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Yellow crazy ants eradication funded

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Yellow Crazy Ants
Yellow crazy ants and other similar ants from the tramp ant family will keep entering Australia via timber yards and ports unless our biosecurity system gets better at prevention. Photo: John Tann / Flickr

The Invasive Species Council has praised Federal Environment Minister, Greg Hunt, for providing $2 million for a 5-year eradication program of yellow crazy ants after the Queensland Government withdrew funds late in 2012.

This project will have long-term benefits for the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area if the yellow crazy ants are eradicated.

Eradication of yellow crazy ants must be a high priority because of the ants’ potential for causing extreme environmental harm, the knock-on damage for ecotourism, reduced agricultural and horticultural yields and high future costs to government and industry for containment and control programs. The ants are on the World Conservation Union’s list of ‘100 of the World’s Worst Invasive Alien Species’.

The Wet Tropics World Heritage Area is at particular risk because moist lowland tropical forest is preferred habitat for the ants. If the ants become widespread and super-colonies establish, the resulting decline in birds would compromise tourism. Birdwatchers make up a substantial proportion of the ecotourism market in the Wet Tropics. Yellow crazy ants would also impact on horticultural industry. They reduce yields of sugarcane, coffee and coconut crops by nesting at the base of these plants and exposing the roots to disease. By farming sap-sucking bugs, they promote sooty mould disease in fruit trees. They also kill young animals, including chickens and pigs.

Yellow crazy ants are ideal candidates for eradication because infestations do not spread as easily (since the queens cannot fly) and most of the Queensland infestations are small and confined to industrial precincts. The investment in yellow crazy ant eradication would yield high returns because of the future ongoing costs and damage avoided. It would be a sound investment in the future of Queensland’s environment, national parks, tourism and agriculture.

The $2M was provided to the Wet Tropics Management Authority in November 2013 for the eradication of yellow crazy ants from Queensland under the Caring for our Country grants program.

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Yellow crazy ants

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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]