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Yellow crazy ants – new hope for state and federal funds to protect wet tropics rainforests

Searching for yellow crazy ants in Queensland's wet tropics rainforests. Photoi: Jaana Dielenberg
Green Army Crew members spreading baits for yellow crazy ants in Queensland’s wet tropics rainforests. Photo: Jaana Dielenberg

There is new hope the Queensland and federal governments will come on board to tackle yellow crazy ants threatening to destroy Australia’s wet tropics rainforests.

The Queensland Government this week admitted it was wrong to walk away from the eradication of the highly invasive yellow crazy ants and is now calling on the Federal Government to back eradication of the ants from the wet tropics world heritage area.

In an article published in today’s Cairns Post, based on a letter from Queensland Treasurer Curtis Pitt to Leichhardt federal member, Warren Entsch, the treasurer asked for federal government support for the eradication of yellow crazy ants.

“This is a significant breakthrough,” Invasive Species Council CEO Andrew Cox said today.

“It was incredibly short-sighted when the eradication of yellow crazy ants was halted by the Newman Government in 2012 without a credible analysis of the consequences.”

Fortunately, eradication efforts to tackle the Cairns outbreak of yellow crazy ants were re-started in late 2013 after the Wet Tropics Management Authority received a $2 million federal government environmental grant. These funds will run out this year, leaving the yellow crazy ants to spread again and threaten the world heritage listed wet tropics rainforests if new funding is not committed.

“The Invasive Species Council agrees with the Queensland Palaszczuk Government that abandoning the yellow crazy ant eradication was a flawed decision.

“We warmly welcome the Queensland treasurer’s efforts to obtain federal government funding for the ant’s eradication.

“This shift in the Queensland Government’s position puts pressure on both the Queensland and federal governments to properly fund the eradication of yellow crazy ants.

“Eradicating yellow crazy ants is the right thing to do for Queensland’s wet tropics rainforests, for Cairns and Kuranda residents, for cane farmers and for the tourist industry.”

The Queensland treasurer’s electorate of Mulgrave extends south from Cairns and contains the worst yellow crazy ant outbreak at Edmonton.

“Yellow crazy ants have a devastating impact on wildlife, killing and consuming small animals, frogs, lizards and even bird chicks in areas where the ants have become established,” Mr Cox said.

 

Contact

  • Andrew Cox on 0438 588 040

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Yellow crazy ants

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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.

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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]