Invasives

[Maverickpro201]

The most invasive species in North America (msn.com)

[Daryk Campbell Sr]

Interesting list.   Took me a few tries to realize it was a sideshow.   I was scrolling up and down,  not left and right.

Gonna have to look up the incident with the fighter jet vs boar.  

[FishnDave]

Did they forget to put "humans" on the list? 😬

Also only casually alluded to humans being the reason for pretty much every invasive on the list being transported to somewhere new.

[tjm]

Is there a single invasive species anywhere in the world that humans did not stock?

 

[BilletHead]

10 hours ago, tjm said:

Is there a single invasive species anywhere in the world that humans did not stock?

 

Humans had everything to do with it, probably sometimes not knowing they were carriers. 

[Quillback]

8 hours ago, BilletHead said:

Humans had everything to do with it, probably sometimes not knowing they were carriers. 

Brought some fun diseases over too, like smallpox.

[BilletHead]

1 hour ago, Quillback said:

Brought some fun diseases over too, like smallpox.

               And purposely gave it to the native peoples to kill them. Hard to fathom what some humans are capable of. 

[Flysmallie]

2 hours ago, BilletHead said:

 Hard to fathom what some humans are capable of. 

It should be. But all you have to do is watch the news or look back through history to see that humans are horrible to each other. 

[DADAKOTA]

From the title I expected a thread on Border issues.

[Al Agnew]

22 hours ago, BilletHead said:

Humans had everything to do with it, probably sometimes not knowing they were carriers. 

Yup.  Or unintended consequences.  Take something close to home; spotted bass invading the Meramec river system.  A classic invasive species.  And it probably got there "naturally", by extending its range from the streams running into the "Bootheel", up the Mississippi River and into the Meramec (as well as all the small streams between the Meramec and Cape Girardeau, where spotted bass were not native as well).  But why did spots suddenly, after many thousands of years since the last ice age, NOW decide to travel up the Mississippi?  Well, the theory is that three things, all human caused, all combined to open the way up the Mississippi.  First, the Diversion Channel was built back in the early 1900s, cutting off Castor River and directing it into the Mississippi far upstream of where the Castor used to enter the big river, thus shortening the distance the spots had to travel.  Second, the big lakes on the upper Missouri were built.  The Missouri River was always a VERY silty river, and made the Mississippi from St. Louis down very silty as well, probably so silty that spotted bass didn't travel it.  But the big lakes shortstopped a lot of the silt, and the Missouri and Mississippi got less silty.  And third, the Clean Water Act was passed, and began to take effect in the early 1970s.  It was a GOOD thing, but it may have reduced pollution in the Mississippi below St. Louis to the point that spotted bass had no trouble traveling it.  And spotted bass being great migrators in floods, they took advantage of all three things and next thing you know they are thriving in the lower Meramec.