Invasive Species
Once upon at time, I wasn’t really sure what the big deal was with invasive species. Survival of the fittest, right? That’s just evolution at work!1 But the more I’ve learned about them, the better I’ve understood the problem.
Invasive species have the potential to completely unbalance ecosystems. They can wipe out indigenous species and cause economic harm to the humans who depend on those ecosystems.
But it’s hard to deal with invasive species. They can arrive completely by accident. And once they take root, eliminating them is almost impossible. But that isn’t stopping people from trying to control the problem.
🌱 Growing up in the American South, I remember seeing forests by the highway completely covered with kudzu. The Asian vine was originally planted to control soil erosion and feed livestock. But it thrived more than expected, and earned the title of “the vine that ate the South”. I’ve often wondered: why don’t we just import predators of invasive species to get them under control? Well, researchers had considered importing a type of small insect that eats kudzu to control it—but they found that it also ate soybeans and decided against it. As is so often the case with invasive species, the Kudzu Bug ended up in the US anyway and is now eating both kudzu and soybeans. But as someone who hates kudzu and doesn’t care for soy much, I’m calling it a win.
🌳 The American chestnut is a tree on the verge of total extinction. 100 years ago, nearly 4 billion of them grew in the eastern United States. But an invasive fungal blight from Asian has all but wiped them out. In addition to cross-breeding, scientists are trying to genetically modify the American chestnut to carry genes from Asian varieties which can help it fight off the blight.
🐟 Asian carp are invaders in the Mississippi River Basin, eating a tremendous amount of the food that local fish depend on. How to control their spread? ⚡️Electricity!⚡️ There is an electric barrier south of Chicago that keeps the fish from spreading further north into the Great Lakes. And electric pulses are uses to herd the fish into nets en masse for easier capture and separation from local fish.
🐜 No ant species are native to the Hawaiian islands, yet 50 have found their way there and are wreaking havok. Ants are hard enough to get rid of it your kitchen—how will they kill them on an entire island? By spraying ant birth control from helicopters.
🤠 Tumbleweeds are iconic of the Old West, but they are actually an invasive species from Russia. From in initial invasion in South Dakota, the crop-starving fire-hazards spread across North America. How are we getting them under control? Yeah…I don’t know. They are apparently good at mutating to resist things like pesticides.
🤦♂️ Something something population control vaccine Bill Gates microchips blah blah…
Obligatory Oreo
Our neighbor adopted a puppy around the same time we adopted Oreo, and the two are best friends. Here is Oreo looking over the backyard fence to see if her playmate is there.
Typical human arrogance. We are naturally biased here, since we’re the most destructive invasive species in the history of the planet.