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pestcontrolnoosa.com.au

What Noosa keeps out, removes, holds and lives with

Noosa Shire puts its answer to a pest in writing, and the answers run from outside the shire to inside a house.

General information from Noosa Council and the Queensland Government, from the pages linked at the foot of this page.

Noosa Shire's four answers to pests, drawn as four nested rings on paper. Outermost, KEEP OUT, holding fire ants. Next, REMOVE, the plants the plan could clear from the shire, and then CONTAIN, the plants a landowner must hold on their land. Innermost, LIVE WITH, holding the saltmarsh mosquito and the biting midge. At the centre, a brown square, THE HOUSE. It is a diagram, not a map, and it is drawn in order rather than to scale. Each ring's label opens a guide. KEEP OUT a sighting goes to the national program Fire ants. Noosa Council: “We don’t want them in Noosa Shire.” five invasive plant species already brought under control REMOVE cleared only with residents and landowners 10 priority invasive plants that could potentially be eradicated CONTAIN the landowner keeps it on their property landowners must control invasive species on their land LIVE WITH the marsh is treated the yard is yours saltmarsh mosquito biting midge THE HOUSE and the one protected animal a licensed technician Four answers, drawn in order. A diagram, not a map.
Noosa Shire's four answers to pests, as four bands indented one inside the next, from KEEP OUT at the top through REMOVE and CONTAIN to LIVE WITH, with THE HOUSE last. It is a diagram, not a map. Each band opens its guide. KEEP OUT a sighting goes to the national program Fire ants. Noosa Council: “We don’t want them in Noosa Shire.” five invasive plant species already brought under control REMOVE cleared only with residents and landowners 10 priority invasive plants that could potentially be eradicated CONTAIN the landowner keeps it on their property landowners must control invasive species on their land LIVE WITH the marsh is treated; the yard is yours the saltmarsh mosquito the biting midge THE HOUSE a licensed technician and the one protected animal
Four answers, drawn in order. A diagram, not a map.

Four answers, from the shire line to the house

Outermost, beyond the shire line

Keep out

Noosa Council keeps a page of its own on fire ants, and it opens with the risk rather than with a programme. It says the ants are a serious threat to lifestyle, public safety, the environment and the economy, and that they have the potential to get in the way of ordinary things such as a barbecue or a picnic. A nest is either a dome-shaped mound or a flat patch that looks like a little disturbed soil, and it has no obvious entry or exit holes. The same page says a recent infestation turned up not far from the shire boundary, and the council's position is plain: “We don’t want them in Noosa Shire.”

Under Queensland's Biosecurity Act 2014, fire ants are a category 1 restricted pest, and biosecurity zones are in place in parts of the state to restrict the movement of the material that carries them.

The work here belongs to the national program: a sighting in Queensland is reported to it on 132 ANT, 13 22 68, within 24 hours of the sighting, or online at fireants.org.au.

Fire ants, and what to look for in a yard

Second, already in the shire

Remove

The plan's second list is of plants already in the shire that could be cleared from it: its fact sheet names 10 priority invasive species found in Noosa Shire that, with concerted effort, could potentially be eradicated, and says this can only be done with the cooperation of residents and landowners.

What the Noosa Biosecurity Plan asks of a landowner

Third, the landowner's duty

Contain

Where containment is the answer, the requirement falls on the land itself: the plan requires a landowner to contain the listed species on their own property, and its reach is all land within Noosa's local government area.

The plan itself is a duty the Biosecurity Act 2014 puts on every local government, and Noosa's plan is one of the key actions of the Noosa Environment Strategy 2019. It sets out 14 management actions, among them better knowledge of where invasive species are and how many there are, raising awareness in the community, more management of wild dogs in areas of koala habitat, and a look at other ways of controlling pests.

What the Noosa Biosecurity Plan asks of a landowner

Innermost, in the river's own marsh

Live with

Two biters live in the inter-tidal and mangrove marsh of the Noosa River, and the council answers them rather than removing them. Its aircraft treat the marsh for saltmarsh mosquito larvae after rain or a tide, and the council says plainly that some breeding places cannot be treated at all, naming bird baths and pot plant bases among them.

The biting midge shares the marsh, and on it the council is blunter again: midges carry no disease to people, there is no registered larvicide for them while their larvae live in an inter-tidal zone, and the council counts them among the most complicated pests to control.

The council treats the marsh from the air, and the water that collects at home is the householder's to empty. The council's own line is that not every breeding place can be treated.

Why the council cannot stop the mosquitoes

Which of the two biters is biting at dusk

Inside the house

A pest management activity that uses a pesticide or a fumigant may only be done by a person who holds a current pest management licence, and Queensland Health says the reason is plain: the pesticides a technician uses can be hazardous to people and to pets, so anyone treating a property for a fee has to be licensed.

A licence is not a single permission. It names the activities its holder may carry out, which the regulator calls authorisations, and the technician's card is a photographic identity card giving the name, the licence number, the dates of issue and expiry, and the kind of activity the person may carry out. Where the work involves termites, there is a second licence to ask about, the Queensland Building and Construction Commission licence.

Two notices, before and after

Queensland's pest management regulation sets out two notices for a treatment at a customer's place: a pre-treatment pest control advice, given before the activity starts, and a post-treatment advice, which the licensed technician must date and sign.

One duty under the two

Under the Biosecurity Act 2014, public and private landowners share the responsibility for managing the plant and animal pests on their land, because an invasive species threatens agriculture, biodiversity and the community. Council's customer service centre answers questions about the plan on 5329 6500.

Where to get help with a poison

Queensland's Poisons Information Centre gives fast poisoning advice at any hour, from anywhere in Australia, and it prints its own first-aid line in full: “Call Triple Zero (000) if someone has collapsed or isn't breathing. Otherwise, call us on 13 11 26 for advice.”

Business Queensland records that a fire ant sting can, in rare cases, cause a severe acute allergic reaction. For anyone who may be having anaphylaxis, healthdirect’s advice is to use an adrenaline autoinjector (if one is to hand) and ring triple zero (000) for an ambulance. A sighting itself is reported to the national program on 132 ANT, 13 22 68, within 24 hours.