HONOLULU (KHON2) — October is “Stop The Ant Month” and the Coordinating Group on Alien Pest Species and the Oahu Invasive Species Committee is spreading the word.
Organizers tell us Stop The Ant Month is an annual campaign funded by the Hawaii State Legislature through the Hawaii Invasive Species Council. The campaign is organized by multi-agency partners statewide to encourage residents to collect ants from their homes, businesses, or yards, and submit them for identification.
Early detection of harmful ants like little fire ants and newly arrived species can make a difference. Visit Stop The Ant’s website to get information and request an ant collection kit. The kits are free.
We’re told Hawai’i has no native ants, so all the ants you see arrived as hitchhikers on the stuff we import. But we are particularly concerned about some types of ants that are causing real harm to the environment, agriculture, people and even our pets, species like little fire ants. Once they become established, they get to extremely high populations – 20,000 ants per square meter.