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Yellow crazy ants – Queensland comes to the party

The future of the Wet Tropics Management Authority’s Yellow Crazy Ant Eradication Program has been locked in with the Queensland Government locking in $9 million in funding to the project.
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Despite the extraordinarily special values of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, the effort to eradicate yellow crazy ants has been sporadic, slow and underfunded. Photo: David Wilson
Yellow crazy ants can destroy almost every living creature on a rainforest floor. Photo: David Wilson

We have exciting news! The Queensland Government has locked in $9 million over the next three years for the fight to protect the Cairns region and Australia’s Wet Tropics World Heritage Area from invasive yellow crazy ants.

The funding matches the $9.2 million set aside by the federal government in its 2019 budget, and together ensures the future of the Wet Tropics Management Authority’s Yellow Crazy Ant Eradication Program at least until 2022.

The Invasive Species Council worked closely with Cairns community groups, business leaders, cane farmers and local politicians to help secure the funding.

On the list of 100 of the world’s worst invasive species, yellow crazy ants have the potential to spread rapidly and devastate the unique fauna and flora of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.

Under threat is the oldest continuous surviving tropical rainforests on earth and the greatest biodiversity found anywhere in Australia. Rainforest Aboriginal people have managed these lands for the past 40,000 years.

Eighteen community, business and farming leaders signed an open letter to both the Queensland and federal governments calling for the funding commitments.

Paul Davis is managing director of Safeway Pest Control, a family-owned business that has worked in the Cairns region for more than two decades and whose clients include government, local councils and insterstate companies.

In the open letter he warned that he has never seen anything like yellow crazy ants in Far North Queensland.

“Eradicating yellow crazy ants from the region should not be considered an expense but an investment in the future of our region,” he said.

“It is an investment to curb the economic burden that will otherwise come at the expense of landholders as well as costing the region billions of dollars in agricultural losses, diminished land values and lost tourism revenue.”

Former Cairns mayor Jeff Pezzutti calls yellow crazy ants a silent, formidable enemy.

“I have seen the impacts of yellow crazy ants on sugar cane. Crazy ants cause diminished yields and financial losses to cane farmers.

“People outside the region have no idea of the damage they do. I am also concerned that yellow crazy ants destroy every living thing on the rainforest floor and along the creeks.”

While we were seeking funding for the remaining ten-years of eradication program, this three-year commitment at the requested level is welcomed and will ensure that the work can go on. The Invasive Species Council will be supporting a new funding bid for 2022.

Thanks to the hundreds of supporters who wrote to the Queensland and federal governments. Now it’s time to offer your congratulations.

Other yellow crazy ant news

  • Work continues on eradicating yellow crazy ants from Townsville. You can volunteer to assist the Invasive Species Council’s efforts with Townsville City Council to eradicate ants from the Nome area. Townsville council is treating ants in several other locations in Townsville.
  • Last month, Biosecurity Queensland confirmed a new outbreak of yellow crazy ants at Shute Harbour in the Whitsunday region. Whitsunday Regional Council are currently confirming the extent of the infestation. More info >>
  • Two yellow crazy ant infestations at Lismore and Terrania Creek in NSW are being treated by NSW Department of Primary Industries. The ants were first detected in May 2018 and now extensive monitoring is continuing, including the use of an odour detection dog. Movement restrictions for vegetation and soil remain in place within a 5km radius of Lismore CBD. More info >>

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Yellow crazy ants

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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]


    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]