Donate
Donate
Donate

Support for Townsville Mayor’s call to finish the job on yellow crazy ants

The Invasive Species Council is backing calls from Townsville City Council for ongoing funding from the Queensland and Australian governments for the Townsville Yellow Crazy Ant program. 

At its meeting this morning, Townsville City Council voted unanimously to advocate for ongoing funding for this vital program.

‘We welcome Mayor Nick Dametto standing up for Townsville and adding his voice to calls for the funding needed to finish the job,’ Invasive Species Council Advocacy Director Reece Pianta said.

‘Townsville has made enormous progress against one of the world’s worst invasive species. Now governments need to make sure that progress isn’t lost because the funding runs out before eradication is complete.

‘Yellow crazy ants are not a problem local councils should ever be expected to tackle alone.

‘A decade ago, councils in north Queensland were overwhelmed by growing yellow crazy ant infestations. State and federal governments stepped in because they recognised this was a problem of national significance that required a properly funded, coordinated response.

‘Governments cannot now leave councils high and dry just as years of investment and painstaking work are putting eradication within reach.

‘Yellow crazy ants can form enormous supercolonies, overwhelm native wildlife and cause serious damage to ecosystems, agriculture and communities.

‘Once they become widely established, invasive species become vastly more difficult and expensive to control. That is why eradication programs need secure, long-term funding to see the job through.

‘We’ve already seen what sustained investment can achieve against yellow crazy ants in Cairns, where more than 1,255 hectares have been declared free of the ants.

‘Townsville now has the crews, knowledge and proven treatment methods needed to eradicate these ants. What it needs is funding certainty.

‘The Queensland and Australian governments have already invested heavily in this work. The worst possible outcome would be to pull funding before the job is finished and risk giving yellow crazy ants the opportunity to bounce back.

‘Mayor Dametto is right to call for both governments to back Townsville. They should commit the $24 million needed to finish eradication and protect the community and environment from yellow crazy ants for good.’

Townsville’s yellow crazy ant program is seeking $24 million over four years, split equally between the state and federal governments, to continue eradication efforts beyond 2027. Current federal funding is due to end before the monitoring required to formally declare infestation sites eradicated is complete.

The program has made significant progress, managing 57 infestation sites and treating more than 21,000 hectares since November 2023, with two-thirds of infestation sites now progressing into post-treatment monitoring.

Media inquiries: (02) 8006 5004

Related Content

Funding shortfall would unleash yellow crazy ant horror on Queensland’s Wet Tropics
Queensland’s 2-year yellow crazy ant funding a good start but full project funding still needed
LNP moves on yellow crazy ants, but long-term funding needed from all parties

Media ContactS

  • Andrew Cox, CEO
  • James Trezise, Conservation Director
  • Andrew Cox, CEO
    ‬
Media enquiries

Media signup

Name(Required)
Sign up to receive our media releases in your inbox.
To receive / keep receiving occasional email updates such as Feral Herald, our online blog.
This field is hidden when viewing the form

Recent Media Releases

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.

Donate Today

Do you need help?

Accordion Content

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.

Donate Now

If you are having trouble submitting a form, please read this guide.

Please fill out the following form and one of our team will be in contact to assist as soon as possible. Please make sure to include any helpful information, such as the device you were using (computer, tablet or mobile phone) and if known, your browser (Mozilla Firefox, Chrome, Safari etc)

"*" indicates required fields

Name*
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
Drop files here or
Accepted file types: jpg, gif, png, docx, doc, pdf, txt, Max. file size: 10 MB, Max. files: 4.

    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]