Why charismatic, introduced species are so difficult to manage

February 4, 2019, Ecological Society of America

Introduced and invasive species can present big problems, particularly when those species are charismatic, finds a recently published paper in the Ecological Society of America's journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

People tend to have a more favorable view of species that are large; do not bite, crawl, or squirm; are not oily or slimy; or are culturally valued. Some introduced species, like zebra mussels, tend to be reviled by the public, and people willingly adhere to strict management policies.

However, if an animal has that elusive quality of charisma, people often don't want it to be controlled, even if it's harming the environment. Inevitably, these imbalances in public perception of introduced species influence the way those organisms are managed.

Take the ring-necked parakeet (Psittacula krameri) for example. The pet trade has led to an established population of parakeets in Europe, far outside the species' native range. Even though parakeets can transmit diseases to native birds, compete with them for nesting cavities, and are recognized as a crop pest, the public enjoys seeing them in parks, gardens, and homes. Introduced parakeets tend to be released in cities, but the parakeets actually exact the most damage in rural areas. But because people have grown used to them, they are likely to oppose eradication efforts that take place before the birds become an established nuisance.

Opposition to the management of charismatic species can be exacerbated by these "social-ecological mismatches—differences between the scales of interacting social and ecological systems. In the parakeets' case, the introduced birds have not been around for more than a few decades, which is not a long time on an ecological scale. But it is long for humans—many have grown up knowing the parakeets are part of their neighborhood, and so oppose efforts to manage them.

A group of researchers from the US Geological Survey (USGS) and universities in the US and UK explored how public perception and management actions toward charismatic, introduced species are often at odds with the ecological characteristics of these populations.

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Army of Nazi raccoons force Germans to admit defeat

Raccoons introduced by the Nazis have officially occupied Germany after experts admitted they are there to stay.

The north American invaders – freed in the wild on the orders of Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering – broke into houses at the weekend as they sought food and shelter in cold weather.

As homeowners complained about furniture being ripped to make cosy nests, the German Hunting Federation said the mammals will never be ousted.

'The raccoon is firmly established in Germany, this has to be accepted,' said spokesman Daniel Hoffman.

Magnus Wessel, head of the conservation department at Friends of the Earth Germany, said: 'Limiting their numbers is pretty much all that can be done.'

Raccoons, which German pest controllers say now number in the millions, often choose to live under houses as they feel safe from predators and can steal food from the bins.

As the cold conditions hit, a couple arrived back from holiday to find one of the animals had climbed down the chimney and eaten all the food in their cupboards in Spessart, Hesse.

A raccoon chased off a cat after breaking in through its flap, eating a packet of biscuits and ripping up a cushion for a nest at a home in Kaiserslautern.

Goering ordered the release of a breeding pair of raccoons when he was the Third Reich's chief forester in 1934, to give hunters something to shoot.

More got out in 1945 when an Allied bomb hit a farm where they were being reared for their pelts.

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/916265-army-of-nazi-raccoons-force-germans-to-admit-defeat#ixzz2AgqiLkkC

An Introduced Bird Competitor Tips the Balance Against Hawaiian Species

ScienceDaily (May 23, 2012) — Biologists Leonard Freed and Rebecca Cann from the University of Hawaii at Manoa have been studying birds at Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge for 20 years. Located on an old cattle ranch on the windward slope of Mauna Kea on the Island of Hawaii, it was established in 1985 to protect 8 species of rare and endangered perching birds. The refuge and its volunteers planted over 400,000 seedlings of native koa trees in an abandoned pasture to restore high elevation forest.

The once-rare white-eye colonized the restoration area, grew rapidly in it, but then surged into the old-growth forest below. Freed and Cann estimated that tens of thousands of native birds were lost.

Their study was recently published in the open access journal NeoBiota.

The researchers had previously shown competition between white-eyes and native birds on their study sites. With increased numbers of white-eyes, young of all native species measured had stunted growth, indicating that food was becoming a problem. They also documented that birds of all ages had difficulty replacing their feathers. Each problem, both unprecedented in nature, occurred at the same time. In contrast to the forest adjacent to the restoration area, native birds deeper within the forest had normal growth and feather replacement where white-eyes were still rare.

Read more:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120523135529.htm

Trumpets of outrage in the outback

An Australian biology professor is causing a rumble in the academic jungle by suggesting that his country should import elephants and other foreign species into its wild interior.

Rhinos and even giant Komodo dragon lizards could be imported, David Bowman suggests in an article in Nature.

He says Australia is just not managing its most pressing ecological problems, and something radical is needed.

But some fellow scientists say it is just a bad and dangerous idea.

Others, however, are supportive, seeing potential for helping beleaguered Aboriginal communities and reducing the risk of forest fires, as repairing some damaged ecology.

The problems Prof Bowman proposes solving with his radical zoological armoury stem from the huge changes wrought by the two waves of human arrival - the first by forebears of the Aborigines about 50,000 years ago, and the second by European settlers a few hundred years ago.

The first initiated the slow demise of the spectacular megafauna that once bestrode the giant continent.

They included the marsupial lion, a metre and a half long and a powerful predator; the diprotodon, a wombat bigger than a cow; giant birds such as the Dromornidae family that once boasted Stirton's Thunder Bird, three metres high; and crocodiles, lizards and turtles bigger than any still walking this Earth.

Take so many big species out of an ecosystem, and there are bound to be changes all the way down to its bottom.

If you throw in land clearance across enormous swathes of the continent and the subsequent introduction of rabbits, camels, cane toads, rats, pigs and everything else that came with the European settlers, you have an ecology in profound turmoil.

Attempts have been made to control rabbits, pigs, buffalo and lots of other alien species; but they haven't really worked.

"We have a very unbalanced ecology and it's all just spiralling into a trajectory," lamented Prof Bowman when I spoke to him earlier in the week.

"We're not managing actively, we're just managing bits of the problem - so it's a big mess."

So the root of his idea is that if you can't restore the animals themselves, bring in something that can fulfil a similar ecological role.

Continued:   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16843096

Mouse-eating opossums run amok in Brooklyn

By HEATHER HADDON
September 19, 2010

The city played possum -- and Brooklyn residents lost.

In a bizarre attempt to outwit Mother Nature, city officials introduced beady-eyed opossums in Brooklyn years ago to scarf down rats running amok in the borough, according to local officials.

Surprise: Operation opossum didn't work.

Not only do wily rats continue to thrive, but the opossums have become their own epidemic, with bands of the conniving creatures sauntering through yards, plundering garbage cans and noshing on fruit trees.

They've even taken up golf, with two sightings of the whiskered marsupials at the Dyker Heights municipal course in the past week, local officials said.

"They are everywhere," said Theresa Scavo, chairwoman for Community Board 15, which represents Sheepshead Bay and surrounding south Brooklyn neighborhoods.

"Didn't any of those brain surgeons realize that the opossums were going to multiply?"

A city Sanitation spokeswoman said they were not involved with the Brooklyn opossum drop, and the Health Department didn't have any record of it. But Scavo and two city councilmen said city officials spoke about the effort at a 2007 Brooklyn forum.

"City brought possums in to take care of rats," read Community Board 15 notes from the meeting.

The opossums were set free in local parks and underneath the Coney Island boardwalk, with the theory being they would die off once the rats were gobbled up, said Councilman Domenic Recchia (D-Brooklyn).

Instead, the critters have been populating, spreading to Park Slope and Manhattan.

"The population has boomed in recent years," said Josephine Beckmann, district manager for Community Board 10, which represents Bay Ridge. "They climb up in the tree and have a good meal."

The critters have a mouth full of 50 sharp teeth, tend to exude a foul odor, and can occasionally contract rabies, said Stuart Mitchell, an entomologist.

They are nocturnal, and some Brooklynites have become terrified to go into their yards at night.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/rat_bastards_f5onjzgcqxm0fu3RFz3ySL#ixzz10eZuBwrX