Northern New South Wales is on alert for one of the world's most invasive pests red imported fire ants. In south-east Queensland the deadly ants have been contained to an area of 750-thousand hectares. Authorities are concerned that eradication will be difficult especially if they reach the Murray Darling Basin.
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00:00 Fire ant stings can be fatal for pets, livestock and even people.
00:06 Queensland cane farmer Greg Ziff knows all too well what it feels like to be bitten.
00:11 Pretty sharp and intense.
00:14 And then what actually happens afterwards is those bites hang around on the back of
00:18 your hand and they actually fester up.
00:21 The current infestation covers a large area of south east Queensland and its proximity
00:27 to the border has NSW authorities worried.
00:30 Communities, farmers and tourism operators are all at risk.
00:35 We can't send our agricultural produce out, we can't send, people can't come to this
00:41 area freely if we have fire ants.
00:43 The state government has committed $95 million towards eradication efforts.
00:49 They can form clusters and actually swim through water so we're monitoring that but we also
00:55 need to make sure that people are paying attention to the products that they're bringing across
00:58 the border.
00:59 That could be anything from straw, baled straw, turf, soil, it's also machinery as well.
01:06 Authorities here say they're serious about enforcing the rules.
01:10 Individuals face fines of more than $1 million, double that for corporations and prison terms
01:16 of up to three years.
01:18 Detection dogs like Jet will be on the front line once they're trained.
01:23 We're starting out with experienced high end Springer Spaniel detection dogs that are ready
01:29 to go in the imprint process.
01:31 They're hoping all the measures combined will be enough to stop fire ants in their tracks.
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