Prickly Pear Infestation

Prickly pear was first brought to Australia by the colonists of the First Fleet in 1788. Settlers used the plants for hedges, in their gardens, and for stock feed during droughts, however by the 1880s, prickly pear was infesting farmland so badly that farmers began abandoning their land.

In 1907, the Queensland Government offered a £10,000 reward for anyone who could find a way to destroy the invasive species.

By 1925, prickly pear had infested fifty million acres of land in Queensland, of which thirty million represented a complete coverage. Western Downs districts were heavily infested.

Early in 1925, a small number of Cactoblastis Cactorum insects was introduced from Argentina. They were bred in very large numbers at the Commonwealth Prickly Pear Field Station near Chinchilla and liberated throughout the prickly pear territory.

The Cactoblastis Cactorum moths were so effective that within ten years, the insects had destroyed the majority of the prickly pear plants.

Eighty percent of the previously infested land in Queensland was cleared of prickly pear and reclaimed for agricultural development.