[patriot08]

Why? With all due respect; tell me what are they good for but to maim and kill?
They will take your pet or child if given the opportunity.

They are as useless and destructive as fire ants and mosquitos- or do you think they too serve a purpose in the ecological system?

[SWAMPSNIPER]

None of these birds, and many other species, could long exist without gators. Their nests would be raided by tree climbing predators.

This isn't something I read in a book, it's something I've watched for 70 years.

v

[Axenolith]

Vast swaths of the US have been singularly changed forever by the elimination of critical species no one ever gave a second thought to before they were gone.

American Chestnut was “cradle to grave” wood east of the Mississippi before introduction of an imported blight. The fauna of the east suffered huge drops from losing a tree that provided unfailing nut forage annually and comprised more than 25% of deciduous tree cover on an average.

Oaks nearly followed this route with the infestation of the Gypsy moth.

The mountainous areas of the west lost many of their meadows and high grassy areas with the near extermination of beavers, most of those areas arose from silted in beaver dams.

Mosquitos serve a purpose, a food source to things like Purple Martins and Bats.

Fire ants are non native. They shouldn’t even be in the discussion, aside from the fact that they are corrupting stable ecosystems. Then again, in the long run that’s how adaptive radiations work anyways...