Invasive Species
The Scourge of Invasive Species
Artwork and pensive poem by Kieran Gonsalves (c) 2025, echoing the urgent need to be more thoughtful guardians of this world so that future generation can also enjoy God's beautiful creation
What's not to like about a cuddly rabbit skipping merrily in the wild ... hmm, plenty. Let's see
In 1859, Farmer Austin released 24 rabbits on his Victoria farm for sport, to run around carefree.
'To breed like rabbits' shouldn't surprise you that they have multiplied into hundreds of millions.
Wreaking havoc on the fragile Australian ecology that continues unabated, hurting even civilians.
Rabbits are voracious feeders and soon denuded the grass, causing the collapse of many native species.
To try to right this wrong, scientists tried targeted biological warfare, which spread through faeces.
Paradise parrots, bilby and numbat all but vanished from the face of the earth while rabbits thrived.
Dingoes, quolls, wedge-tailed eagles, and goannas ate rabbits because their food chain was deprived.
The problem of non-native invasive species destroying habitats grows longer; a man-made catastrophe
Brown tree snakes wiped out all the birds in Guam. Water hyacinth smothers life in lakes, a tragedy!
The Nile Perch and the bighead silver carp have decimated freshwater fish stocks in Africa and the USA
When will man ever learn that nature has evolved in a delicate balance - it's best to leave it that way
Comments
The Everglades have been taken over by invasive species of all kinds - including Trumps guests at Alligator Alcatraz. (A dear friend from Florida)
Another perspective? Isnt that the way of Nature? What survives takes over..
(WhatsApp reply to above comment)
Nature will bounce back but invasive species unnecessarily disrupt the balance
The list is endless: Poisonous Jamaican toads introduced to control pests in Australia have exploded disrupting the ecosystem with the traditional predators having no answer to their poison. - Kieran
I am team ‘predator free 2050’ on this particular debate
One human’s cute animal is another’s terror.
This was recently in the news…again
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/08/nx-s1-5507110/new-zealand-conservation-experiment
(WhatsApp comment from a dear classmate on my B School Alumni Group)
Even when snake was approaching the birds had no idea of danger
Sadly the snake population exploded as long as the birds were there. Once extinct the same snake population collapsed - Kieran
To your point. In NZ they are relocating threatened birds to predator free islands
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1111341861137027/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v
(My reply on the WhatsApp B School Alumni Group)
It was introduced to India in the early 19th century (around 1809) as an ornamental plant by the British, but it soon escaped gardens and spread aggressively in the wild.
Since the leaves contain lantadenes toxin, livestock and deer can’t eat it. It chokes out native grasses threatening birds and deer which is wreaking havoc in the natural food chain.
It catches fire easily creating another ecological nightmare of forest fires (my reply to the Sudip's comment on the Japanese mongoose experiment gone wrong)
Anyway I’d like to share something close to home. Monterey Bay. By the early 1900s the rampant hunting of the sea otter; a keystone species driven mainly by the Russian fur trade and the polluting of the Monterey Bay by the canneries had decimated the otter population. There were no otters to feed on the purple sea urchins, which in turn fed on kelp wiped out vast tracts of kelp forests that are the lungs of the ocean. Monterey Bay became sick and a wasteland. Many species of fish disappeared.
Then a remote colony of otters were discovered, rehabilitated and today some 3,000 southern sea otters call California home. Monterey Bay is back in business. Sardines have returned along with several species of whales, including orca, that either pass through or hang around the bay. Seabirds like tue pelicans, terns and cormorants, harbor seals and sea lions play in the bay. Dolphins are back and the Monterey Bay is a naturalists’ delight.
All this was thanks to one woman Julia Platt who in 1931 established a sanctuary for sea otters the power packed 4’ incredibly cute creature.
Here are some of my pictures of the Southern Sea otters in Monterey Bay. Otters are hard to photograph because of their color and dense fur (1 million/sq inch)
(WhatsApp comment from another classmate on the same B School Alumni Group)