Help fight small fire ants during Stop the Ant Month

The Hawaii Invasive Species Council hopes to once again enlist the help of residents to find and contain colonies of stinging small fire ants.

The Interagency Invasive Species Group is asking residents on all islands to test ant colonies and send samples to their local invasive species committees to help identify colonies before they take hold.

Communities across the state have expressed serious concerns about the impact of the stinging ants, fearing they could become a permanent part of the Hawaiian landscape. There are several discoveries each year, most recently on Kauai, Oahu and Maui.

“Identifying and controlling invasive ants is one of the most important things we can do for our natural areas, our outdoor lifestyles and our local economies,” DLNR Director Dawn Chang said in a news release.

The state is now asking residents to help by testing suspicious colonies with homemade ant collection kits. The state also provides free ant collection kits upon request.

The website www.StopTheAnt.org has instructions for collecting, freezing and submitting ants for identification, which can then be dropped off or mailed to invasive species councils across the state. Samples can also be sent to the Hawaii Ant Lab, which has offices on the Big Island and Oahu.

LFA are considered one of the worst invasive species in the world. They can form in colonies of millions of ants and often sting people when disturbed in trees or vegetation. Ant stings are also known to blind pets.

“Stop the Ant Month” is also intended to help invasive species groups prevent other ant species from establishing themselves in Hawaii.

This includes the red imported fire ant, which has caused billions of dollars in damage across the United States. Texas alone spends $1.1 billion annually on pesticides to combat the species.

The state allocated about $1.5 million this year to the state's LFA response, which is overseen by the Department of Agriculture.