Invasive species include pest animals like feral cats and foxes, introduced marine pests, weeds, diseases, fungi and parasites, as well as insects from overseas like the European wasp.
Our Work | Photo: Frankzed, Flickr CC BY 2.0
Along with climate change and habitat loss, invasive species is a leading threat to Australia’s wildlife.
Australia has one of the worst animal extinction records in the world, due mainly to invasive species. We are notorious for having lost by far the highest number of mammals in recent times, with foxes, cats or rabbits implicated in most of these extinctions.
Many island birds have been wiped out by introduced rats, and an exotic fungus has killed off frogs.
And the pace of invasion is by no means slowing down. Just one exotic pathogen Phytophthora cinnamomi threatens hundreds of plant species found nowhere else in the world, foxes and cats threaten the existence of many more mammals, and goats, pigs, camels, deer and others are degrading vast areas.
Weeds are increasingly dominating numerous ecosystems, fundamentally altering their composition and function, and invading the habitat of threatened species.
The Invasive Species Council campaigns to strengthen laws and policies to prevent future invasions and better protect the Australian environment against these threats.
Tough biosecurity laws can stop dangerous new invasive species from calling Australia home.
A warming world will favour many weeds and feral animals in Australia, with wilder weather speeding up the pace of invasion.
Feral animals wreak tremendous damage on our wildlife, cats alone kill an estimated 75 million native animals across Australia every night.
People, wildlife, agriculture, infrastructure – no aspect of our lives is safe from the destructive power of invasive insects.
Islands are critical habitat for around one third of Australia’s threatened animal species but also especially at risk from invasive species.
If we want to protect what is most distinctive about Australia, the nature of Australia, we urgently need to address the threats facing facing our most vulnerable native species.
Volunteer with a local Bushcare group, demand government action, help us protect Australia’s cherished places and wildlife from invasive species.
Core to our work is protecting Australia's natural environment from harmful invasive species through prevention and early action.
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. The Invasive Species Council supports voting ‘YES’ for a Voice to Parliament.
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.
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.