one message for us.
Invasive Species Council CEO Andrew Cox
Invasive Species Council CEO Andrew Cox

I couldn’t have found a better way to be among the world’s leading experts on red fire ants than by dashing off to the US at the last minute to attend the annual fire ant conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Taking part in this conference has been the fastest way of gathering stories about what it’s like to live with fire ants, a fearsome menace currently contained to an area roughly the size of the ACT in south east Queensland.

The people I spoke to at the conference were battle-weary. They have spent decades studying fire ants, being bitten by them, sharing ways of controlling them.

When I told them my mission is to bring back stories about what it’s like living with out-of-control fire ants so that I can warn Australians and our politicians about what’s in store for us if we fail to eradicate them now there was a universal look of disbelief. Why would anybody want them?

Ring of fire

Red fire ants live in nests that rise up out of the ground in a cone that marks the entrance to a deep catacomb where they live and breed. If their nest is disturbed they quickly rise up, aggressively swarming their intruder.

They then signal to each other using pheromones and, in unison, stab their abdomen stinger into the intruder’s flesh. Hundreds of ants strike at once.

People here say the stings feel like being on fire, and if attacked often resort to desperate measures to rid themselves of the pain. It’s not uncommon for victims to strip down to their underwear, or even to shed their clothes completely in an attempt to shake themselves of the ants.

Even as I drove through Alabama there was tragic news of a fire ant death in a town I passed. Just days before, Kalyn Rolan was simply sitting on a haystack when the fire ants attacked.  The mother of two went into anaphylactic shock, causing her body to swell to the point where she could not breathe. Emergency services arrived too late to save her.

Eighty people in the US have died from fire ant attacks after suffering an anaphylactic reaction, and so schools with even mild ant infestations heavily treat their grounds with a bait the fire ants take back to their nests, where it is ingested and eventually kills off the colony.

Want to hold your wedding outdoors? The grounds need to be treated months in advance.

Like to make a bit of a fashion statement with thongs or sandals when outside? Forget about it, they’re an open invitation to a fire ant attack.

There are now areas in the US that have been infested by fire ants for so long now that younger people have no memory of living without them.

For the rest of my trip I plan to travel across fire ant infected zones collecting more stories about what it’s like living with these menacing creatures.

Now, more than ever, I am determined to return to Australia with these stories. Because, unlike the US, we still have time to fully eradicate fire ants before they get out of control, but only if our politicians are prepared to act now.

Donate to support our work so we can eradicate red fire ants from Australia.

Take action

Experts say it would cost $40-$50 million a year spent over the next decade to eradicate fire ants from South East Queensland. The alternative is unthinkable. If fire ants get out of control Queensland alone faces a 30-year damage bill of $43 billion, dwarfing the cost of eradication.

In 2016, federal, state and territory governments will be making decisions behind closed doors about whether to properly fund the fire ant eradication program, with a final decision to be made in November. If the eradication program remains poorly funded, as it has been for the past 15 years, millions of Australians will have to suffer the pain of living with fire ants.

Our nation will be transformed forever.

Please join us in calling on federal and state governments around Australia to properly fund the red fire ant eradication program by signing our Change.org petition today >>

And don’t forget to donate to support our work to rid Australia of this deadly ant.

Related Content

Fact Sheet-Red Fire Ants
Fire ants update – fiddling while Rome burns
Case Study-Fire ants

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    Dear Project Team,

    [YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

    I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

    The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

    The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

    This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

    Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

    Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

    Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

    I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

    Kind regards,
    [Your name]
    [Your email address]
    [Your postcode]


    Dear Project Team,

    [YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

    I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

    The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

    The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

    This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

    Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

    Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

    Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

    I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

    Kind regards,
    [Your name]
    [Your email address]
    [Your postcode]