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Support our work: Help stop Australia’s extinction crisis

How to Help  |  Photo: Australian Alps collection, Parks Australia

Australia is facing an invasive species led extinction crisis.

Research by 12 ecologists has revealed a disturbing truth, that invasive species are driving more than 80 per cent of our most vulnerable native plants and animals towards extinction.

That’s right, 1257 of Australia’s listed threatened species are now on death row because of environmental invaders like feral cats, rabbits, weeds and the killer plant disease Phytophthora.

It’s heartbreaking, but we’ve listed every one of them on our extinction crisis poster, which you can download for free.

The corroboree frog is just one of more than 1200 Australian species being driven towards extinction by invasive species.
 

Can you help us stop Australia’s extinction crisis by donating today?

The research was led by the University of Queensland’s Stephen Kearney and paints a grim future for Australia’s native plants and animals if we don’t throw everything we’ve got at one of nature’s greatest and most immediate threats, invasive species.

Some of our Aussie battlers, like the mountain pygmy-possum, are easy to love, they fit our idea of cute, beautiful, iconic or precious. Others, like the Christmas Island red crab, might be  harder to love, but their survival is just as important.

We need to grow stronger

Our voice has never been stronger in the halls of Canberra and at a state level, but we need to grow stronger. In the past 12 months alone we have:

  • Led the charge against the decision to protect destructive feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park by kick-starting and leading the Reclaim Kosci campaign.
  • Joined forces with farmers, local councils, industry groups and others to ensure a $9.2 million commitment from the major parties contesting the federal election to eradicate yellow crazy ants from Queensland’s Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.
  • Helped create a new national Office of Environmental Biosecurity within the federal government to better prevent invasive species from entering Australia.
  • Played a major role in creating a new levy on shipping imports that will fund improved environmental biosecurity.

These wins have been massive gains in the fight against invasive species and demonstrate that we can work with all sides of politics at all levels of government.

None of this would have been possible without the financial aid of our supporters, people who understand the huge threat invasive species pose to Australia’s incredible, but vulnerable, native plants and wildlife.

What’s at risk?

Let’s not forget what we’re fighting for – four out of every five threatened Australian native species are being driven towards extinction by feral animals, weeds and diseases, and the situation will worsen.

Any donation you can make today will help us step up our fight against invasive species and make our voice even stronger right across Australia. We must put a stop to Australia’s extinction crisis!

Can you make a tax-deductible donation today and help fuel our fight?

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]