Invasive species in Australia
[3][4] Management and the prevention of the introduction of new invasive species are key environmental and agricultural policy issues for the Australian federal and state governments.
[6] Australia was once part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana,[7] which also included South America, Africa, Arabia, India, Antarctica and Zealandia.
[citation needed] The destruction worked; however, the disease was once again detected in April 2018 and confirmed in May 2018 in Northern Territory and Western Australia.
They can be categorised in the following ways: Animals causing most public concern and economic and ecological damage include: Various programs exist to control invasive species in Australia.
A cane toad control program aims at preventing the spread of the species towards Darwin and Western Australia, and involves trapping.
[citation needed] At various times, bounties have been in place for invasive species such as wild-living domestic dogs (including the dingo) and fox.
The evaluation also found that a sustained annual reduction of 65% is required to achieve real declines in red fox populations.
[citation needed] The elm leaf beetle (Xanthogaleruca luteola), discovered in Victoria in 1989, devastates exotic elm trees,[40] themselves imported, and a parasite wasp species as well as the beetle's natural enemy the parasitic fly (Erynniopsis antennata) were in turn introduced in 2001 in an effort to control the pest.
[citation needed] The red imported fire ant in particular, with its venomous stings, poses a direct threat to human lifestyle.
Although control is extremely difficult and spread quickly, the species is currently effectively quarantined to South East Queensland.
[citation needed][42] The yellow crazy ant is currently quarantined to Christmas Island where it has had a significant environmental impact.
[44] Initially introduced to control locust plagues,[45] the Indian myna breeds prolifically in urban environments in the eastern states.
[48] Historically, control programs have struggled to curb the expansion and proliferation of invasive bird populations in Australia.
Since 2006, the Canberra Indian Myna Action Group (CIMAG) has implemented an effective control scheme, based upon large-scale trapping conducted by volunteers.
This has correlated with anecdotal evidence of increased nesting activity and prevalence of native species in the Canberra region.
[citation needed] A number of marine pests have arrived in Australia in the ballast water of cargo ships.
The Northern Pacific seastar in Tasmania, Inverloch, and Port Phillip has caused much localised environmental damage.
Rabbit haemorrhagic disease escaped containment from an Australian Government research facility and spread across Australia.
[56] The ISC are a policy, advocacy, lobbying, research, and outreach group on matters related invasive species.
Volunteer groups, such as SPRATS, have also made very significant contributions to fighting invasive species, in their case removing sea spurge from large areas of Tasmanian coastline.
[58] Herbivores in general may benefit local biodiversity by creating mosaics of vegetation and helping native plants to expand their ranges, and may contribute to decline wildfires; mega-herbivores most notably the feral camels may fill lost ecological niches of extinct Australian megafauna including Diprotodon and Palorchestes, where this may also apply for others (such as cattles and horses and donkeys and deers), and would also drop fire risk,[3][4][59][60][61] and smaller herbivores such as hog deer or feral goats may also suppress introduced grasses and wildfires.
Rabbits are next, at around A$2 billion, followed by fire ants, annual ryegrass, pigs, parthenium, foxes, ragwort, cucumis melons, and common heliotrope.
[71] The weakening of restrictions on importing raw produce into Australia mandated by the World Trade Organisation Future may pose risks of introducing exotic disease organisms.
