o Neill wrote: Did the local f and G know about this? if not why not and if not the DOC language has a sinister message to other waterways and their fish populations. is it Zealandia that Morgan sponsor's if so with his funds DOC could have a new ally and a dangerous one. |
Mike.Thomas wrote: I for one remember that old chestnut being used to justify removing trout from one of the Kai Iwi lakes, but as soon as they removed the trout the Galaxiid population crashed! Turned out the trout were feeding on the mosquito fish and once the mosquito fish had no predators the population increased and they ate the fry of the Galaxiid. All the best.
Mike |
Most people working in conservation sooner or later come to the realisation that much of this country’s biota is on life support. The threats our native plants and animals face are so complex, so interactive and so 3-dymentional that one can only shake one’s head at the utter naivety of Gareth Morgan’s one-track urban cat eradication pipe dream. He may be a brilliant economist and certainly has made a pile of money, some of which he now wants to put to work for conservation (such as the mouse eradication programme on one of our subantarctic islands), which is to be applauded.
It is true that hungry cats can have a devastating impact on native wildlife such as the remnant kakapo population on Steward Island and some mainland seabird breeding colonies. While the latter threat can be controlled through a dedicated trapping/poison programme the average feral cat has to scratch for a living and is most likely surviving on mice, rats, rabbits, introduced birds rather than singling out native species. The mouse it eats can no longer devour native insects or seeds of native plants. The rat it kills can no longer eat skinks or rob nests of native birds or kill their fledgling young. The rabbits it bounces on helps to keep the bunny population from exploding and some of the introduced birds it catches may be serious competitors to native birds occupying a similar ecological niche.
While the above examples are overly simplistic they do serve as examples of how complex and ongoing the ecological interaction between our native and the introduced species really is and that is without expanding this sad tale to stoats, opossums, new diseases and the widespread habitat destruction in the name of progress.
Demonising domestic moggies might give some urban greenies a warm, fuzzy feeling and a newly discovered sense of patriotism but it also nicely diverts our attention from the stark warning so eloquently put by Sir David Attenborough in the same paper that the exploding human population has become the greatest threat to life on earth, including our own.
sharp hook wrote: There are imports arriving all the time [pellicans are the latest]. |
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