Destructive immigrants – of the non-human kind

Lately, while all the important media outlets aren’t lamenting over Tiger Woods, the scuttle is about Asian Carp. This invasive species has been working its way up the Mississippi River, into the Illinois River and trying to burst into the Great Lakes, the world's largest freshwater ecosystem.

In the 1970s, catfish farmers used these hardy foreign carp to remove algae from their ponds. But over the decades, floods that caused catfish ponds to overflow have released the species into the Mississippi river basin.

The Asian Carp are ravenous and destroy food sources at an alarming rate. These fish can grow up to four feet in length and weigh upwards of 100 pounds. Some parts of the Illinois River have been almost completely overrun with these fish, pushing native species to the brink.

Like most invasive species, this fish is a top-level predator, meaning they have no natural enemies outside of their native environment, and is overpopulating at an exponential rate. It is so prolific that in areas where present they literally jump out of the water and crash into boaters, sometimes causing severe harm.

Until the invention of ships, the problem of invasive species was virtually nonexistent. At the dawn of global trade, people enthusiastically transported critters to new continents. But the arrival of Gypsy moths to the United States in 1869 generated speculations of the hazards of introducing non-indigenous creatures when a would-be silk farmer accidently released the moth that stripped the leaves from millions of acres of forest.

Was a lesson learned? Apparently not. Here are a few more examples of man-made epidemics defacing the ecosystem:

Feral Pigs - In 1893, 50 feral pigs from Germany's Black Forest were released on a hunting preserve in New Hampshire's Blue Mountains. Later, in 1910 and 1912, Russian wild boars were released on a North Carolina preserve near the Tennessee border. Some of these transplants escaped from the hunting preserves. Many of their offspring bred with feral descendants of domestic pigs. A recent Scripps Howard News Service story reported that wild pigs account for approximately $800 million in property and crop damage each year, as well as 27,000 auto collisions.

Burmese Python - The pet snake craze literally grew out of control when owners began releasing the 20 foot long creatures into the wild once they outgrew their tanks. Thriving and multiplying, particularly in the Everglades, they have become a scary nuisance, posing a potential threat to humans and feeding on native endangered species.

Starlings - In 1890 New York drug manufacturer Eugene Schieffelin released some 100 European starlings in Central Park under the guise of introducing every bird mentioned by Shakespeare into North America. Had the Bard not mentioned the starling in the third scene of "Henry IV," the bird might never have arrived to North America. Today, the noisy birds roost in hordes of up to 1 million; they can devour up to 20 tons of potatoes in one day and their droppings are believed to be vectors of several infectious diseases. In 1960, a flock of some 10,000 starlings flew straight into a plane, crippling its engine and causing it to crash. Sixty-two people were killed.

Kudzu - A.K.A. "the vine that ate the South." Growing up to one ft. a day in summer months, it breaks power lines, kills trees and collapses buildings. Used for decorative purposes in Asia, kudzu was first seen in the U.S. when the Japanese made it part of a garden at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. In the 1930s, the government encouraged farmers to plant it to prevent soil erosion. It was subsequently discovered that the Southeastern US has near-perfect conditions for kudzu to grow out of control and it now covers more than seven million acres.

Killer Bees - In 1957 a beekeeper in Brazil accidentally released 26 Tanzanian queen bees. The queens mated with local drones creating so-called killer bees and have since spread through the Americas and infiltrated the U.S. including California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas and Florida. The bees' venom is no more toxic than that of the European honeybee. However, they are known to sting many more times, with some victims receiving more than 1,000 stings.

Northern Snakehead - The northern snakehead fish has teeth like a shark and the ability to walk on land. The carnivorous fish hails from Asia but in 2002 it appeared in a small Maryland town, where a resident ordered two snakeheads from a fish market in New York’s Chinatown and released them into a pond. While other invasive fish species can only travel as far as the waterways will take them, the snakehead can survive for up to four days out of the water and is known to migrate up to 1/4 mile on land to other water sources by wriggling with its body and fins. The fish has since been spotted everywhere from New York to California.

Time and time again invasive species have created ecological changes throughout the planet. Each and every time it was the result of humans releasing them, maybe while even thinking it was a good idea. Little thought was given to the various effects on the ecosystem. More often than not, created a situation that is bad for wildlife, costs millions if not billions of dollars to battle, and in the end we all pay for it.

Armand Nardi is the publisher of the Gainesville Daily Register. He can be contacted at: anardi@ntin.net.