Invasive Species Way Out Of Their Natural Element

[The Blackangel]

What is everyone's stance on how to handle this? There are tons of examples. Like people in Florida getting a Burmese python as a pet and then releasing it in the Everglades when it gets too big for them. Or in the 1940's when the Countess of Arran released wallabies on Inchconnachan Island in Loch Lomond in Scotland. Those are only two examples. There's tons more.

In my opinion, people need to take their heads out of their asses and think of what they're doing to the environment. Especially BEFORE they get the animal. The animals native to their location should be the priority. The only reason people should see a wallaby in Scotland is because they're at the damn zoo. And in many cases, these animals are completely out of manageable control and taking over. The pythons in Florida are so high in numbers that, at the moment, there's no plausible way to eliminate them. They're feeding on the alligator population and potentially going to kill them all because there are so many that are feeding all the time. We have lost that war. @Shagger and @Crazycrab are the ones I want to hear from about the wallabies. Especially because I'm pretty sure that wallabies aren't built to handle the kind of winters you get, being so far north.

 

But what does everyone else think about this kind of situation? Is there anything we can do to get it all under control and/or fix the situation?

[Reality vs Adventure]

A while back when I went to Hawaii, I remember that nobody was allowed on the plane who had any foreign plant life to or from Hawaii. Those restrictions should be in place everywhere for plants, animals, and bugs. One of the classic examples of bringing in an invasive species is like what happened when Australia brought toads from Hawaii, originally from South America, to kill some bugs that were destroying sugar cane and the toads became a major invasive problem where they easily killed other animals and populated all over Australia. Like what happened in Australia, a big problem is those who lobby the government. Some farming industry learns about some organism that can help their crop and lobby the government to bring in something foreign. Then you got smugglers bringing in exotic wildlife. Introducing an invasive species can even be a warfare tactic or terrorist act. What can you do about eco terrorism and stupidity? 

And it's not just introducing a foreign species that can be a problem, but killing off a native species lead to the exact same issues. Some are intentional like what America did with the wolves at Yellowstone and how they are currently genociding wolves in Idaho and repeating that mistake. 

[Shagger]

I didn't actually know there were wild Wallabies in Scotland, so I actually had to research @The Blackangel's story. As far as I was see, the population of Wallibies on  Inchconnachan Island is small, contained and stable, so the effect of the environment has been minimal at most and the Wallabies themselves are obviously coping within that environment. I don't necessarily know how that balance has been found nor whether people are directly involved, but for one reason or another it is working.

 

I'm not comparing Scotland to a much larger country like America or Australia, but the differences in the extremes of the environment is broader than one might think. Even in Scotland, there are places whare the ground doesn't freeze. For example, there is a place on the west cost whare natural Palm Tree's grow.

 

Even so, Scotland has had problems with invasive species and removal of native species that has lead to some serious issues. @Reality vs Adventure described the culling of wolves in Yellowstone (Wyoming) and how the lessons weren't learned for Idaho. Well, it turns out the lesson wasn't learned for Yellowstone either as the colonials should have known better as the same thing happened in Briton. We've spent centuries trying to keep a lid on an out of control rise in the population of Deer, especially here in Scotland, because thier natural predator is long gone.

 

One of the worst issues we've had with invasive species the Gray Squirrel. Owners of stately homes imported the Grey Squirrel from North America from 1876 up until the release of the Gray Squirrels into the wild was banned in 1930 after we say the damage they were causing. Gray Squirrels negatively affected the health of native trees by stripping thier bark, but even worse they've decimated the population of our native Red Squirrels. Grey Squirrels are larger, more fierce and more ravenous, so the Red Squirrels simply couldn't compete with thier North American counterparts that adapted beautifully to our environment. Even after nearly 100 years of conservation efforts to save the Red Squirrel, they are still very much endangered. I'm actually have been very fortunate to have a Red Squirrel in the wild as a protected, natural woodland is only around a 15 minute walk from my house and is one of the few places the species survives.

Edited December 27, 2023 by Shagger