Biologists aim to wipe out "Rat Island"

[Reuters]

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Two centuries after rats first landed on a remote Aleutian island from a shipwreck, wildlife managers in Alaska are plotting how to evict the non-native rodent from the island that bears their name.

Reuters

 

[Tonington]

Introduce some feral cats.

 

[Unforgiven]

Might be worse than the rats. Let nature find a balance as it will.

Introduce some feral cats.

 

[Locutus]

Australia got the worst of all crap deals like this. Well, other than Europeans bringing disease to the indigenous peoples of the early Americas.

 

[Twila]

Feral cats won't touch healthy rats. And I've never heard of feral jack russell terriers...

I'm totally with Uniforgiven on this one...nature is supporting them...nature will keep their number in a natural balance is left alone.

The minute you add more chef's to the kitchen you ruin the soup...this has been proven over and over again...

There are natural patterns in nature for overpopulation control....

 

[Tonington]

The issue here isn't rat population, so much as what they are doing to the native bird species. True there are natural patterns, but this case isn't a natural pattern at all. Standard population models aren't so cut and dry when you introduce foreign fauna.

The rats can move off the island after decimating the bird population.

This very much goes with that "are humans natural". We are, or at least I think we were. But once we start tampering with nature, like introducing foreign species, we become managers. And we're piss poor at doing it.

 

[Nuggler]

Start a MacRatters;

Serve rat-burgers, rat stew, Biggy Rat with fries..........endless

Convince us that eating rats is good. (some voted for Bush and Harper, so this shouldn't be too hard), and we'll probably pay big bucks for a MacRat..............

n'est pas?

:study:

 

[MikeyDB]

I really don't know what all the fuss's about...

Where would America find its next crop of politicians?

I suppose the U.S. could borrow some from Canada, it's not as though we don't have rats warming benches in the House of Commons....

 

[flutterby]

they've been there 200 years. they're as natural as anything else now.

 

[Tonington]

they've been there 200 years. they're as natural as anything else now.

That's not true. Those birds have been using that ecological niche for millenia, the rat's have been there but 200 years. The rats evolved in a different area altogether. Natural populations in an eco-system do not disrupt the balance like these rats will.

 

[MikeyDB]

That's not true. Those birds have been using that ecological niche for millenia, the rat's have been there but 200 years. The rats evolved in a different area altogether. Natural populations in an eco-system do not disrupt the balance like these rats will.

So has "nature" made a mistake?

If we endorse the idea that everything that doesn't involve volition (human will) that happens in the world is "natural" then why should anyone be upset at an island filled with rats?

Why are they there and will they be opening a casino?

 

[Tonington]

Nature hasn't made a mistake. Animals jumped ship from somewhere else and settled on these islands. They aren't meant to be there, only through human transportation as a vector are they found there. Like other invasive species, zebra mussels, green crab, tunicates, spruce beetles, purple loosestrife, etc.

 

[shadowshiv]

Nature hasn't made a mistake. Animals jumped ship from somewhere else and settled on these islands. They aren't meant to be there, only through human transportation as a vector are they found there. Like other invasive species, zebra mussels, green crab, tunicates, spruce beetles, purple loosestrife, etc.

Don't forget the damned Ash Borers.:-(

 

[Nuggler]

Oh,,,,,,,,,,,asH borers...............

whew8O