LANDHOLDER SERIES -PROPERTY PLANNINGPest Species In the booklet Feral animals of Tasmania, feral animals are identified as one of the biggest threats to biodiversity in the State. “They threaten native animals and plants through predation, competition for food and habitat, habitat destruction, spreading weeds and diseases, and hybridising or cross-breeding with them, compromising their genetic integrity”. The Australian Pest Animal Strategy identified that 11 of Australia’s major pest animal species “are conservatively estimated to have impacts valued at over $720 million annually”. The number of naturalised species that become pests (those species that pose a threat to human health, primary production and/or the natural environment) and environmental pests (those pests that specifically impact on environmental values) in Tasmania, 2001 is shown in Table 1 below. The State of the Environment Report notes that “Not all naturalised species become pests and not all pests become environmental pests.”
Image: Alison Towerton courtesy of Invasive Animals CRC
Table 1 Naturalised and environmental pests in Tasmania in 2001
Naturalised animals
Pests
Environmental pests
Vertebrates 60
Environmental pest list 15 mammals
32 (of 60)
32 (of 32)
12 birds 5 freshwater fish
Invertebrates 952
2 wasps 2 bees 1 yabby 1 crab 74 (of 952)
12 (of 74)
1 mussel 1 clam 1 worm 1 oyster 1 sea star 1 screw shell
1012
106
44
Source: State of the Environment Tasmania (2003), Animals Pests