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New Zealand Exterminates Rats
-brazil- writes "It's well-known that one of the worst things humans can do to a biosystem is to introduce new plants and animals that the native species are unprepared to compete with. The NZ government has been trying to reverse one such such ecological disaster in a project to exterminate rats from Campbell Island, where they were introduced by sailors 200 years ago, spread like wildfire and proceeded to severely decimate or outright eradicate many species of native seabirds. After massive deployment of rat poison two years ago, the island has now been declared a rat-free bird sanctuary, and some species that only survived in captivity will be re-introduced. Still, full recovery is estimated to take hundreds of years."
Now if they only could do the same for spammers!
What they needed to do was get snakes to kill the rats, and then get some monkeys to kill the snakes.
First shit
Ecosystems adapt. Their ecosystem has changed to accomidate the rats. Now removing them will cause the ecosystem to have to change back. It just sounds kind of dumb.
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severely decimate or outright eradicate
Decimate is to remove 1 in 10
The name comes from a punishment from the Roman army. One of the pinishments available to a commadning officer was that the men shoudl line up, every tenth man would be told to step forward. The rest of the unit were then ordered to beat these unfortunates to death.
One famous use for such a practice was during the hunt for Spartacus, Crassus punished his army using this method when the slave rebellion escaped.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Save the rats!
Seriously... at some point we need to decide how much backtracking we want to do. Lets say we achieve a level of technology where we can hold the entire echosystem at it's present state. That's not necessarily a good thing. Ecosystems evolve. New species arive, old ones die out. Obviously we're accelerating that process dramatically, and we should try our best to prevent such human-caused changes, but once they occur, do we have the ability to reverse our changes without introducing new problems? I doubt it.
Doug
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
On another note, though, one of the most interesting species battles that i have ever seen was the fight between blackberry brambles and mint which took place outside a house that i lived in once. Mint is an incredibly hardy plant once you get a good crop of it. The thorns eventually won- the only thing that i've ever seen resist that mint horde. The mint even choked out the poison ivy, the grass, the dandelions, and everything else that crossed its path... but the blackberries won.
Somehow, the rat story makes me feel sorry that the dodo is entirely extinct, and makes me aware of the dwindling wildlife habitats... time to take me to the ecology fund and donate somebody else's money to save rainforests. It's not offtopic, just an addendum.
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
Won't the large quantities of poisons used also kill off any animals that eat it? Are they going to be able to remove it all from the ecosystem?
ok? SHould we eradicate horses from the U.S? OR is it only the ugly littel animals noone likes that are worthy of extermination?
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
The European homo sapiens was brought to North American on sailing ships, and immediately begin to wipe out the native species, bringing them to the edge of extinction. The populatation of the European species has been stable on it's native habitat, due to self-policing of their population levels, and their odd habit of killing each other.
It's expected to take many years for the native species to recover.
Your reality is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. - Baron Munchausen
The Committee To Maintain The Status Quo (CTMSQ) is creating a plan to exterminate humanity. Afterwords 14 species of Dinosaurs will be introduced to the world.
and once again prepare for the onslaught of ignorance and total misunderstanding of ecology from the technophiles in the /. crowd...
yes ecosystems change, and yes technology can be a great and wonderful thing, but what most of the people around here seem to forget is that:
1.) these are not natural changes, they are human induced.
2.) and while it is highly unlikely that they will ever be able to restore the ecosystem to its former glory, to attempt some amount of rehabilitation of the ecosystem and its constituent species is a good thing. maybe no person will ever benefit from it, but ya know what - just because it is not for human benefit doesn't mean it doesn't have value.
3.) and in conclusion, while some will demand that these species either adapt or go extinct, here's a news flash - there are few species on this planet that are able to adapt to the mass changes that we have made to the environment. while the cockroaches, pigeons, and rats all seem to do fine co-existing with humans (and i think it's no surprise that these are all species that survive off of refuse, something we seem to produce an ample supply of), there are many more that have not been able to and that continue to go extinct every day.
until we as a species take a step back and develop a healthy skepticism of our actions and our technology (newsflash: all technology is not good, and don't give me the weak "it's just a tool" line - tools are designed for specific purposes, not some benign you can do whatever you want with it purpose), we will continue to kill off more species, we will continue to swallow up more of the world's resources until the only species left to go over...is us.
will the last one out please turn out the lights...
fuck you.
The only reason they're saving these birds is because they're cute and rats aren't. If the rats had made their way to this island on their own (airspeed velocity of a rat-laden swallow, and all that) would that have been any better?
I'll tell you, if Koala Bears ate cockroaches, nobody would complain if they got imported to New York and eradicated the cockroach population. All this Envronmental hoopla about Saving the Whales or Saving the Seals or Saving the whatever in the name of maintaining a "natural balance" is a bunch of crap. Nature gets along just fine by itself. The environment changes and life can either adapt or die. That's the way it's always been and that's the way it's always going to be.
Nobody's going to 'Save the Humans' when the next ice age comes.....even the cute ones are going down like the rest of us.
Lets try this approach with lawyers.
IANAL.
"The name comes from a punishment from the Roman army. One of the pinishments available to a commadning officer was that the men shoudl line up, every tenth man would be told to step forward. The rest of the unit were then ordered to beat these unfortunates to death."
This is also used in digital signal processing for decimation where one out of ten data values in the data stream are severly beaten out of existance.
That is not entirely true. Horses have not taken over ecosystems and multiplied like wildfire and killed other species in the US. If anything, they probably refill the role of grazing that was lost when buffalo were all but eradicated. Cute and furry animals do get killed all the time- a good example would be kangaroos in Australia, where they apparently just run excessively rampant and the gov't takes steps to control the populations. That does not hold much water I know due to the fact that they are afaik indigenous to the region. I am not an expert on this stuff, so I cant really comment on what furry little animals have moved into ecosystems and destroyed them while humans looked the other way. But I do think you are off base on this. If cute furry litte beavers were taking over lakes in florida, killing off other species, I am pretty sure the EPA would do something.
Yes - horses are an introduced species in the US, Australia, NZ, and other places. However, for the most part, they are controlled and domesticated, and therefore pose no real threat to the environment.
However, free ranging horses cause all sort of environmental havoc. There a many free herds of brumbies (Aus. term for wild horses) in the Snowy Mountains and far north of Australia - and as a result, there are horse culling operations that fly around, shooting and baiting the herds.
It's not the fact that animals are ugly or little that makes them deserving of extermination, it is the fact that they are feral. They are out of control, and exterminating a natural balanced ecosystem. In the case of Campbell island, the rats exterminated dozens of unique and beautiful species of birds. If a herd of horses had done the same thing (and they are capable of it), they would be a target for extermination, too.
Russ %-)
... and never, ever play leapfrog with a unicorn.
Homer: Hey, do we get to land on an aircraft carrier?
Pilot: No, Sir, the closest vessel in the USS Walter Mondale. It's a
laundry ship. They'll take you the rest of the way.
[shot shows frogs destroying all the crops]
Homer: Hey, look! Those frogs are eating all their crops.
[everyone starts laughing]
Lisa: Well, that's what happens when you introduce foreign species into
an ecosystem that can't handle them.
[everyone laughs more]
[a lone koala holds onto the helicopter with determination]
-- Imminent koala infestation of the US predicted, "Bart vs. Australia"
Decimate can be legitimately used to mean "kill in large numbers" today, regardless of the word's origin. A check of any dictionary will confirm this.
A word's etymology is not the same as its definition.
You're the kind of guy that gives nerds a bad name.
Two examples in the US that I know of are domestic rabbits and cats. I heard a bit on NPR a while back about some quiet little suburb that was being overrun by escaped domestic rabbits. They were destroying gardens and flower beds (no, this isn't as severe as disturbing natural species, I admit). The people weren't allowed to destroy the things, and they were getting pretty irked.
If you search on plastic.com, you'll see a headline about how environmental groups (more specifically, bird-lovers) are on the anti-cat campaign trail. I can totally understand their point of view, as the little beasties are pretty evil and run unchecked in most every community.
Method of processing duck feet
Rats are smart. They adapt really fast to new kinds of poison. When they find food they send a test rat and watch it for a while. Only when this rat seams to be fine they go for the food. The period rats watch the scaperat got longer during the last decades. Its a real problem for rat poison manufactures. There must be some rats left. Rats that learned to avoid the pellets.
Zebra mussels continue their takeover of Lake Champlain. AFAIK, there is no effective remedy, even if you're willing to dump nasty stuff into the lake.
As for dodos, I heard an interesting story once upon a time - don't know if it's really true. There's a tree on the island where the dodos lived, and it's seeds had a really thick coat. The dodos ate the fruit, and the seeds passed, essentially untouched. The dodos would eat the seeds, again... and again... After something like a half-dozen passes through the dodo, the seed coat had been weakened enough that the seed could germinate.
Apparently the dodo was unique in this relationship with the seed. The youngest tree of this type dates back to the extinction of the dodo. Two for the price of one.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Actually over here (NZ) we don't have any snakes at all. That's part of the problem, they don't have big scary slithering predators after them all the time.
The more I find out about the Romans, the more they sound like a bunch of evil, twisted bastards.
Stick Men
1.) these are not natural changes, they are human induced.
I don't get this about folks here. Either (a) humans are evolved and part of nature or (b) a God created humans separately and they are not part of nature. Your choice. Either we evolved and are simpley higher up the food chain and evolution will kill us if we over populate like any other species or we are created outside nature.
Personally I like the idea there is a God who created us and gave us dominion over the creatures of the earth. However, that does not mean we go around and make messes. We are stewards, not the demolition crew.
On top of that, its hardly like the humans intentionally brought rats. They happened to live on the boats folks arrived in. So, while human intervention may have been partly cause of the rats, it is not completely.
Now, really into the offtopic arena. I agree with you that we should take a conservative path. There is not reason to waste resources simpley for the sake of wasting them. And on technology, yes we have the ability to do many things. Such as the technology of being able to create boats to travel the seas. However, something completely unforseen was that these rats would wreak havoc on this territory. There would really have been no reason to look for such a possiblity at the point the boats were created.
Now, consider eugenics.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
That's because people like to talk about that kind of thing. It doesn't make for "+1 Interesting" if you only talk about aqueducts and durable roads.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
Does anyone remember this nice little egg softener/pesticide? what are the long term effects of rat poison on the indiginous creatures of the region?
Besides, how can they be sure they've got *all* the rats killed? or that someone won't be a prick and bring two rats to the island. After all, all it takes is two....
Rats are smart. They adapt really fast to new kinds of poison. When they find food they send a test rat and watch it for a while. Only when this rat seams to be fine they go for the food. The period rats watch the scaperat got longer during the last decades.
Very interesting! Have you got any links to further information? Thanks.
-kgj
did you even read the article? the rats are an invasive species that are forcing many native species to go extingt. rats are in no such danger. dont be such a kneejerk reactionary idiot.
Are they sure that more rats won't swim or float (on driftwood) from other islands? This happens all the time, and is how many islands became populated with mammals.
Nothing to see here; Move along.
Cats are really really evil.
There once was a saying "man is the only animal that kills for fun." This is pure bull. The house cat, kills because it is wired to. I've even seen fish that seem to enjoy torturing their prey by pulling off fins of other fish (the Gar).
I once thought it cruel when cats were kept inside and declawed but after tracking a well fed house cat and watch it kill small animals for fun, I reconsidered.
Put up birdfeeders and flowers and keep the cats inside.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
or lack thereof.
nature is diverse. humans fight diversity then spread the strongest scavengers (rats, piegons, roaches) accidentally or intentionally and in the end could create a single large eco-system and call it nature. i don't believe humans raised in western civilization (myself included) are natural.
'natural' is defined as being produced by nature. we are not natural. we are grown in cement and asphalt and lawn filled worlds, fed on processed foods and transported in machines whose metals are not found in a composition or concentration which is useful without human intervention. not to mention the plastics. our entertainment comes, increasingly, from computers. 'returning to nature' for most is visiting a ski resort or maybe the beach, both groomed by rakes pulled by tractors to make sure we don't have to experience the chaos of nature. we were not produced by nature, we are not natural. we are man made. and so is everything we use.
that doesn't mean we can't say 'sorry nature!', clean up our mess and leave nature alone
fear is the mind killer
the point wasn't meant to be that humans are not a part of nature or are unnatural, but rather that the actions that humans take are not. One only need look at our ability to create chemicals and materials that do not exist in nature to see that we have developed a sort of power that transcends nature.
" However, something completely unforseen was that these rats would wreak havoc on this territory. There would really have been no reason to look for such a possiblity at the point the boats were created."
this is part of the problem i believe. granted it is not really practical, as well as morally questionable whether should, condemn those people who inadvertently brought rats over with them in their boats. the problem is that we continue to behave just like them in regards to technology today. our attitude seems to be 'well let's build it and worry about the problems later', rather then 'okay, here's this neat idea, let's try to think about the possible negative ramifications of it and then decide whether or not we should proceed'.
and of course, anybody who would dare to take the second position would be laughed at as either a lunatic or a luddite.
as somebody wrote earlier (and has been noted many another time) it is very difficult to reverse change (although i would disagree that it is not possible), to put the genie back into the bottle. this means that we need to have a little more foresight and vision before we unleash all of these new technological wonders upon the world, such as GE organisms, etc. because whenever a new technology is developed, we always focus on its positive qualities, and put it forward in its best possible light.
and then later we start asking ourselves "what the f**k did we do?'
so lets start asking those questions before instead of after.
p.s. - if you're at all interested in this sort of thing, i recommend two books by jerry mander - 'four arguments for the elimination of television' (written in the early 1970s) and 'in the absence of the sacred' (written in the mid-1990s). they're both fairly quick reads, and even if you don't agree with them (as one of my friends did not), you'll probably find them at least interesting (as he did).
fuck you.
The romans were absolute barbarians with a refined asthetic, much like Nazis.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
(paragraph about unchecked cats eating a neighbourhood's birdlife)
Am I the only one seeing a solutions here? ;)
All right. But apart from the sanitation, the medecine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, and public health... What have the Romans ever done for us?
They gave us this fabulous language, called Latin. And now: Fabricate diem, punc
... whenever a text is transmitted, variation occurs. This is because human beings are careless, fallible, and occasiona
I believe the correct phrasing is, "What have they done for us lately?" and sadly the answer is, "Not a damned thing." The lazy bastards.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
Ipsato...
Okay, but by that argument the actions mold take aren't "natural" either.
There was a time when there was no Penicillin. At that time it would therefore not be "natural." But along came a mold which now produces this "non-natural" chemical Penicillin. Has the mold then "developed a sort of power that trancends nature"? We can keep this up with practically any other chemical that occurs in nature - at one time it didn't, so it's "unnatural".
So how are we as humans any different? And don't try the "we didn't evolve it" route - we evolved brains which allowed us to produce it. How is that different than evolving enzymes to make them?
That said, I think the restoration is a good thing. Not because the rats are "unnatural", but because we have enough rats in Europe. A little variety would be nice.