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Ant supercolonies risk turning Australia into environmental basketcase

Invading ant supercolonies are threatening to turn Australia into an environmental, agricultural and social basketcase, the Invasive Species Council warned today.

“If Australia fails to tackle growing supercolonies of red imported fire ants in Queensland their presence in our cities and rural areas will radically alter our way of life,” the council’s CEO Andrew Cox said today.

“These supercolonies could threaten nearly all aspects of agricultural life in Australia, fundamentally change our easy-going outdoor lifestyle and irrevocably transform our landscapes.

“In the southern US state of Texas people in fire-ant infested areas are talking about an ecological meltdown. They are too afraid to have picnics on the grass, go barefoot, or even stand in one place without constantly worrying about fire ants swarming up their legs and stinging them multiple times.”

The fears follow warnings published today in The Australian by biologist and author Tim Low who says fire ants could eventually invade 90 per cent of urban Australia.

“In the US they cause such unlikely problems as fires, potholes, computer failures, crop losses and blindings of farm animals. More than 80 people have died from the stings, mainly of anaphylactic shock,” he says.

Mr Low says other nasty ants have invaded Australia in recent years, including electric ants, which attack people in their swimming pools, and yellow crazy ants, which have killed more than 10 million red land crabs and hastened the extinction of a bat and lizard species on Christmas Island.

It is now feared that if yellow crazy ants south of Cairns are not stopped the devastation they have wrought on Christmas Island could be replicated across across large areas of Australia..

“Australia has already suffered too much from past mistakes by allowing the fox, rabbit and cane toad to get out of control,” Invasive Species Council CEO Andrew Cox said.

“We have to learn from past mistakes and eradicate dangerous new invasive species before they drive new waves of extinctions.”

The Australian Parliament will put in place new laws to stop dangerous invasive species from entering the country and threatening native plants and wildlife, human health and agriculture.

The new laws will replace the Quarantine Act 1908, and are expected to be passed by the Senate in May or June 2015.

The historic bill will determine whether or not Australia is properly protected from invasion by dangerous new weeds, feral animals and other harmful species such as red imported fire ants.

The Invasive Species Council is calling on Labor and Senate cross-benchers to improve the Biosecurity Bill before it is passed into law.

More info

Contact

Andrew Cox on 0438 588 040

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Your support to protect critically endangered and vulnerable species from extinction is vital. Together, we can ensure governments prioritise action on invasive species and protect our wildlife and iconic places.

The Invasive Species Council was formed in 2002 to seek stronger laws, policies and programs to protect nature from harmful pests, weeds and diseases.

The Invasive Species Council acknowledges the Traditional Custodians throughout Australia and their connections to land and sea. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.

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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]