Fire ants spread on brick pallet to five central Queensland mine sites
By Bryn Wakefield and Liam O'Connell

There are fears further outbreaks in central Queensland could take resources away from the main fire ant stronghold in the state's south-east.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-19/fire-ant-nests-detected-at-five-queensland-mine-sites/105670232

#InvasiveSpecies #Biosecurity #EnvironmentalManagement #BrynWakefield #LiamOConnell

Territory mangoes to flow back into WA as agreement reached on fruit fly
By Christine Schindler

Northern Territory mangoes can freely flow into Western Australia after the regions agreed on a new fruit fly management protocol, weeks out from the NT mango harvest.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2025-08-17/northern-territory-mangoes-allowed-back-into-western-australia/105657246

#FruitGrowing #HorticultureIndustry #Biosecurity #PestsHorticulture #RuralandRemoteCommunities #ChristineSchindler

Lessons from New Zealand's experience with potato mop-top virus
By Ellen Coulter

Potato mop-top virus was detected in New Zealand seven years ago. With the virus now present in Tasmania, what can we learn from the response across the Tasman?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-14/what-can-we-learn-from-new-zealand-potato-mop-top-virus/105651230

#Biosecurity #AgriculturalCrops #EllenCoulter

Virus 'previously exotic to Australia' found in Tasmanian potatoes
By Georgia Hogge and Monty Jacka

Mop-top potato virus, which does not harm humans, has been found in multiple potatoes on a Tasmanian farm — a first for Australia.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-13/biosecurity-tasmania-first-potato-mop-top-virus/105647342

#Biosecurity #AgriculturalPestControl #PestsHorticulture #GeorgiaHogge #MontyJacka

Fence-cutting trespassers endanger cattle and nearby highway drivers

Farmers in southern Western Australia say trespassers who cut fences to enter private land for hunting and camping…
#NewsBeep #News #Headlines #albanynews #AU #Australia #biosecurity #Camping #farmfencing #farmtrespass #fencecutting #fencedamage #hunting #southwestnews #wanews
https://www.newsbeep.com/54648/

Today I was teaching a lecture about environmental weeds, for our Applied Ecology and Conservation course at #LincolnUniversityNZ. I showed the class the "Environmental weeds in New Zealand" project on #iNaturalist. That was made by staff at the #DepartmentofConservation to gather observations of DOC's 386 weed species.

These are the plants that DOC has assessed as being fully naturalised wild exotics, already present in natural ecosystems, and likely to be having more than minor impacts on NZ ecosystems. iNat currently has 199,588 observations of 379 of these species.

On a whim, in class I decided to see how many of these environmental weeds were present on the university campus.

Was it 10? Maybe 20?

No, 109 species.

Like a lot of urban and rural areas in NZ, our campus is a reservoir of weeds.

https://inaturalist.nz/projects/environmental-weeds-in-new-zealand

https://inaturalist.nz/observations?place_id=67596&project_id=environmental-weeds-in-new-zealand&subview=map&verifiable=any

#nz #weeds #InvasiveSpecies #biosecurity