Drone strike on one of the world's most invasive species
Drone strikes took place in August on Christmas Island to help suppress one of the world’s most invasive species - the yellow crazy ant.
Christmas Island National Park used helicopter technology to help protect the island’s keystone species – the red crab - from yellow crazy ants. The ants attack the crabs, leading to their death, which disrupts essential ecosystem processes on the island.
Parks Australia, which manages Christmas Island National Park, collaborated with Yamaha Motor Australia’s Sky Division in the use of this state-of-the-art drone technology.
A Yamaha Fazer uncrewed helicopter was used to strike at the heart of yellow crazy ant super colonies during August, to reduce ant numbers.
The industrial drone operation targeted 76 hectares of dense rainforest where yellow-crazy ant super colonies are known to exist.
In 2023, the operation targeted yellow crazy ant super colonies in more than 56 hectares of rainforest to create safe passage for tens of millions of red crabs to march from the forest to the ocean.
About 100 million red crabs march from the forest to the ocean to breed and spawn each year between October and January following the first rains of the wet season.
The drone technology offers huge opportunities to manage crazy ants and protect native and threatened species without the onerous work of manually baiting by hand each year.
This intervention builds on a history of innovation in suppressing yellow crazy ants, including the use of a biological control agent that targets the yellow crazy ants’ key food source.
Additional species that will benefit from yellow crazy ant super colony suppression include robber crabs, forest birds, ground and tree nesting seabirds including Golden Bosun (an endemic subspecies of white-tailed tropicbird), Indian ocean red-tailed tropicbird, Abbott’s booby, Frigatebird species, Red-footed booby and Brown booby as well as the critically endangered flying fox populations, Christmas Island’s last remaining endemic reptile - the giant gecko, and vegetation including Tahitian chestnut and Fig tree species.
