@jhaue
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"These super pests stand to inhabit at least 97 per cent of this country."
"They're projected to cause more damage than cane toads, camels, foxes and feral pigs — all combined."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-18/america-lost-fire-ant-battle-will-australia-win/105520050
Repeated multiple stings can cause severe allergic reactions, which can be fatal for those with underlying conditions.
"You're going to have pustules develop on your skin, it's going to be super itchy."
"You scratch them, you break the pustule and there's a likelihood you're going to get the secondary infections."
A 2024 study published in the journal Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease found about a quarter of people stung developed an allergic reaction.
Fire ant fight escalates amid threats to biosecurity officers. #InvasiveSpecies #FireAnts #Biosecurity
The biosecurity officers' fight against fire ants and allegations of threats, harassment and stalking
A Glen Turner Déjà vu
“We’ve had threats of ‘If you come on my property, I’ll shoot you’. ‘If you try and come on my property, I’ll set my dog on you...Australian police are routinely escorting biosecurity officers onto private properties after they reported being threatened with dogs and guns. In cases when people were “incredibly hostile”, program staff would “proactively engage with the police to escort us and to keep the peace and to keep everyone safe in that environment, because we need to complete the treatment”
>>
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/03/fire-ants-australia-eradication-biosecurity-officers-queensland-ntwnfb
The environmental officer Glen Turner
was shot in Croppa Creek, near Moree in 2014 investigating illegal land clearing. "There is an interweaving between the physical murder of Glen Turner, and the ecological ‘murder’ of the brigalow through the voracious demand for agricultural land." Book review: ‘The Winter Road’ by Kate Holden
>>
https://residentjudge.com/2022/04/09/the-winter-road-by-kate-holden/
#conservation #biosecurity #FireAnts #InvasiveSpecies #BiosecurityOfficers #OHS #biodiversity #IllegalLandClearing #GlenTurner #violence #crime #Moree #GoldCoast #Grafton #SunshineCoast #LandOwnership #IndividualPropertyRights #PossessiveIndividualism #liberalism #pseudolaw #community #pests #EnvironmentalImpacts #insecticide #EnvironmentalLaws #NSW
Eradication scramble as fire ants discovered at Sunshine Coast house: Authorities are investigating how fire ants came to be at a rural subdivision but say it is likely they arrived in mulch, plants, turf or soil. https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2025-01-23/fire-ant-outbreak-sunshine-coast-north-arm-estate/104846262?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #SunshineCoast #fireants #invasive
Fire ant bait opponents face sting of the law as Queensland police called in
Tensions ramp up between authorities and property owners who don’t want chemical treatment spread on their land
Do we really need to have NIMBYs and cookers for everything?
The blacklight trap we set up the other night at UT Hill Country Field Station brought in a lot of insects, and a nearby fire ant colony took advantage of the bounty. This worker had quite a selection of little beetles to prey on; they seemed to prefer the heterocerids.
Watch "I Battled An Outbreak of Flying Fire Ants In My Home and Giant Rainforest Vivarium" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/W1RiAgRmBK4?si=VWVcmPrKqq9hiagh
> A swarm of fire ants had a nuptial flight in my home.
#AntsCanada #Vivarium #Pantdora #animals #Terrarium #Rainforest #RainforestVivarium #FireAnts #NuptialFlight
#Texas #SantaFe #Police #LawEnforcement
#FireAnts #Torture #video
Hey, Santa Fe PD,
Sgt. Ruben #Espinoza and officer Christian #Garranza are bad cops, unkind neighbors, and are not good people.
https://www.galvnews.com/news/santa-fe-woman-suing-city-over-fire-ant-bites-demands-better-police-training/article_763a0ce6-8d6b-523a-89fd-ff8936de8983.html
Ant geopolitics
https://aeon.co/essays/the-strange-and-turbulent-global-world-of-ant-geopolitics
Report red imported fire ants (Solenopsis invicta)
Information about fire ants and stopping their spread in NSW
https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/dpi/bfs/insect-pests/rifa
‘Wildly toxic’ poison used on fire ants is killing native Australian animals, experts warn Senate inquiry. Fipronil is banned for use on crops in the EU, China, Vietnam and California
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/16/fipronil-fire-ant-poison-toxic-senate-inquiry-bans
Human-mediated dispersal of ants
How ants are breaking down biogeographic boundaries and homogenizing biodiversity
"Our impact on biodiversity is overriding the biogeographical patterns resulting from millions of years of evolution, and disproportionately affecting the tropics and the islands."
https://phys.org/news/2024-03-ants-biogeographic-boundaries-homogenizing-biodiversity.html
#ants #SolenopsisInvicta #FireAnts #pests #InvasiveSpecies #biosecurity #trade #NSW #wildlife #BellingenShire #Fipronil #pesticide
Fire ants are REALLY bad this year. They're everywhere, and right along several of our walkways in the yard. I've been using some fire ant powder to kill them but it's not working, one bed will die and another will pop up near it. What do people use to actually kill the queen? #FireAnts #Gardening
Inside a nest of red imported fire ants, Solenopsis invicta. Here, a small adult worker ant tends to piles of developing pupae.
#FireAnts
The venomous invader threatening koalas and platypuses https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/koalas-echidnas-at-risk-if-fire-ants-aren-t-eradicated-20240202-p5f21f.html
So imagine my horrors when I read in Liberation that pastoral Europe, the Europe of picnics, prime vacation and retirement spot for cavemen in the paleolithic, the Europe of my teendreams, is going going gone. Fire ants have landed. In fact, there are now metros of them in Sicily.
“In September, an article in Current Biology revealed the presence of 88 nests near Syracuse. #fireants #climatechange https://limitedinc.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-end-of-european-pastoral.html
FIRE ANT BREAKOUT!
Repeated fire-ant breakouts beyond Queensland are spurring warnings that the potentially deadly pest will spread across the country unless eradication efforts are stepped up.
Recent discoveries of nests in the NSW Northern Rivers region, including one south of Ballina last week, as well as last year’s detection of a fire-ant queen on a freight pallet in Melbourne, highlight the increasing national threat.
#AureFreePress #Australia #fireants
You know those little itchy blisters on your fingers that you get sometimes when you have fire ants living in your mulch? I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to be biting them open with my teeth so that they will stop itching and heal faster, and yet, here we are. #PracticalMedicine #FireAnts #Blisters #Remedy #Mulch
Update: #FireAnts so many fire ants
