Search
Close this search box.
Search
Close this search box.
Search
Close this search box.

SAVE AUSTRALIA FROM FIRE ANTS

Our state and federal governments are about to have a meeting where they will decide whether or not to fund fire ant eradication or abandon Australia to a future swarmed with fire ants. We must make sure they know Australians want these invasive ants eradicated for good.

How to help  |  Take action

The Queensland government has just released a report into the fire ant eradication program in South East Queensland. 

They had been keeping the report secret, now we know why. 

The report’s pages tell a shocking story: the current fire ant eradication program does not have the resources it needs to get the job done. 

The report says we have three options: 

  • Option A: Inject the fire ant eradication program with an immediate funding boost so it can eradicate Australia’s fire ant infestation over the next decade.
  • Option B: Keep things as they are, with taxpayers footing an ongoing indefinite cost that will only slow the spread of fire ants.
  • Option C: Give up and let fire ants spread to nearly every ecosystem and neighbourhood in Australia.

We must choose Option A. We cannot afford to live with fire ants.

A future where we don’t eradicate fire ants means we have one of the world’s worst invasive species spread wall-to-wall across our continent. 

Where will fire ants spread?

Click the map to zoom in.

A fire ant future would cost Australians over $1.2 billion dollars every year, result in thousands of medical appointments from their stings, wipe out native wildlife and close parks, beaches, gardens and sporting fields. 

The Brisbane Olympics in 2032 would be looked down on as the fire ant Olympics. Our agricultural industries could take up to a 40% hit in productivity. Households will be forced to bear the brunt of treatment costs and of electricity and water damage. Everything we do outdoors would suddenly become infested with swarms of fire ants. 

In the United States, they didn’t eradicate fire ants when they had the chance. It costs them at least $7 billion per year, has led to over 85 deaths, and forces some farmers and homeowners to abandon their land.

Fire ants are on the march in Australia, and their ability to be transported in freight means they could pop up in your neighbourhood at any time. So long as they are somewhere on the mainland, every part of Australia is at risk from fire ants.

That’s why eradication is our only choice. We need YOU to sign the petition calling on our governments to do what’s right for us and future generations by committing to eradicating fire ants for good. 

Governments have said that fire ant action is now being discussed through cabinet and budget processes. We need to maintain the pressure for action. Some of our governments might be trying to ignore the problem until it’s too late.

Make it clear that you want fire ants eradicated, not ignored. Sign the petition now! 

The Queensland government has just released a report into the fire ant eradication program in South East Queensland. 

They had been keeping the report secret, now we know why. 

The report’s pages tell a shocking story: the current fire ant eradication program does not have the resources it needs to get the job done. 

The report says we have three options: 

  • Option A: Inject the fire ant eradication program with an immediate funding boost so it can eradicate Australia’s fire ant infestation over the next decade.
  • Option B: Keep things as they are, with taxpayers footing an ongoing indefinite cost that will only slow the spread of fire ants.
  • Option C: Give up and let fire ants spread to nearly every ecosystem and neighbourhood in Australia.
  • We must choose Option A. We cannot afford to live with fire ants.

Form not displaying correctly? You can visit an external version of this action page here.

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]