Electric ants, on the cusp of eradication

Biosecurity Queensland is on the cusp of eradicating electric ants, the only thing holding it back from full eradication is a final push that needs federal and state funding.
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Although tiny electric ants pack a powerful sting and can establish colonies anywhere. Photo: Roby Edrian (CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0)
Although tiny electric ants pack a powerful sting and can establish colonies anywhere. Photo: Roby Edrian (CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0)

Biosecurity Queensland’s electric ant eradication program, based in Cairns, has successfully eradicated more than 90% of Australia’s only infestation after years of baiting and monitoring, but all this effort could be wasted unless the job is finished.

The electric ant program is an unsung success story in biosecurity responses to toehold invaders. It is a model for the kind of commitment that needs to be brought to bear on a similar invader, the deadly red fire ant.

Since 2006, the small team based in far north Queensland has had great success integrating baits, traps, detection dogs, community awareness and research to develop innovative responses to electric ants.

The expansion of electric ants is slow. They rely on humans to rapidly spread – usually through the illegal dumping of household waste or the swapping and sharing of potted plants.

The ants are tiny, much smaller than fire ants or yellow crazy ants, but pack a powerful sting and can disrupt and displace other species. Electric ants can establish colonies anywhere and usually do not have visible nesting locations. They can form dense populations disrupting fields and backyards and because they can survive in water will sting swimmers, even in backyard pools.

Our outreach officer Reece Pianta is shown the ropes with electric ant sniffer dog Eden and her handler.
Our outreach officer Reece Pianta is shown the ropes with electric ant sniffer dog Eden and her handler Tom Lawton.

Let’s finish the job

Despite the electric ant program’s success, or perhaps because of it, state and federal funding ran out late last year. This threatens all the achievements of the program to date.

With less than a dozen localised infestation sites remaining the program is now in a holding pattern. If funding is not found we could see the re-emergence of electric ant populations, wasting the investment to date and making future eradication potentially much more expensive.

For now the Queensland Government is providing funds to continue vital surveillance and containment work while it makes the case for new national funding. The lack of a determined and sustained response is a key factor in biosecurity response failures in Australia and electric ants serve as our most recent example.

Past experience shows that the eradication of the last few percent of an infestation is the most expensive and time consuming part of any program due higher levels of surveillance and lower ease of detection.

Evidence of this can be seen in the red fire ant eradication effort. The initial success resulted in a reduction in funding and staffing levels. In hindsight, this decision proved extremely costly. The fire ants spread and now we are faced with a multi-billion-dollar economic threat and a $380 million eradication cost.

The Invasive Species Council is pushing for a new national and state funding commitment for the final stage of the electric ant eradication effort. Biosecurity Queensland needs the funds to finish the electric ant eradication.

Success with electric ants will build confidence in the ability of Biosecurity Queensland to handle the much larger southeast fire ant eradication program, which all states will be asked to fund in May this year.

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    Dear Project Team,

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    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,
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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]