Who wouldn’t love working with dogs every day while doing the vitally important job of protecting Queensland from exotic invasive ant species.

Justin Gibson, Senior Dog Handler from Biosecurity Queensland trains, and works with, odour detection dogs to sniff out red imported and electric ants from our local communities.

“I travel Queensland, and across Australia, to protect our diverse environment and agricultural industries from the devastation of these pests.

“A career highlight was training 2 Fire Ant Program detection dogs (Ollie, now retired, and Willow) to detect browsing ant, another exotic invasive ant species, which saw me deployed to assist the National Browsing Ant Eradication Program in the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

“Prior to working for Biosecurity Queensland, I spent a major part of my working life in the zoo industry, caring for and training many different native and exotic animal species, including elephants at Australia Zoo.

“When my current role was advertised in 2011, I knew this was the job for me. As someone who is extremely passionate about Australian flora and fauna, I knew that in this role I could help make a genuine difference to protect it and work in the community.

“However, I did not foresee how far my role would take me and how rewarding it has been to work with such amazingly talented animals and staff.”

Justin is here for Queensland to make a difference.