Foreigners must surely have takem animals plants and birds to America, whether by accident or design. What common wild animals, birds and plants are there in the US which have arrived from Europe or elsewhere over the centuries? [ These may not be obvious . Some immigrant species in Britain are both obvious and successful. The North American grey squirrel is an obvious immigrant which almost entirely displaced the native red squirrel and the muntjac deer is now everywhere in the South East but others e.g the rabbit , the sycamore tree, the horse chestnut and the pheasant are so familiar that people think they have always been here ]
Two that come to mind are kudzu, a broad-leafed vine native to Asia that overtakes wooded areas; and zebra mussels that have disrupted the ecology of waterways because they have no natural predators in North America.
Interesting question, Fred.
Posts: 1950 | Location: U.S. | Registered: 06-03-02
Here are two animals and a plant that have been introduced to the US.
Coypu, also called nutria, originally native to South America, has been introduced to every continent except Antarctica and Australia. It is regarded as a pest in the United States due to its semiaquatic nature and its diet. Living mostly in the southeastern US, nutria destroy aquatic vegetation, irrigation systems, erode river banks and displace native animals. Nutria are also present in large numbers in Washington and Oregon. ---
Burmese Pythons in the Everglades are becoming a serious problem. The pythons, which average 13' in length and may get as large as 20', are breeding in the Everglades, threatening to overrun the national park. They may be preying on native mangrove fox squirrels and wood storks, and they could be competing with the threatened eastern indigo snake for both prey and space. Stunned parkgoers have even spotted the pythons in epic battles with native alligators. Over 230 (National Geographic - October 28th 05) have been captured in the Florida Everglades where they are competing with alligators as the dominant predator. ---
Kudzu, sometimes referred to as "the plant that ate the South" in the US, was introduced from Japan into the United States in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, where it was promoted as a forage crop and an ornamental plant. From 1935 to the early 1950s the Soil Conservation Service encouraged farmers in the South to plant kudzu to reduce soil erosion, and Franklin D. Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps planted it widely for many years. Kudzu was recognized as a pest weed by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1953, and was removed from its list of permissible cover plants.
Kudzu is now common throughout most of the southeastern United States, and has been found as far north as Pennsylvania, and as far south as northern Florida. It has also been found growing (rather inexplicably) in Clackamas County, Oregon in 2000 ([4]). In all, kudzu infests 20,000 to 30,000 square kilometres of land in the United States and costs around $500 million annually in lost cropland and control costs. It cannot tolerate extremely low freezing temperatures that bring the frost line down through its entire root system; however it does require some cold weather (a solid frost or freeze annually).
Posts: 16956 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
Coypu were such a pest in our fenlands that there was a bounty for kiling them. In the end the government paid for a programme for their destruction and the coypu is now eradicated.
One bird introduced to the United States is the house sparrow. It must have got there by hitching a ride on ships where the travellers would feed it . We can imagine how cheering to those emigrating from Europe the sight of the familiar chirpy sparrows travelling with them would be.
With its bushy tail, tall ears, and pink nose, Australia's brush-tailed possum could be the poster child for cute critters.
But here in New Zealand—where millions of the animals eat native plants, trees, and birds by the bushel—the marsupials are possums non grata.
They are gobbling through this country as if it was made of ice cream," said Herb Christophers, spokesperson for the New Zealand Department of Conservation (DOC) in Wellington.
The pests were introduced to New Zealand in the 19th century and today spread bovine tuberculosis to livestock and wreak havoc on forests, competing with native birds for food. - National Geographic
Posts: 16956 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
How would anyone use a carrot as a contraceptive? The mind boggles
Maybe because it improves vision?
Another example of non-native US species is the fire ant, originally from South America:
quote:
Colonies were accidentally introduced into the United States in the 1930s through the seaport of Mobile, Alabama. Cargo ships from Brazil docking at Mobile unloaded goods infested with the ants; they have since spread from Alabama to the coastal plain and piedmont of almost all of the southeastern states. The ants were accidentally introduced into Australia in 2001, in a similar way.
Posts: 1950 | Location: U.S. | Registered: 06-03-02
Prof's ants made me think of the Africanized bee, which has killed people in several states.
--- Africanized honey bees (AHB), also known as “killer” bees, are hybrids of the African honeybee, Apis mellifera adansonii (or by other reports A. mellifera scutellata), with various European honeybees such as the Italian bee Apis mellifera ligustica.
The africanized bees in the western hemisphere descended from 26 Tanzanian queen bees accidentally released in 1957 in Southern Brazil from hives operated by biologist Warwick E. Kerr, who had interbred European honeybees and bees from southern Africa. Hives containing these particular queens were noted to be especially defensive. Kerr was attempting to breed a strain of bees that would be better adapted to tropical conditions (i.e., more productive) than the European bee used in North America and southern South America. While the African source bees are significantly smaller than the European bees, the hybrids are similar to the European bees in size, with only a slightly shorter wing that may be determined only by examination of a large sample.
The africanized hybrid bees have become the preferred type of bee for beekeeping in tropical areas of South America and in Central America because of improved productivity. However, in most areas the Africanized hybrid is initially feared, because it tends to retain certain behavioral traits from its African ancestors that make it seem less desirable for domestic beekeeping, specifically (as compared with the European types):
1. To have a tendency to frequently swarm. 2. To be more likely to abscond as part of a seasonal migratory pattern in response to lowered food supply. 3. To have greater defensiveness when in a resting swarm 4. To live more often in ground cavities than the European types. 5. To be highly defensive in guarding the hive, with a larger alarm zone around the hive. 6. To have a high proportion of "soldier" bees within the hive prepared for exit and defense. 7. To recruit additional bees from within the hive for defense. 8. To pursue and sting perceived threats in far greater numbers and over much longer distances from the hive. - Wikipedia
Posts: 16956 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
The scheme started in 2003 and continues to be controversial.
(What the link doesn't say is that the duck was introduced and encouraged by the late Sir Peter Scott one of our greatest naturalists and the founder of the The Wildfowl Trust, which he established to preserve species of wild ducks and geese. Very embarrassing )
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