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This being a positive thing in the sense of managing the rodent population feels like in the simpsons when they introduce snakes to eat lizards and then gorilla
by qoez 1y ago
This being a positive thing in the sense of managing the rodent population feels like in the simpsons when they introduce snakes to eat lizards and then gorillas to take care of the snake overpopulation.
- fluorinerocket 1y agoBut the gorillas freeze in the winter. That's the beauty of it
- thePhytochemist 1y agoThere have been some hilarious and unfortunate disasters using introduced populations for pest control. But coyotes are not introduced. They are native to the area which means there are many checks and balances in place. Rat control is not just a nice bonus option to reduce an irritation - we need to take it seriously in light of the Black Death. The fact of the matter is I see people having trouble with rat control in my area and we could use help to manage something that is potentially a lot more dangerous than coyotes.
- dylan604 1y agoHow effective will a pair of coyotes hanging out in Central Park be for rodent control in the city? It's the rats running in the drains, streets, buildings that are the problem. Rats living in the park are not what the people living in the city care about
- tastyfreeze 1y agoGive it time. Predators breed until prey numbers are diminished enough that they start starving.
- lordnacho 1y agoSo then there will be thousands and thousands of hungry coyotes in NYC, since NYC is famously full of rats?
- skeeter2020 1y agoexcept a specialized rat killer will not be much of a threat to humans, and will have a natural population control - or go after ferrets next!
- rufus_foreman 1y agoCoyotes are not native to the eastern US. The eastern US was mostly forest and coyotes don't typically hunt in forested areas. Coyotes only spread to the eastern US after 1900. Also, eastern coyotes typically also have wolf and dog DNA. Coyotes, wolves, and dogs can and do interbreed. This has resulted in some places in the eastern US in a subspecies that isn't afraid of humans due to the dog DNA, that can hunt in open areas due to the coyote DNA, and can also hunt in forested areas due to the wolf DNA.
- alamortsubite 1y agoCoywolves are also much larger and more powerful than coyotes. It may have been an anomaly, but I had the opportunity to see one close up on the edge of my rural property in PA that was easily the size of a German shepherd.
- exegete 1y agoIn this case humans didn’t introduce the coyotes. We’ve diminished the populations of most predators like coyotes such that other animals’ populations grow out of control without human intervention. So in this case humans intervened by displacing coyotes previously not by introducing them now.
- metabagel 1y agoLike the introduction of mongooses on some Hawaiian islands to control rats. The mongooses then became a pest. https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/hisc/mongoose-urva-auropunctata/ https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/hisc/mongoose-urva-auropunctata/
- skeeter2020 1y agobut there's no cobra problems on those islands, is there!
- qoez 1y agoOr cane toads in australia which the episode is apparantely based on.