Ok its time to solve the problem of feral animal infestation in Australia, Seabreeze style.. Or this could just be an editorial.. It's a long read, I've kept the long words to a minimum and I haven't mentioned dinsdales crazy religion once. Or just scroll down and look at the pictures...
We have tried shooting them for 200 years and it's failed. It is impossible to get rid of the feral animals without waging bio warfare. They are here to stay. I am about to propose an unpopular approach, bring in more ferals!. Let me explain..
Every ecosystem needs predators. They eat herbivores, which would otherwise overpopulate and starve. Different size predators for different size prey. Wolves eat bison, foxes eat rabbits and so on. Large carnivores are partial to eating smaller carnivores as well. For example, when wolves were introduced back into Yellowstone, they reduced the coyote population and returned the ecological balance. The small mammals who were hunted by the coyote, came back when the wolf did..
Now what are the native Australian predators??
50 thousand years ago there were massive kangaroos and wombats on steroids, and other big mammals roamed the outback, And there were equally impressive predators.
Then it all changed, on 'Real Australia Day' 40000 years ago the Aboriginals came and ruined the party. The aboriginals no doubt wiped out most of the Mega faun. The romantic idea that aboriginals lived peacefully with the land is a myth. They stripped it almost bare. The only animals left were the ones to elusive to be eaten.
All the big plant eaters were gone, and the vegetation became over grown. So the aboriginals began 'firestick farming' which dramatically changed the flora.. Rainforest made way for fire loving eucalypts, and the climate dried as a result..
-Dingo gets dropped off in a canoe- fills the void left by the thylacine.
Fast forward to just before Australia was 'rediscovered' by europeans. The aboriginals have now been the apex predator for 40000 years, they are entrenched in the ecosystem, all the natives are adapted to humans.
White man came and told the aborigines they weren't allowed to live off the land anymore, and their land was given to farmers, who began their own environmental blitzkrieg.
To have something to shoot at, farmers introduced foxes and rabbits, which suddenly entered an environment void of predators, and full of local mammals unprepared for the cunning placental predators.
Joining the foxes and rabbits were also the camel, deer, pig, goat, buffalo, cat, dog, catdog, rats and horse.
There is one thing notable exception in that list, no apex predators. Humans don't like apex predators..
So now the top predators are the fox and cat, dingo, feral dog, goanna and the wedgy.. Hardly a replacement for the aboriginals, or the 'Old Firm'.... Foxes are too small to eat any big animals, cats likewise, dingoes are too rare and feral dogs are just too stupid to catch anything accept domesticated sheep and the odd drunk..
We have replaced the big herbivores. Not the big predators.
Foxes and cats, which have no competition at all are seen as pests. And they are, but the answer is not to kill them all, thats next to impossible. The answer I believe is to return the ecological balance. Unfortunately we cannot return to an ecosystem with humans as top dog. And we can't bring back the old firm of predators cause they are extinct..
The natural Australian environment disappeared 40,000 years ago.
So what's the solution? we cannot get rid of all the foxes, just like the dingo they are here to stay. And even if we could remove the fox what will replace it? nothing?..
Here are the predators australia had before the Aboriginals displaced them. We killed the last one top right because a few farmers lost some chickens, who is to doubt we wouldn't have killed the rest..
First one is a no brainer, we should reintroduce the Tasmanian devil.. The native fox..
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And we could reintroduce the Komodo Dragon, very similar to the extinct Megalania, and they already eat buffalo.
What Australian predator is keeping the camels from taking over?
How about bringing in the wolf? I reckon the feral dog and fox problem would disappear pretty quick. Along with some lambs.
If we won't bring in apex predators, we can't get angry at animals becoming feral, they are feral because of the ecological unbalance between predator and prey.
We can't get rid of the ferals, but we can match them.. Tim Flannery agrees with me, he even goes so far as to sugest elephants!.. Unfortunately the Greens, Liberals, Labour and Scientologists would all me against my epic plan.
Easy fix - we give 2-legged ferals guns & copious amounts of goon & Jimbeam...drop them out in the bush...they'll clean up a few feral animals & I reckon they'll lower the 2-legged feral population as well!
Direct archaeological evidence for the hunting of the megafauna by Aboriginal hunters has long been contentious.
as suggested, modification of the landscape by humans was more likely the main cause of these extinctions.
The view of Aboriginal people as 'apex predators' is an interesting one. ethnographic accounts of Aboriginal life at the point of contact, in many cases, showed that whilst hunting was definitely a part of subsistence practices, the bulk of food stuffs was collected by women and children on a daily basis.
Aboriginal hunting became more efficient and arguably more prominent when they had access to rifles.
as for introducing 'Apex Predators' - didnt we introduce the Cane Toad (predator) to get rid of the Sugar Cane beatle (prey)? Also, wouldn't we just be repeating the same problems as those that introduced other 'feral' species. How would you stop introduced predators from killing native wildlife? what happens when the meat supply is gone?
That was an interesting read. Sounds good.
To have even the smallest possible chance of anything happening in the real world that we live in, the predator(s) you choose to introduce will have to:
Not eat cattle
Not eat sheep
Not eat humans
Not eat much of Australia's small cute native wildlife (especially Koalas)
I had a great time at Uni in my mid 20's discussing the solution to many environmental problems. After many years I eventually learnt that by taking a broad sweep across a number of disciplines, I was conveniently able to gloss over the details.
One good thing about having large top predators is they should be fairly easy to control, compared to smaller predators. However I tend to think almost every time a new species is introduced into Australia, if it can find an environmental niche to suvive in, then it will and thus begin the problems with it.
Perhaps it would be better to make the pest species a resource, such as making money out of camel meat or camphor laurel wood. That way if people want to make a living out and about then they can by going around and killing them. At the same time make it illegal to grow these animals or plants.
If someone could earn say $300 a day collecting a noxious plant or animal the ferals could be kept under control.
You would not be paid to shoot foxes. You would be paid for each fox you shot. Paying people to shoot foxes sounds like something the federal government would think up, afterall its not their money they are spending. You'd be paid because the dead fox is worth something.
my solution for ferals will not go down to well,but,,
we get the illagal boat people who wish to stay here to spend 2 years out in the sticks,
(i mean they have done it so tough already ),during this time they can only catch kill and eat feral animals,(mmmm camel steaks),,after 2 years having reduced the ferals by a fair bit they can then stay in country. win ,win
less ferals and they have sort of earnt the right to stay.
when i was younger we had slug guns and never had any indian minors or butcher birds here,bring back slug guns
on a serious note,
we should be allowed to breed and keep as pets native animals,with fewer restrictions,
yeah i know this will cause debate,
During the height of the fox fur trade in the mid 80's, fox shooters were getting up to $25 for a good pelt. My guess its decline has meant an increase in fox numbers since then.
News today -
Fire ants unvanquished 10 years on
Fire ants first found near Brisbane in 2001 are certainly living up to their scientific name.
They are known as Solenopsis invicta, and invicta is Latin for "unvanquished".
Unvanquished they are. More than a decade after they were first identified at the Port of Brisbane, fire ants have been discovered in another 42 areas around the city.
A native of South America, the red fire ant could cause inestimable damage to Australian agriculture, could render suburban backyards unlivable and it poses a threat to exotic and native animals.
Restricted areas for fire ants now cover a swathe of territory from the Port of Brisbane, where they were first detected in February 2001, south of the city and west to Marburg and beyond.
A 10-year battle has so far failed to eradicate the pest, although it has largely been contained within the Brisbane and Ipswich areas.
Fire ants have a sting in their tail, similar to wasps and bees, but they can gather in their hundreds and individuals sting repeatedly, causing a painful, burning and itching sensation.
In extreme cases they can be fatal.
A spokesman for Biosecurity Queensland (BQ), Craig Jennings, played down the latest fire-ant finds and said the new infestations were low-level across a large area.
Mr Jennings said BQ was now looking at new technologies and procedures to help find any remaining infestations.
"Soon we will have remote sensing which will allow us to survey very large areas which we couldn't do previously," he said.
"That will allow us to delineate the edge of those infestations, and that will stop these new ones."
Ipswich City Councillor Paul Tully doesn't consider the fire ants so benignly.
Cr Tully said 18 of the new sites are within the boundaries of Ipswich and therefore are all close to residential areas.
"Unfortunately, a degree of complacency has crept into the community who have forgotten about the serious dangers posed by fire ants," he said.
Cr Tully called for an urgent increase in federal and state government funding to stop their spread.
"If they are not stopped now, they will cross the NSW border in a few years," he said.
"Imported species such as rabbits, cane toads and foxes have never been stopped, and the march of the fire ants will not be halted unless a new major effort starts now."http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8264192
Read that last pargraph barn.
We import a fair few pests and we also exported some! Thank to us there is lot of redback spiders in Japan, let be proud of us
The problem with shooting foxes and selling the pelts, is you now get an environment which has lost a predator. And you can't keep it up, it's not financially viable to shoot ferals australia wide. The other problem is you get lots of old ladies wearing dead foxes on their head!.
And we need a solution that does not require human participation. You can imagine looking after the environment will be the first thing neglected when the economy collapses. (maybe then we will get the Human hunter gatherers back)
What we need is not to get rid of the foxes, we need the fox to stay cause if fills an ecological niche, what we need is the next ecological niche filled.
Imagine if you killed every big predator in Africa and introduced the Red fox. You would have an ecological disaster which would not be solved by just shooting all the foxes.
Points raised about not being able to introduce apex predators cause they will eat cow is a valid one. This is the main reason why it wont work, because of the farmers.
The other reason is people believe the Australian environment is 'natural', which is wrong. It has been the exploited backyard of humans for 400000 years, and its consequentially missing a few animals.
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If we left everything untouched, in a few hundred thousand years foxes will speciate and some will evolve to become wolf size. Unless dogs beat them to it. The cats will evolve into leopard like 'big cats' and they will eat all the excess pigs. Native snakes will develop immunity to cane toads, and the balance will be restored... Nature always finds a way- I'm just hoping to speed it along.
I'd like to say I photo shopped that, but its a real animal!
thats what you think barn, just run with that. I dont really care. 
Barn said...
The difference is cane toads and foxes and fire ants reproduce faster than we can shoot them. Big predators cannot reproduce quickly.
Glad this pig (introduced) won't be reproducing...
