What Happens When Humans Fall In Love With An Invasive Species

originally posted by: sapien82
a reply to: InTheLight

Since im a vegetarian Ill stick with the Knotweed!

I'll leave the wee mud crabs and grey squirrels to you lot !

I never knew knotweed could be eaten , thanks for that Light

Squirrel is what everyone in europe really wants to eat ... But they are super hard to catch

i woke up with the thought of this title after i had a very bad dream about my feral born cat falling off and getting badly damaged.

Humanity doesnt have any change. so step back.

a reply to: InTheLight

What do you mean by that?

a reply to: ElGoobero

Here's of example of how I unknowingly let a noxious weed go wild in my area. I bought a beautiful flowering pot of mixed plants one year. I put the pot away after the plants froze in the winter. In the spring, surprise, one of the vines was still living. I put in in another pot and it lived through another year and multiplied. I have a bank on the side of the house and thought how nice it would look with this vine dangling down the side of it. Within 2 years it had covered everything and moved into the neighbors yard and beyond. It is resistant to any kind of removal and can even push out ivy.. Well, I did learn a big lesson about noxious plants, which is what we call them in Washington state.

a reply to: pointessa

thanks for sharing
any idea what it is?
hogweed maybe?

www.goodhousekeeping.com...

What's 14 feet tall, green, hairy, and covered in toxic sap? It may sound like a monster, but this scary beast is actually giant hogweed, a towering, invasive plant whose sap can cause painful burns, scarring, and possibly even blindness.

Originally from the the Caucasus mountain region of Eurasia, researchers just confirmed the presence of this federally listed "noxious weed" in Virginia for the first time. The state now joins Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan, Illinois,Washington, and Oregon as hosts to this non-native plant.

originally posted by: ArMaP
a reply to: InTheLight

What do you mean by that?

Sorry, mistaken identity. But why isn't everyone just eating rabbit there?

a reply to: oldcarpy

I don't know about knotweed, but rhubarb leaves are, indeed, poisonous.

I hunt an invasive species regularly during the fall. Chinese pheasant. Escaped the hunting preserve they were originally brought to in the early 20th/late 19th century...and have, quite merrily, spread all over the country. As near as I can tell, they've caused no great havoc.

a reply to: ElGoobero
Domesticated dogs will be invasive when there's no dog food on the shelves to buy them. ..

ladies and gentlemen...from Argentina, we bring you the Tegu Lizard

sunny99.iheart.com... tlMvRqgSaM6d_2FB1VlGiQhxH_YESA

The Argentine black-and-white tegu is native to South America, but National Geographic says the large lizards are taking over in the Florida Everglades and have started popping up in Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama. Louisiana, and Texas. Biologists say the creatures are omnivorous, eating pretty much anything they can fit in their mouths. They're also extremely hardy, so it's tough to reduce the population or control the spread once the species becomes established in an area.

Like other Florida invasive reptiles, tegus got a foothold in the wild after many escaped captivity or were released by pet owners. Tegus have been breeding in South Florida for more than a decade, but have only recently begun to spread to other states.

The lizards are described as docile and intelligent, but they will happily eat any smaller animals, fruits, or vegetables they can get to, making them a threat for pet owners and farmers.

Cajuns apparently are developing a taste for them

I think I prefer the Tegu to the python. I really really hate big snakes.

Lets face it,
knotweed, rabbits, birds . . . are not
the problem as 'invasive' species goes.
Nature will be around regardless, long after
humans destroy themselves.
Humans are the problem;
ESP. when they become arrogant
in playing gods.
Look at the example of rabbits, u.k. came
up with the idea of using biological viruses to
eradicate them; Then used covid to eradicate
feral cats. The way covid has morphed into new
strains, who knows where it REALLY came from.
Original Nature of things will always win.

Milk weed was also said to be
as 'invasive'.
When people tried to eradicate it,
it almost decimated the monarch butterfly
population.
Their you go . . .

This reminds me of article about Norway facing challenges with an invasive crab that has moved into their waters...

Crab-22:how Norways fisheries got rich but on an invasive species

Unknown to the fishermen, the crustaceans had traveled from Russia, where scientists had introduced red king crabs on the Murman coast during the 1960s with the goal of establishing a new, lucrative fishery. Slowly, the crabs scuttled the 60 or so miles over the border into Norway. The deep fjords in the Barents Sea near Bugøynes provided the perfect cover.

The invasion of “Stalin’s red army” was initially seen as a disaster. The crabs became entangled in gillnets and longlines, removing bait and causing damage that allowed coveted fish species to escape. But when the fishermen learned of the million-dollar Alaskan king crab fishery, they realised the crab could be more boom than bust. Today the red king crab is largely credited with rescuing the fishing villages of the north during a time when cod was sparse.

If you can eat the invader, then that could turn into a silver lining.

As a kid, I used to like chewing the Japanese Knotweed that grows around here. We just thought of it as some kind of bamboo. Our city has been working on trying to get rid of it more recently. Diehard, iirc glyphosate is the weapon of choice, they post signs warning about it.

Too bad, I wanted to try pickling them, and other experiments after learning more. Not worth the risk now.