I was lucky enough to spend a week in Antigua recently and on top of that lucky enough to observe a couple of invasive species. The Fallow deer that was brought in by some European to hunt and was immediately declared endangered and have thrived for about 100 years (or so I'm told) and the second is the Mongoose, brought in to control the Black Rat population, also invasive) that was eating all the endangered black snakes. Well it seems the rat is nocturnal and the Mongoose isn't, so they never get together to fight it out but they both like black snake! The best laid plans eh?

Hi Collins,
Yes, we have the same problem in Hawaii with the imported mongoose, supposedly brought here to help control the sugar cane eating rats. Here, the mongoose prefer poultry and ground nesting birds, including the endangered albatross. We also have our share of the feral pig problem.

I have not yet found a credible explanation as to why the pig population and territory has exploded on the mainland U.S. and Hawaii, where we are isolated and have our own unique ecosystem. Hopefully, some of the members will chime in and give there opinion.

Geoff

Buy'm books and they eat the covers..

quote:

Buy'm books and the eat the covers..

About 35 years ago when we has a SERIOUS fire ant problem here in central Texas; A+M had come up with a species of bug that would attack the fire ants + bite their heads off. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed (sorry) + they were not introduced into the wild. They did know that particular insect would be death to the fire ants, but what they didn't know was what they would eat after the fire ants were gone. Personally I bought 'Logic' from the Farm Beaurow. No poisons, only sterilizes the queen. In 3 weeks the mound is dead. No danger for little boys + girls who run around barefoot.

Most of it falls back on the old saying" Measure twice and cut once". When exotics are purposely brought in its more " I cut this board twice and its still too short"! As far as my thoughts go, we have way too many whitetail deer around here. They don't have to be exotic to be bad!
The flies laid an egg on the fire ants head. The fly's larva ate and killed the ant. Ants knew the flies were around and limited foraging. Less food fewer ants. The flies were specific about which ant they liked! I believe they did infect and release fire ants with that fly's larva. I never saw a report about whether it helped or not.

quote:

Originally posted by geoff:
Hi Collins,
Yes, we have the same problem in Hawaii with the imported mongoose, supposedly brought here to help control the sugar cane eating rats. Here, the mongoose prefer poultry and ground nesting birds, including the endangered albatross. We also have our share of the feral pig problem. And pigs eat damn near anything.

I have not yet found a credible explanation as to why the pig population and territory has exploded on the mainland U.S. and Hawaii, where we are isolated and have our own unique ecosystem. Hopefully, some of the members will chime in and give there opinion.

Geoff

Pigs have an average of 2 1/2 litters/years. Easy to see why their range must expand or face starvation.

Chinese Privet is the absolute worst invasive plant that I have ever dealt with. You can not kill it and it grows faster than Ricky Bobby.

For privet, the only thing I’ve found is to bring in a forest mulcher and grind down into the roots. It will come back but it takes years to reach a size where it’s a problem. I mulched a lot 15 months ago and it’s barely a few inches high now.

Farmers here in SC use goats to kill Kudzu. I wonder if they would control privet as well? That is after it has been ground down and is trying to put out shoots.

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
For privet, the only thing I’ve found is to bring in a forest mulcher and grind down into the roots. It will come back but it takes years to reach a size where it’s a problem. I mulched a lot 15 months ago and it’s barely a few inches high now.

ON the Illinois river they have Asian Carp, which are truly a sight to behold when you motor through a school of them as they jump up to about 8-10 feet in the air. Anyway Illinois has now decided to rename them from "Asian Carp" to "Copi" so they can start selling them as edible fish. We'll see if that happens. I still haven't eaten any but they're not hard to catch, just motor over a school and you'll get a dozen or two jumping in the boat.

<p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/qz-fishing-carp-flying-fish-MFhyG38lfeOsg">via GIPHY</a></p>

I’ve eaten deep fried suckers and they’re damn good. Not so sure about carp…

quote:

Originally posted by Collins:
I was lucky enough to spend a week in Antigua recently and on top of that lucky enough to observe a couple of invasive species. The Fallow deer that was brought in by some European to hunt and was immediately declared endangered and have thrived for about 100 years (or so I'm told) and the second is the Mongoose, brought in to control the Black Rat population, also invasive) that was eating all the endangered black snakes. Well it seems the rat is nocturnal and the Mongoose isn't,, so they never get together to fight it out but they both like black snake! The best laid plans eh?

Same thing in Hawaii

There are quite a few species in the USA that have caused a havok.

Some of that havok is imagined.

The Aoudad/Barbery sheep are hated by some and loved by others. We have them on White Sands, we also have Desert Bighorns. So far they do not conflict.

The biggest difference is that aoudad actually will drink water, and desert bighorns rarely go to water. The bighorns stay much higher on the mountain, and the aoudad come out to the flats to eat.

There are sambar, aoudad and tahr in California. So far not really posing a problem on their limited range between Las Angeles and San Francisco.

Of course pigs weren't meant to be in North America, and they are proving that. But pigs are kind of a pest in Europe and Asia as well where they are native.

The worst invasive species is/are Russians....

Shoot on sight please....