Posted on 01/13/2009 10:59:36 AM PST by Sopater
BANGKOK, Thailand - It seemed like a good idea at the time: Remove all the feral cats from a famous Australian island to save the native seabirds.
But the decision to eradicate the felines from Macquarie island allowed the rabbit population to explode and, in turn, destroy much of its fragile vegetation that birds depend on for cover, researchers said Tuesday.
Removing the cats from Macquarie "caused environmental devastation" that will cost authorities 24 million Australian dollars ($16.2 million) to remedy, Dana Bergstrom of the Australian Antarctic Division and her colleagues wrote in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology.
"Our study shows that between 2000 and 2007, there has been widespread ecosystem devastation and decades of conservation effort compromised," Bergstrom said in a statement.
The unintended consequences of the cat-removal project show the dangers of meddling with an ecosystem — even with the best of intentions, the study said.
"The lessons for conservation agencies globally is that interventions should be comprehensive, and include risk assessments to explicitly consider and plan for indirect effects, or face substantial subsequent costs," Bergstrom said.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Macquarie?
I always love it when environmentalists try to play God and tinker with ecosystems. It always backfires.
Oops!
Save the birds! Kill the rabbits!
Simple solution. With 16 and a half million dollars they could have solved both problems. Hire 1000 Chinese people to spend several months on the island on the stipulation that they eat all the rabbits and the cats. Would have been more effective. some Chinese people would have made a fortune (by their standards) and the island would have been returned to its natural state when the Chinese people were taken back home.
Not always. This from further in the article:
Cats were removed from Little Barrier island off New Zealand, but it took a second campaign against a growing rat population. On the remote Campbell island off New Zealand, authorities successfully removed sheep, cattle, cats and rats in one of the biggest eradication projects to date. "The whole ecosystem is recovering superbly," Clout said of Campbell island.
So apparently non-native species can be removed effectively. Those in charge of this Australian island eradication program need to quit cutting corners and do it right.
There. Fixed it.
In places like Australia and New Zealand we used to have flora and fauna unique in this world. About 150 years ago people thought it would be a "good idea" to introduce foreign species such as cats, rabbits, and possums (for fur). These animals had disastrous impacts on our native flora and fauna.
So they thought they'd fix it by introducing other foreign species, such as stoats and weasels, to control the animals they had already introduced. Sadly, these too had a disastrous effect on our flora and fauna, because stoats and weasels decided that they liked to eat native species, too...
Now it is such a mess it is nearly impossible to fix it without seriously affecting other aspects of the ecosystem. And please note: not one environmentalist was in sight for any of this damage. Most or all of this damage was done by businessmen and capitalists who didn't know what the Hell they were doing.
It astounds me how many so called ecologists have apparently never heard of the Kaibab deer or know what a J-curve is. Those are Eco 101 topics.
Save the birds! Kill the cats!
Oops!
Save the birds! Kill the rabbits!
Ooops!
Save the birds! Kill the birds!
Are cats that expensive?
Terrific article, one that we SHOULD learn from.
So, harvest the darned bunnies. They’re tasty critters!
I'd wager the Chinese would "discover" an ancient aphrodisiac made from seabird parts.
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