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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."
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
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.
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.
I know this is nit-picking, but the ecosystem will never "change back".
That's the neat thing about ecosystems. They evolve.
I hear people talking about changing things back all the time, mostly when discussing societal ills, and it has always disturbed me. Change is something you can't reverse. You may like the past better than the present, but you can never go back.
Just adapt and deal with it.
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 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.
Depends on what they used as a poison. The interesting thing about places like Australia and New Zealand is that we have lots of plants that have naturally occurring toxins to which native animals are immune.
For example; In Western Australia, a large number of plants produce a substance called 1080 (sodium fluoroacetate) in their leaves, berries, etc. Native animals, after millenia of exposure to this toxin, are immune to its effects - they munch away on it happily.
However - if you feed 1080 to a cat/fox/other introduced feral mammal, they drop dead real fast. As a result, 1080 is used extensively in feral animal control programs throughout Australia and New Zealand.
1080 is naturally occurring, biodegradable and therefore non-accumulative, so it has minimal long term effect on the native environment, other than the irradication of introduced animals and a restoration of the native population.
If you want more info, there is a really good (PDF) document from the Western Australian Agriculture department here.
Russ %-)
... and never, ever play leapfrog with a unicorn.
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.
Hell, New Zealand doesn't need to go to North America for that. Ever hear of the Maori? Maybe they should clean up their own islands first.
Care to be asshole buddies?
at some point we need to decide how much backtracking we want to do
How about we stop when we've corrected as many of our f*ck ups as we can?
To not do anything in a situation like this would allow further native habitat and endangered species to be destroyed and so would be grossly negligent; are we going to let more species go the way of the giant moas or do something about it?
Try not to demonstrate your private apathy publicly - these are serious issues whether you give a damn or not.
All things in moderation; including moderation
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.
The more I find out about the Romans, the more they sound like a bunch of evil, twisted bastards.
Stick Men
Pretty much the same thing--they cut out the middle man, though, evolved the monkeys into humans, and had the humans kill the rats directly.
Liberty uber alles.
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
Well, don't laugh, but it's been done before... Rats and mice were introduced (from boats) on Kerguelen, a large island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. When it was discovered that they ate the birds, eggs and chicks of many species, you know what those geniuses did ? Introduce cats !
Cats that soon figured out it was easier to eat birds that nest on the ground and have to fighting habits than rats that hide underground...
Results: many birds are now extinct, cats and mice are everywhere: they litterally crawl over you, researchers in the only station have shooting contests with BB guns numbering in the thousands per hour, cats have reverted to a rogue state and taken possession of the island...
A lot of effort has been put into exterminating rats and cats from a tiny island no bigger than a football field, but it took years. Years! And plenty of $$$.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
The only reason they're saving these birds is because they're cute and rats aren't.
If there were endangered native rat species unique to that island in danger of being wiped out by very common birds, you could bet your ass they would be saved.
Australia has native endangered rodents and marsupials that they are trying to save. NZ only had two native mammal species (both are bats and pretty ugly) and they are the subject of conservation work. NZ is trying hard to wipe out cute deer and bunnies that are destroying bush and farmland.
Cute has nothing to do with it.
Yo, mphroqimwroa, what is with you and that chlorophyll shit you keep fuckin' around with? Oh, sure, you get your sugar out of sunlight, but fer Mowrqff's sake, don't you know that oxygen shit's fucking poisonous?! Someday we're gonna have to undo your mess, and may Mowrqff have mercy on your soul when we do.
- some methanogenic dude
NZ has a high proportion of ground nesting birds because, with the exception of bats, it has no native mammals.
Rats (and other species introduced into NZ such as possums) eat the eggs of these birds. They are a clear cause of the decline in numbers of such wonderful birds as the kiwis and the kakapo.
It really isn't *rocket surgery* to realise that if you remove the predators you will do something to save the bird populations.
Your points:
1) we don't really have enough information to perfectly reproduce the former system. Instead all we're doing is trying to cut out the obvious variable of a single human introduced species. Does killing all the rats make everything go back to normal?
No, killing all the rats does not make everything go back to normal: Killing all the rats preserves the remaining endangered bird species.
2) Even if we did know exactly what changes were made, it's doubtful that we could exert a level of control over the ecosystem to return all pieces to pre-human conditions. It's far more likely that we'll simply create further imbalance. What about the species which are already extinct, how do you reintroduce them?
Well, no, you can't re-introduce extinct species (Jurassic Park scenario excepted).
Obviously.
But no-one is talking about putting everything back *exactly* to how it was before the introduction of rats (which was done by Europeans in the 18th C, and therefore not in NZ's pre-human times); all we can do is stop the damage going any further and slam on the brakes now.
Sure, we might not "really have enough information" to sort things out properly, but we can make a start with the obvious stuff, can't we? So let;s not get bogged down with the fuzzy Gaia rubbish about balance and life etc when valuable DNA is going up the chimney.
If anyone wants to help NZ wildlife directly, check out Possum Fur Nipple Warmers - products made from the skins on NZ's wildlife enemy #1!
All things in moderation; including moderation
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.