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I'm interested in how you defend (if I'm reading that correctly) retaining those pests in Australia. Further afield from my humble abode, yes, Phytophthora, la

by Jedd 6y ago

I'm interested in how you defend (if I'm reading that correctly) retaining those pests in Australia. Further afield from my humble abode, yes, Phytophthora, lantana, black rats, blackberry, feral goats / pigs / deer, cane toads, camels, etc. The reason we can export camels to the middle east is that when we imported them from there, we didn't import the various parasites that are now rampant in that part of the world. Perversely this gives us an export trade and a massively out of control population of highly destructive and resilient beasts. If we could remove all wild camels from Australia over the space of 10 years you'd be hard-pressed to identify any net negatives, and certainly it'd be impossible to identify any negatives that were detectable when mapped onto a graph of the positive effects.

DoreenMichele 6y ago
No, you are not reading that correctly. They are invasive species that exploded in Australia due to a lack of natural predators. How you can cite their existence as a refutation of anything I've said baffles me. I've been up excessively long. With any luck, I'll be asleep soon. Ciao.
- Jedd 6y ago
  > They are invasive species that exploded in Australia due to a lack of natural predators. How you can cite their existence as a refutation of anything I've said baffles me. I wasn't 'citing their existence', so much as declaring an eagerness to remove them. The context was you started by saying: > You kill one thing or change one thing and there are always myriad knock on effects. Always. Anytime you do anything that's actually at all effective, there is hell to pay. I said that sounded alarmist, as there were plenty of contra examples - such as removing a dozen or so named non-indigenous pests from Australia. You said: > Australia is like the poster child for unintended ecological consequences. All those introduced species you cite to refute my opinion I would cite to support it. I asked how that could sit alongside your claim that 'you kill one thing ... there is hell to pay'. And here we are. My point stands -- removing these introduced pests via a terminator gene or similar that targets precisely those organisms would be a fantastic result, and almost definitely have no negative effects, though of course I'd want that to be thoroughly evaluated. An easy fallback option exists (re-introduction).

by Jedd 6y ago

DoreenMichele 6y ago

No, you are not reading that correctly. They are invasive species that exploded in Australia due to a lack of natural predators. How you can cite their existence as a refutation of anything I've said baffles me. I've been up excessively long. With any luck, I'll be asleep soon. Ciao.

Jedd 6y ago
> They are invasive species that exploded in Australia due to a lack of natural predators. How you can cite their existence as a refutation of anything I've said baffles me. I wasn't 'citing their existence', so much as declaring an eagerness to remove them. The context was you started by saying: > You kill one thing or change one thing and there are always myriad knock on effects. Always. Anytime you do anything that's actually at all effective, there is hell to pay. I said that sounded alarmist, as there were plenty of contra examples - such as removing a dozen or so named non-indigenous pests from Australia. You said: > Australia is like the poster child for unintended ecological consequences. All those introduced species you cite to refute my opinion I would cite to support it. I asked how that could sit alongside your claim that 'you kill one thing ... there is hell to pay'. And here we are. My point stands -- removing these introduced pests via a terminator gene or similar that targets precisely those organisms would be a fantastic result, and almost definitely have no negative effects, though of course I'd want that to be thoroughly evaluated. An easy fallback option exists (re-introduction).