Posted by PS on September 06, 2002 at 17:08:09:
In Reply to: Re: reply to Kat & Metal posted by Mister Metal the dumbfounded on September 06, 2002 at 11:24:44:
: : I used to love seeing the bright green anoles around my homes. Now I never see them. Those damn brown Cuban anoles have displaced them. I actually watched a brown eat a green once. Flame me if you want, but I would gladly kill a thousand of those ugly brown invaders to be able to see a few of the pretty green ones I loved that have been killed off.
: : When we are talking about extripation that may eventually result in total extinction of a species, that is a more serious consideration than a less drastic change in the ecosystem. I would kill some frogs myself.
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: whoa..anoes eatin anoes...no way..i never see the green ones anymore..all you see is them brown ones...wow..thats a hard dilemma...i used to be so animal rites that it hurt..so i would have a hard time killin animals..even lil frogs..the only things i can bring myself to kill are roaches and ants....besides that..i cant kill animals..hmm...i dunno let me call pastor steve and send him over to your place.....j/k...well hm..maybe introducing something that eats the frogs to control the population..like some kind of a non poisonous snake...eh..its a thought...you know lettin the animals take care of it..hey its a thought..
The problem is that the new preditors will eat ALL the frogs, not just the non-indigenous ones, so you help kill the indigenous frogs you're trying to save. But suppose you found a preditor that only ate brown frogs. When the brown frogs are all gone, the new preditors will still be hungry. What would they eat then? The green frogs, no doubt. And when they're gone, what then? Chihuahuas, poodles??
Seriously though, something akin to this happened in Hawaii. I believe they imported mongooses to kill problem rats, but after the rats were all gone, the mongooses started raiding the nests of endangered birds and eating their eggs, thus driving theses birds to the brink of extinction in no time. Too late now, though. What will you get to kill mongooses? Do they even have any natural enemies? So it seems the Hawaiians' only course of action was to try and hunt down all the mongooses and exterminate them. Not any easy task, and certainly not very nice. But if you don't, numerous exotic bird species will be gone forever.