Fire ant emergency

Fire ants are one of the world’s worst invasive species. If they are allowed to spread across Australia, we’ll see a devastating list of extinctions and the barefoot BBQ could become a thing of the past. To protect our wildlife and way of life, we must take action now to stop red fire ants in Australia.

Fire ants are one of the world’s worst invasive species. If they are allowed to spread across Australia, we’ll see a devastating list of extinctions and the barefoot BBQ could become a thing of the past. To protect our wildlife and way of life, we must take action now to stop red fire ants in Australia.

How To Help  |  Take Action

Fire ants are an environmental and national disaster.

These tiny killers first turned up in Australia at the northern port of Brisbane, but have since made it into the Murray Darling Basin catchment and charged the border into New South Wales. They were even intercepted in Tasmania and Victoria.

Each nest cluster contains hundreds of thousands of fire ants that swarm and kill native wildlife. Current predictions estimate that 45% of birds, 38% of mammals, 69% of reptiles and 95% of frog populations in SE Qld alone could plummet if we don’t stop their spread. With a sting three times more venomous than Australia’s native stinging insects, new infestations plague communities, closing local parks, beaches, gardens and sporting fields.

This national emergency needs an emergency response.

To win urgent government action, we need to show the federal government that effective fire ant eradication is popular, and demand increased funding.

To win government action, we need to show governments that urgent action on invasive fire ants is popular. Put your mark on the map by taking the pledge!

If not eradicated, the economic impacts of fire ants will be worse than feral cats, foxes, camels, rabbits and cane toads combined.

Fire ants can be eradicated from Australia. Already, infestations in Perth, Sydney and Gladstone were eradicated. South east Queensland is the biggest infestation and eradication will take a long term funding commitment from every state and the federal government. We need to make sure our vulnerable ground dwelling animals and native hatchlings, like platypuses and short-beaked echidnas are safe from these killers.

If they continue to spread, experts have warned we’ll see around 650,000 medical appointments yearly, and the damage caused will cost our country more than $2 billion yearly, or 2.7% of Australia’s GDP. That is half the cost of COVID-19!

If we want to avoid a life sentence with fire ants, scientists say the eradication program must continue for the next decade. Yet the federal and state governments have barely chipped in enough to last until 2027. It’s unacceptable.

Please show your support for an emergency response to stop this unfolding disaster. Your action will be one of many that show widespread support for the urgent eradication of fire ants in Australia.

To save our wildlife and way of life from fire ants, we must make it crystal clear to state and federal governments that we demand action. Take action today.

Please note, submissions will only appear on the map if you provide an address when filling out the form. To ensure your privacy, addressed submissions are only mapped to a broad neighbourhood area and don’t become visible until enough other people in your area also make the pledge. Individual addresses are NOT identifiable on this map. 

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Your phone number is required for verification purposes to send an email to the Prime Minister. 

We want to ensure every state allows the full suite of feral cat control tools, so that land managers have the best chance of driving down feral cat numbers. Roaming pet cats are also diminishing local populations of birds, small mammals and reptiles. We need to ensure Australia’s 4.9 million pet cats are kept safe at home and not allowed to roam.

Please show your support by taking the pledge today. Your pledge will be one of many that shows widespread support for action on cats to protect our wildlife.

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]