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Australia has a truly excruciating record with beating invasive species. Cane toads, Crown of Thorns starfish, you name it; Australian biosecurity isn’t something we can take for granted. Now it’s fire ants and all the failed patterns seem to be repeating.
Fire ants are famously invasive. The Fire Ant Republic in the southern US is a testimony to their durability. In Australia, they’ve been devastating south-eastern Queensland for years. They destroy entire environments. They trash gardens.
…And Australia has been duly and overly laboriously plodding along with what seems to be a “containment” policy. The various policies for managing fire ants are conducted at state level.
That seems a spectacularly low-key response for what could well become a national problem. Fire ants can travel in any kind of shipment. They can simply expand by creating new colonies in mating season.
This time, we can’t even claim ignorance. The threats are well understood. There’s no lack of information. There’s even a fairly strong lobby for control of the fire ants, a fundamental change with reporting and supporting the eradication of invasive species.
They’re very obviously not being eradicated. The “invaded” area is huge. It requires management. Management costs money. The standard practice of allowing a program budget to derail the object of the program is in full force.
What’s not clear is what strategies are being used for eradication. Whatever they are, they’re obviously not working. The officially stated threat has been getting bigger, but the situation on the ground is anything but clear.
That’s not a good sign. In Australia, if a biosecurity problem turns into folklore, it becomes part of the furniture and failure is inevitable. That’s what happened with the cane toads.
This is not a matter of throwing money around. Any dollar spent will be worth at least ten dollars in future damage prevention. The big question is whether money is being spent on effective methods. From the ongoing spread of the fire ants, apparently that’s not the case.
The usual mainstream methods for control are pretty simple. “Homing missiles” targeting nests are the standard methodology. That’s fine if you can find the nests. Not so good in rough scrubland. Actual eradication also has to be confirmed. Missing the targets is easy enough, too.
There are other options:
Sabotaging pheromone trails. Ants are totally reliant on these trails. Their chemistry is very specific and delicate. Any persistent chemical agent can disrupt them. The only issue is finding a safe chemical agent. This could be a simple spray over-the-counter for home residents and council usage. Spray once a month, perhaps.
Physical eradication. Simply locating and destroying nests around the clock. A significant reduction in population will also reduce the capacity for expansion. Of course, it costs money. So will decontaminating everything infested with fire ants nationwide. The difference is that decontamination will cost far more.
Fighting invasive ants with invasive ants. One of Australia’s acquired pests is the famous Argentine ant. Now long-established in Australia, supercolonies of these very aggressive little ants could be a serious obstacle to fire ants. Argentine ant supercolonies can be truly gigantic in numbers.
Research into new eradication methodologies. We have good science to do this research. If we can come up with a way of beating the fire ants, it’d be worth billions. Why isn’t that happening? Or is it happening, and as usual in Australia, science doesn’t get a mention?
There’s one option – Win.
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