Invasive species

Boxthorn Blitz workshops are returning this year with a new addition aimed at strengthening the fight against the invasive African boxthorn. Following a recent partnership between the City of Greater Geraldton and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the first Boxthorn Blitz workshop will include a demonstration of the new African boxthorn biocontrol program.

The Animal Health in Australia (AHiA) Annual Report 2025 and the Animal Health in Australia System Report (Second Edition) are now available.

Grain Producers Australia (GPA) has secured a national emergency permit allowing grain growers to access stronger mouse bait as significant mouse numbers plague several states. Australian grain growers have been desperately calling for permits to access stronger mouse bait to tackle the growing problem, with the standard available bait proving inadequate. 

Grain growers are urged to check their paddocks for signs of mice, with reports of activity in SA, WA and parts of northern NSW. CSIRO rodent expert Steve Henry, who is one of the lead researchers on GRDC-supported investment into mouse management, is reminding growers that conditions are ripe for mouse breeding at this time of year.

Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Food and Member for Central Wheatbelt Lachlan Hunter has slammed Labor for siding with the Greens and the Animal Justice Party in support of a radical anti-farming agenda that would cripple wild dog control across regional WA ... The motion, moved by Hon Amanda Dorn MLC of the Animal Justice Party, called on the Government to remove dingoes as declared pests and end critical control measures including 1080 baiting and trapping.

Caitlin Menadue. Recent reports from farmers during the early stages of seeding have indicated an increase in locust activity across several cropping regions in South Australia, Grain Producers South Australia has warned. GPSA chief executive Brad Perry said producers from Yorke Peninsula, the Riverland, Eyre Peninsula and Flinders Ranges had reported locusts on farms.

Mike Gillam. On March 3 the Bureau of Meteorology recorded an impressive monsoon trough containing four tropical lows each with the potential to develop into a cyclone, hugging the coast of northern Australia ... Moths and butterflies are everywhere and I don’t believe it’s an exaggeration to say that every genus of plants is supporting at least one distinctive species of caterpillar.

Scenic Rim Regional Council is appealing to Tamborine Mountain residents to stop feeding and interacting with wild dogs, which are becoming a problem to the local community. As well as being illegal under the Biosecurity Act 2014, feeding wild dogs and encouraging them into community spaces poses a threat to residents, their pets and other wildlife by increasing the risk of attacks.

The recent Snow Gum Summit in Jindabyne has drawn attention to the health of this notable tree of the Australian alps. The causes or primary cause of widespread snow gum decline, with a particular focus on fire regimes, climate change and insects, and the appropriate response to this problem, are the subject of a considered exchange of differing views here between two experts from different generations but not entirely different schools or schools of thought.

They may look cute and cuddly, but these highly trained sniffer dogs mean business. Fire ant odour detection dogs and their handlers were mobilised in the Lockyer Valley last month to search for the highly invasive pest.

The controversial buffel grass permits announced by Environment Minister Joshua Burgoyne last week apply only to its importation from outside the NT. Once here, the use, propagation, selling and transport of the declared weed has blanket clearance on pastoral lease land, nearly half of the NT, as the Minister is due to approve.

Leading scientists have issued a dire warning that the widespread death of a key eucalypt species in Australian ecosystems could be imminent, due to global heating. Scientists from eminent institutions recently gathered at the Snow Gum Summit in Jindabyne to discuss combating the loss of an iconic tree of the Australian Alps, the Snow Gum.

After decades of government inaction, this is the tragic admission this week about Central Australia’s greatest environmental catastrophe: “Despite the very high risk rating of buffel grass it is considered that [it] cannot be feasibly eradicated from the NT at this time due to its widespread distribution and biological persistence.

The Finocchiaro CLP Government has finalised the Northern Territory Buffel Grass Weed Management Plan 2026-36, which provides certainty for pastoralists and outlines a strategic path forward to manage its impact on the environment into the future ... “Buffel grass creates significant challenges relating to fire and environmental management and is also an important feed source for pastoralists and their cattle,” said Mr Burgoyne.

Dr Brookhouse and the Snow Gum Summiteers (Snow gum dieback raises fears for largest river system) should look at the history and basic ecology of chronic eucalypt decline or so-called dieback ... Pests, parasites and diseases are symptoms and contributors, not causes of chronic eucalypt decline ... Chronic decline of eucalypts is not a consequence of climate change.

New research has revealed past land clearing is increasing the vulnerability of native Australian forests to the invasive myrtle rust disease — with regrowth forests emerging as hotspots for impact.

The Carp Herpes Virus (scientifically known as Cyprinid herpesvirus 3 or KHV) is a biological control agent proposed by the Australian government to combat the invasive common carp. Since its introduction in the 1800s, carp have decimated Australia's freshwater ecosystems, with experts estimating they make up 80 to 90 per cent of the fish biomass in the Murray-Darling Basin.

New data has revealed the NSW Government is contributing just ‘bits of bacon’ to the desperate effort to curb feral pigs, the state’s peak farm body says. Media reports of 53,000 feral pigs culled by authorities over the past year were dwarfed by the estimated tens of millions of the pests farmers were reporting in the paddock, NSW Farmers’ President Xavier Martin said.

Cane toads are predicted to invade Western Australia’s Pilbara region by 2041 if left unchecked, but the Northern Territory’s population of the pests hold key lessons that could save billions in eradication costs ... academics found the toxic creatures could colonise three quarters of the Pilbara, threatening 25 native species in the biodiversity hotspot.