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This sort of thing is a huge problem here in New Zealand. The only native mammal here is a bat, we have mostly birds which evolved for a really long time with o
by lemming 9mo ago
This sort of thing is a huge problem here in New Zealand. The only native mammal here is a bat, we have mostly birds which evolved for a really long time with only avian predators. So they’re hilariously poorly adapted for surviving standard predators (cats, rats, dogs etc) which first the Maori and subsequently Europeans brought. For example, many of them are flightless and tend to freeze when threatened - works well against eagles but is a terrible idea when threatened by a cat.
As a result, we have many animals, mostly birds, which are totally unique and also critically endangered. Many of them can only survive on offshore islands which have been comprehensively cleared of predators at vast effort and expense. The islands need to be relatively accessible since humans have to get to them to maintain them, but it turns out that once in a while a predator will swim quite vast distances for no apparent reason, and it only takes one to mess up years of painstaking work. Quite apart from killing a bunch of birds whose total remaining numbers might range from the tens to the hundreds of individuals.
- tomcam 9mo agoI too am flightless and freeze while threatened
- CiscoCodex 9mo agoMy upvote didn’t feel enough for this comment. So here’s my kudos for a nice chuckle!
- tomcam 9mo agoYou are very kind! Thank you .
- asdff 9mo agoDirect ecological management is unfortunately a bit of a game of using a bucket to fix a leaky ship. The equilibrium that established the ecosystem dynamics in the first place is disrupted. A new equilibrium might form over time, but we enforce the old one because that is what we documented when we first came to a place, even though it is no longer thermodynamically favorable. Ironically, the ecology of an island itself came from events like a random animal swimming to it over the historical record and finding sufficient spare resources or an ecological niche they could satisfy sufficiently to reproduce. Distance from mainland and species diversity is very strongly correlated reflecting increasingly scarce odds of these "heroic journeys" at greater distances. Species themselves are capable of exhausting an islands resources and putting themselves into local extinction even with no human intervention (such as the case of the last of the mammoths on wrangel island).
- Auracle 9mo agoA lot of work and money has gone in to preventing zebra mussels from spreading to new lakes in Minnesota. Think free sites for people to have their boats cleaned when they’re going from lake to lake, PR campaigns, etc. My parent’s small pond, which has never seen a boat or any other real human activity, got them before the big lake it’s connected to did. Clearly there was some other way they could spread, presumably by bird. Anyways, one by one every lake in the area no has zebra mussels. Even if they would only spread via human, it was clearly only a matter of time. As much as they suck (they’re sharp and attach themselves to basically anything in the lake) I’m not sure the expense has been worth simply delaying the inevitable.
- potato3732842 9mo ago> I’m not sure the expense has been worth simply delaying the inevitable. Now that I'm jaded I ask myself how many government and private sector jobs were "created" (in sarcasm quotes because broken windows fallacy) washing all those boats for free over the years and whether they even expected to prevent the spread or if the spread is the justification for expansion.
- AuthAuth 9mo agoThose are actually great jobs for the government to be creating. Having a workforce of people dedicated to maintaining the environment is invaluable. These people are so poorly paid and driven by passion for their work the government is getting a great deal on all the hard work they do.
- kitesay 9mo agoProbably a swallow. They could carry them.
- dhosek 9mo agoAfrican or European?
- dexwiz 9mo agoAlcatraz isn't really that far from land, about a mile away. They have events where you can swim to and from it. The currents make it dangerous, but the distance is unremarkable.
- loloquwowndueo 9mo agoMost people cannot swim a mile.
- defrost 9mo agoAll the same every year > 2,000 people attempt the 12 mile swim to see a cute Quokka on Rottnest Island. * https://rottnestchannelswim.com.au/ https://rottnestchannelswim.com.au/ * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rottnest_Channel_Swim https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rottnest_Channel_Swim The 36th annual Rottnest Channel Swim will be held on Saturday, 21 February 2026. Mind you, that's largely Australians who grow up swimming more than many US Navy SEALs do. Come on down, the waters fine, the sharks rarely nip. I'm suprised to see a HN comment along the lines of "most people don't ...", after all, most people don't program computers, start million and billion dollar companies, build out datacentres, fly planes, ... etc. The site is littered with people confidently doing things most people do not.
- SauntSolaire 9mo agoWorth noting that the water in San Francisco can be up to ~20 degrees colder than the water off the coast of Australia. Which adds to the difficulty some.
- defrost 9mo agoSure, there are also a number of cold water long distance swims - the English channel is famous, the Tasmanian ones less so .. but they're cold, long, and have some wicked currents depending which one you take. * https://www.iswimhappy.com/tas https://www.iswimhappy.com/tas * https://www.derwentriverbigswim.com/ https://www.derwentriverbigswim.com/ The Rottnest swim is just a long warm bath for those that like to dip a toe in and start easy. To the best of my knowledge few ever attempt the horizontal falls even at slack tide - the waters are warm but the salties and the sharks can be off putting .. come tide change the stoppers will eat people. > than the water off the coast of Australia. I should note that Australia is a large continent with an area equal to that of mainland contiguous USofA .. it's not all Gold Coast Qld, just as the US is not all Florida. Eg: the current water tempreture in San Francisco ( 12.5°C / 54.5°F ) is on par with the September water tempreture when surfing offshore breaks in southern Western Australia (not Perth, the south coast where all the fun is).
- richk449 9mo agoI love the visual of humans desperately trying to preserve what they consider the natural world, and when they turn their backs evolution does it's thing.
- clhodapp 9mo agoNit: If predators periodically make their way to the islands without human assistance, don't the islands have native predators, by virtue of how we've woven ourselves into the definitions?
- frikk 9mo agoNo, because the predators themselves aren't native.
- xenadu02 9mo agoNo because the predators would not survive doing so from their distant original lands. New Zealand is far enough away for this not to be a problem - otherwise it would have happened in the historical past. At least until continental drift brought New Zealand close enough to other land mass. Whether the species then alive would have evolved enough to survive is unknown.