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Invasive Weeds, Pests and Diseases: Solutions to Secure Australia

While Australia is among the world leaders in airport, marine and weed biosecurity, in this fast-changing world evidence is mounting that we are not securing Australia properly. Pests are invading or spreading in unacceptable numbers.

Few problems confronting Australia match this one in size. The 2004 Senate inquiry into invasive species came to the conclusion that ‘the scale of the problem is enormous and the challenges daunting’. Yet most politicians do not rank invasive species highly. They assume our current policies work.

The report argues that Australia lacks a coherent framework for tackling those plant, animal and disease invaders already in Australia, resulting in large numbers of invasive species slipping between the cracks of mismatched State and Territory laws and policies.

Australia’s biosecurity shield that protect us from weeds, pests and diseases has gaping holes, especially in Australia’s post-border biosecurity system. These holes include quarantine law lists that still permit many invasive fish species to be legally imported, no comprehensive early warning surveillance, an ineffective national regulatory approach to tackling weeds, pests and diseases, inadequate contingency plans for environmental weeds, pests and diseases, a deficient approach to invertebrates, lost opportunities for integrated control of both agricultural and environmental pests, the legal sale of major weeds, inadequate funding for environmental weeds and pests, inadequate protocols to decide eradication priorities, poor sharing of information and lack of community awareness.

In December 2004 Australian, State and Territory governments agreed to develop a ‘robust’ National Framework to Prevent and Control Invasive Species. This report proposes if such a framework is created that it should consist of the following elements:

  1. National institutions (including a lead Australian Government body) dedicated to invasive species
  2. A coherent policy framework
  3. A strong regulatory framework
  4. A seamless and stream-lined response framework
  5. A national framework for prevention and early detection
  6. A national education, training and action program
  7. A national information system
  8. A fund for strategic research
  9. Equitable industry contributions to improve detection and eradication
  10. Cost-sharing arrangements to fund detection and eradication of both environmental and agricultural threats

The report was prepared by the Australian Biosecurity Group and published in 2005. The Australian Biosecurity Group consists of the Cooperative Research Centre for Weed Management, the Cooperative Research Centre for Invasive Animals  and WWF-Australia.

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Save the Snowies

The NSW government is one step away from allowing aerial control of feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park. This is huge news and a crucial step for our threatened native wildlife and the fragile alpine ecosystems they call home.

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]