Proliferation of animal pests

An outbreak of invasive fire ants in one of the largest catchments of the Murray-Darling Basin has experts worried four states could be in the firing line if the pest spreads.
The Invasive Species Council said the National Fire Ant Eradication Program advised on April 16 that one fire ant nest had been detected at Swartz Barracks, an army aviation training centre about 30 kilometres west of Toowoomba in southern Queensland.
Invasive Species Council advocacy manager Jack Gough said 110 nests had since been confirmed at the base, which sits in the Condamine-Balonne river system and feeds into the basin.
"We've long been warning about fire ants getting into the Murray-Darling Basin system as a big red light flashing," he said.
"This is really serious outbreak."
The ABC has contacted Minister for Defence Richard Marles' office for comment, but has not yet received a response.
Toowoomba region Deputy Mayor Rebecca Vonhoff, whose family has farmed on the Darling Downs for five generations, said residents were troubled by the detection.
"I think there's concern about how this happened and that remains an open question at the moment," she said.
"People really don't want it here, they want it to be eradicated."
She said the social and economic impact could be disastrous if it was not contained.
"It would just completely change day-to-day life," she said.
"Economically I think the impact is in the order of billions of dollars, so it's absolutely huge."

Rising rivers, rising threat
Fire ants are known for their ability to "raft" during heavy rain and floods, forming floating colonies that can travel hundreds of kilometres through river systems.
Parts of the Condamine and Balonne Rivers, including Oakey Creek to the south of the base, have been in and out of major flood for months after receiving heavy rain in January and February in the upper catchment.
The final flooding warning in Queensland was issued on April 24, as the water moved into rivers in New South Wales that then flow though the basin into Victoria and South Australia.
Federal National Party leader David Littleproud said it was an "extremely concerning" detection.
"If fire ants get up above the Great Dividing Range, it could potentially get into the Murray-Darling Basin and that could effectively see the fire ants go right down to Adelaide," he said.
"It would impact the whole country and have devastating consequences."
Mr Gough said finding the nests outside of the control zone and in a high risk area should highlight the need to boost funding for the program, which had recently been reviewed by a Senate committee.
"The number and density of those nests … suggests that the fire ants have been there a number of years," he said.
He said that suggested there had been a massive failure of surveillance by the Department of Defence."
"This is a government agency, they should be leading the way in … checking if there are fire ants on their land," he said.
"Clearly they have not done that to the level it's required."

How did this happen?
The National Fire Ant Eradication Program is funded by the federal, state and territory governments, but is delivered by Biosecurity Queensland.
In a statement, executive program director Ashley Bacon said compliance and tracing investigations were attempting to determine how the ants arrived in the area.
"This detection is concerning, but we do have procedures in place deal with it," she said.
"We have managed outlier detections before, and we will do it again."
She said eradication activities including treatment and surveillance would take place five kilometres out from detection sites to ensure no undetected fire ants remained.
While the source was not confirmed, Mr Gough said Defence bases were high risk for spreading pests because of the volume of traffic.
"Because it's an air base, there is the possibility that this is actually a separate infestation," he said.
"But we don't know that yet. It could be from the Brisbane — we do know that fire ants have turned up at other ports of entry."
Fire ants had previously been detected at Kleinton, 30 kilometres east of Oakey, in 2023.
Cr Vonhoff said containment teams were doing terrific work but funding the eradication program needed to be a priority.
"I think that there needs to be a bit of humility also to say, at the very least, is this working," she said.
"Because two instances within 12 months, where previously there hadn't been fire ants detected … something needs to be done differently and it does need to be a priority."
She urged residents to be vigilant and raise their concerns with authorities.
"People's voices matter … this is something that will impact life if we can't get it under control and push back," she said.
"We're at the point where we're not eradicating and I have questions, are we even containing?
"[Eradication] needs to be properly funded and resourced so that those fire ants can be not just pushed back but eliminated."