If you really think about, it is really the only solution. You have a
species that has evolved to survive in an environment and it has been moved
to an environment with easier conditions where it thrives. Maybe something
that will prey on it and/or it's eggs would control it's population.
Preferably something the natives you are trying to protect will eat as well.
I don't advocate mucking around with the ecosystem, but I think we have
already done that in this case and we need to explore ways to fix it. After
years of testing in a controlled environment where everything can be
eradicated, of course. Too many problems have been caused by rushing
things.
I don't know if this can work, but if we do nothing, what happens? Maybe
it's a combination of electrofishing to remove as many of the species you
want to control before you introduce the new preditor to increase
effectiveness. I don't know, but there are a lot of things tht can be tried
in a controlled environment.
Just more things to think about....
Drummond Howard
Gaithersburg, Maryland
>From: Peter Unmack <peter.lists at>
>Reply-To: nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org
>To: nanfa-l <nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org>
>Subject: Re: NANFA-L-- Re: the aquarium hobby as conservator of
>populations-in-risk
>Date: Fri, 12 May 2006 14:27:34 -0500 (CDT)
>
>On Fri, 12 May 2006, Jerry Baker wrote:
>
> > I'm pretty ignorant about the proper ways to go about eradicating exotic
> > predatory fish from a watershed, but it seems to me that it could be
> > accomplished piecemeal. You could start by fencing off sections of
> > stream and eradicating whatever fish within that section and then moving
> > the fence further on. If nothing else it seems like you could create
> > refuges for the natives in this manner.
>
>Once an introduced species is introduced it is virtually impossible to get
>rid of them irrespective of what you do. You can do what you suggest for
>headwater species, but not lowland ones. Even in limited habitats it is
>very difficult. It was already mentioned that hey have already tried
>this and failed in-in-least one small habitat of barrens topminnow. Many
>eradication attempts fail. Sometimes this is because small pockets get
>missed and/or people reintroduce them. Plus it is very controversial.
>Look-in-the whole mess relative to poisoning pike in Davis Reservoir in
>California. I believe it is currently impossible to use rotenone in that
>state which is really screwing up native trout conservation efforts. The
>legislature of New Mexico banned any application of fish toxins for any
>reason for a little while which was a major headache for folks trying to
>conserve Gila trout.
>
>And electric barriers are good until the power goes out and the backup
>fails to come on. :-) And this is documented for the barriers on the CAP
>canals in Arizona.
>
>And all of this costs massive amounts of money to setup and maintain and
>must be done forever or else why do it-in-all. Far better and cheaper to
>prevent further introductions.
>
>Cheers
>Peter Unmack
>Provo River, UT
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/ visit http://www.nanfa.org Please make sure all posts to nanfa-l are
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