Save Our Wild Places:
Stop the Fire Ant Spread
Beneath the surface of our towns and wild places, a deadly threat moves through the soil. Fire ants in Queensland are gaining ground, mound by mound. These tiny killers swarm across farms, gardens, creeks and corridors, pushing out native species, blinding small wildlife and leaving silence where there should be movement, colour and song. We need urgent action and funding to stop the spread.
Fire ants are a national disaster.
What started as a detection in Brisbane, Queensland has now surged across landscapes and state lines. These tiny invaders have pushed into the Murray–Darling Basin, crossed the border into New South Wales and been intercepted as far away as Tasmania and Victoria. Every new detection and interception is a warning: the window to eradicate fire ants is closing fast.
Each nest can hold hundreds of thousands of fire ants – a swarming, aggressive force capable of blinding and killing native wildlife.
Scientists warn that without urgent national action, 45% of bird species, 38% of mammals, 69% of reptiles and 95% of frog populations in South East Queensland alone could collapse. These losses would echo across Australia.
With a sting three times more venomous than any of our native insects, fire ants turn everyday places into danger zones.
Communities are seeing parks, beaches, playgrounds, sporting fields and backyards closed because it’s simply too unsafe to let children or pets near infested areas.
This is a national emergency – and it demands an emergency-level response.
If we fail, the long-term consequences will be worse than the combined impacts of feral cats, foxes, camels, rabbits and cane toads.
Experts warn we could see 650,000 medical appointments each year, and the economic damage could exceed $2 billion annually – around 2.7% of Australia’s GDP, half the cost of COVID-19.
But there is hope.
Fire ants can be eradicated.
It’s been done before: infestations in Perth, Sydney and Gladstone were successfully wiped out.
Scientists agree that the South East Queensland infestation – the largest and most dangerous – can still be defeated with the right investment and leadership.
Without it, our ground-dwelling wildlife, from platypuses to short-beaked echidnas, will face a devastating future.
We cannot beat fire ants without decisive federal action. That’s why we’re calling on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Agriculture Minister Julie Collins to:
- Lock in long-term funding past 2027 so the eradication program doesn’t fall off a cliff.
- Commit $200–$300 million annually to recover lost time and outpace the spread.
- Match Queensland’s $24 million to hit the worst hotspots before they explode further.
What the Federal Government chooses to do now will determine whether Australia wins this fight – or surrenders entire landscapes, communities and wildlife to fire ants forever.
Write to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Treasurer Chalmers and Agriculture Minister Collins to demand emergency action and funding to stop the spread of fire ants.
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Your gift is a lifeline for nature.
Our protected areas are being trashed, trampled, choked and polluted by an onslaught of invaders. Invasive species are already the overwhelming driver of our animal extinction rate, and are expected to cause 75 of the next 100 extinctions.
But you can help to turn this around and create a wildlife revival in Australia.
From numbats to night parrots, a tax-deductible donation today can help defend our wildlife against the threat of invasive weeds, predators, and diseases.
As the only national advocacy environment group dedicated to stopping this mega threat, your gift will make a big difference.
Do you need help?
A silent crisis is unfolding across Australia. Every year, billions of native animals are hunted and killed by cats and foxes. Fire ants continue to spread and threaten human health. And the deadly strain of bird flu looms on the horizon. Your donation today will be used to put the invasive species threat in the media, make invasive species a government priority, ensure governments take rapid action to protect nature and our remarkable native wildlife from invasives-led extinction, death and destruction.
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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.
[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.
[Your postcode]