Do You Battle a Invasive Plant ? NY Ban Sale of Certain Plants

[Smart Red]

Ridgerunner said, "Canada geese are not about to go extinct."
They will on my property.

Nope, it's hard to imagine they would ever become endangered. Of course, with MAN nothing is impossible.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Whenever I hear "X can't ever go extinct" I always remember the simple fact that, until we started hunting them, the Passenger Pigeon was the commonest bird in North America. A normal flock was something on the order of ten thousand.

 

[Nyboy]

Didn't they say same about passenger pigeon. I remember reading somewhere flocks where so large they would block out the sun, till they flew by.

 

[Nyboy]

posted at sametime

 

[Pulsegleaner]

It'll happen

It's a bit like how I refute those who say environmental degradation is 100% a cause of modern tech (usually these are the people who seem to think that if we all dropped modern tech went back to a lifestyle like we lived in the 1800's all damage to the environment would end and the world would be stable), "until the advent of the Greco-Roman-Biblical period, the vast majority of the top of Northern Africa was one gigantic forest (as opposed to the scrubby half desert state most of it has been in since then) But empires needed wood, temples needed incense (frankincense and myrrh are actually very scrubby trees (shrubs really) but the ancient Hebrews liked to BURN Cedar of Lebanon in their temples, not just build with it.)) As for extinction, ask the Bears of the Atlas mountains (they didn't go extinct until 1880, but the biblical era really cut down their numbers) the elephants of Syria, the Ostriches of Arabia (again not extinct until 1973 but suffering for most of the interim) and the lions of pretty much EVERYWHERE those empires had regular business with (that tiny group of lions that live in the Gir forest in India used to be part of a range that cover all of Africa, the bottom half of Europe, the bottom half of Asia and quite a few of the south east Asian islands. There is a reason why a lion is the symbol of Singapore (actually there is a reason why Singapore is called Singapore (Singapura=Lion Island)).

Actually here it was more or less the same story. Before the Europeans came over nearly all of the East Coast of the US was continuous forest. Of course before the Native Americans showed up, even MORE of it was.

 

[digitS']

Native Americans lived here for 20,000 years, plus or minus.

Imagine environmental change occurring at the rate it has during the last 2% of those centuries ..!

We need to continue with greater wisdom and restraint.

Steve

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Actually the native Americans DID do a lot of changes to the environment. I didn't want to bring it up (because it's a little complicated, and I'm not 100% on all the details) but based on what I read until the Natives got to it, ALL of the east coast was one enormous forest. It was the Indians who make most of the cleared spaces. In fact the only reason the white Europeans had anywhere to settle is that the Natives had been so decimated by disease that there were tons of now abandoned clearings free (plus the decimation had lowered the Indian population to the point where automatic responses of massacre of interlopes could not be done due to lack of warriors.)

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

I would think that a good deal of the open space was created via slash-and-burn agriculture. Then room needed to be made for longhouses, wigwams, etc. I remember reading about the northeastern-ish natives and their lacrosse games, in hundreds of people would sometimes participate - that would take a lot of land to host, even more if the grounds were moved occasionally. I would imagine that the natives from the rest of the east had similar sports.

Who knows for sure? It was a long time ago and most if not all tribes lacked a written language before the Europeans came.

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

Canadian geese are very invasive in NY. Airports are having big problems because of them. The state is culling them, bodies going to landfill. Supermarkets here charge over $60 for goose, sad waste.

That does sicken me. That's a lot of cheap, low-input food going to waste.

 

[Ridgerunner]

When the environment changes, whether through activities of man or activities of mother nature, some species thrive and increase in number, some go extinct. Some adjust and just get on with it. Maybe their food or range changes.

Yes, passenger pigeons are extinct due to man. There are more deer in North America now than there were when Columbus sailed, due to man changing habitat. Change is normal for mother nature.

Mother nature abhors a vacuum. If one form of life dies out, she'll fill the void with another. She doesn't care if that is mankind, deer, grasshoppers, or microbes. Life is life and she doesn't care. Eventually something will change and something else will move in. As part of mankind I do care. I want my granddaughter to have something when she is as old as I am. Getting all mystical and mythical about Canada geese is not going to keep mother nature from making some management decisions if their numbers become unmanageable, whether in total across the world numbers or in a microenvironment where they just get too crowded. In my opinion, keeping the numbers within manageable limits makes the flock stronger and our environment cleaner.

$60 for a goose! Wow! There is a lot of waste there, which also rubs me the wrong way. I'm sure lots of people would eat them if they didn't know where they came from.