It feels like an awfully colonialist attitude to just go into New Zealand and declare that bringing in an invasive species that devastates the local ecology is wrong.
It feels like an awfully colonialist attitude to just go into New Zealand and declare that bringing in an invasive species that devastates the local ecology is wrong.
It feels like an awfully colonialist attitude to just go into New Zealand and declare that bringing in an invasive species that devastates the local ecology is wrong.
what
It's clearly a tongue-in-cheek joke that no one could possibly take seriously.
Oh good, let's just sprinkle some spiders on this and a pinch of teeth falling out to create the most perfect fucking nightmare scenario ever. Maybe add a splash of punching somebody but it doesn't work or running away but not getting anywhere?
The really fucking insane part is the person had to climb back and save their own ass. So did the builders just not give the slightest shit about safety and thus had no rescue plan in place this obviously-possible situation happened, instead of forcing the poor bastard to climb back or just die horrifically?
Oh, and just for extra nightmare, it looks like the railings on the side opposite to the guy are straight-up fucked, so not only did the glass panels not stay in place, they came loose with enough force to destroy the supposedly-solid safety railings. If he had dodged in a different direction, he could easily have been walloped by a glass panel, fallen through the bridge, or gotten pitched over the side thanks to a busted railing.
+15
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
A woman who was found alive in a Utah national forest on Sunday after going missing for nearly six months had said she "wanted solitude and isolation," a sheriff's office spokesman told The Washington Post.
They took her for a physical and mental health check, then said hey, she didn't do anything illegal, and if she wants to return to the forest, she is welcome to and we will make sure she is aware of resources available to her when she is there.
Oh good, let's just sprinkle some spiders on this and a pinch of teeth falling out to create the most perfect fucking nightmare scenario ever. Maybe add a splash of punching somebody but it doesn't work or running away but not getting anywhere?
The really fucking insane part is the person had to climb back and save their own ass. So did the builders just not give the slightest shit about safety and thus had no rescue plan in place this obviously-possible situation happened, instead of forcing the poor bastard to climb back or just die horrifically?
Oh, and just for extra nightmare, it looks like the railings on the side opposite to the guy are straight-up fucked, so not only did the glass panels not stay in place, they came loose with enough force to destroy the supposedly-solid safety railings. If he had dodged in a different direction, he could easily have been walloped by a glass panel, fallen through the bridge, or gotten pitched over the side thanks to a busted railing.
This is why you don't go to these places. I wouldn't trust any of the engineering on this shit.
+8
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MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
A woman who was found alive in a Utah national forest on Sunday after going missing for nearly six months had said she "wanted solitude and isolation," a sheriff's office spokesman told The Washington Post.
They took her for a physical and mental health check, then said hey, she didn't do anything illegal, and if she wants to return to the forest, she is welcome to and we will make sure she is aware of resources available to her when she is there.
One sympathizes.
Would love to have heard that first conversation.
"Ma'am you've been declared a missing person for several months now your family and friends are worried about you"
Henrietta Thoreau could have at least jotted down a quick poem about her plan and left it on the kitchen counter. Seems like she wanted solitude and drama.
Oh good, let's just sprinkle some spiders on this and a pinch of teeth falling out to create the most perfect fucking nightmare scenario ever. Maybe add a splash of punching somebody but it doesn't work or running away but not getting anywhere?
The really fucking insane part is the person had to climb back and save their own ass. So did the builders just not give the slightest shit about safety and thus had no rescue plan in place this obviously-possible situation happened, instead of forcing the poor bastard to climb back or just die horrifically?
Oh, and just for extra nightmare, it looks like the railings on the side opposite to the guy are straight-up fucked, so not only did the glass panels not stay in place, they came loose with enough force to destroy the supposedly-solid safety railings. If he had dodged in a different direction, he could easily have been walloped by a glass panel, fallen through the bridge, or gotten pitched over the side thanks to a busted railing.
This is why you don't go to these places. I wouldn't trust any of the engineering on this shit.
This is a really good article on the cultural issues that produce... well, collapsing glass bridges that someone has to rescue themselves from. It's a complex problem
Henrietta Thoreau could have at least jotted down a quick poem about her plan and left it on the kitchen counter. Seems like she wanted solitude and drama.
To be fair this seems like a really easy way to get people to not look for your murder victims
RedTide#1907 on Battle.net
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New Zealand is a hedgehog paradise. Whereas in Europe they are hunted by pine martens, foxes and badgers, New Zealand’s hedgehogs have few predators. Unchecked by the food chain, they meander blissfully through forests and gardens, hoovering up an astonishing number of native creatures.
With the exception of a few local bats, New Zealand has no native land-based mammals. Its bird population adapted to this state of affairs – some, like the Kiwi, are flightless, or nest on the ground. When stoats, cats, possums and rats were introduced, they wreaked havoc: crunching down rare insects, killing fresh-hatched chicks, and slurping the eggs of ground-nesting birds.
Hedgehogs are also key culprits. “It’s increasingly coming to light how much damage they can do,” says Nick Foster, a PhD candidate at the University of Otago who is researching hedgehogs. A single, dedicated hedgehog will consume numerous native lizards, bird eggs, and wētā – a kind of large flightless cricket found only in New Zealand. One study found 283 wētā legs in a single hedgehog stomach. “That means in a 24-hour period this hedgehog has guzzled up 60 or so animals,” Foster says. “It’s a banquet.”
Yeah no seriously, this is gross to even remotely imply that it's good news.
Hedgehogs and other introduced animals are horrific in their effects here. We've already banned pet ferrets (Morally questionable given my understnading is Pet ferrets cannot survive without human supervision... but you dotn really want to find out that they can, givne the damage stoats and weasels already do), i could get behind banning pet hedgehogs. As much as i love them, Pet rats also become questionable under this logic. Pet cats and dogs are probably here to stay, but i'd say that there should be the political will to legislate cats being an indoor pet only - and likewise, legislate dogs being on leash only outside of designated leash-off areas.
Or you know we can crack jokes about how cute hedgehogs are and i can keep rescuing the maimed birds and lizards i do manage to find alive. (Sorry to be a grump, but yeah. Ground reality of this stuff is Not Fun)
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I have zero issue with banning pet ferrets since I very much wish the same for cats, simply because they're probably only the second only to humans in how many species they've exterminated. They gut local ecosystems to a horrendous degree, but we still allow them because they're cute and they purr, right?
At a minimum, we desperately need to get cats restricted to being indoors worldwide. At least dogs aren't climbing trees to wipe out nests or killing countless prey animals on a regular basis expressly for fun; the damage dogs can do has largely been done, as everything else they might threaten can fly or climb.
The gone wrong is that this tiger escaped. The gone right is that this sheriffs deputy a) didn't shoot the tiger, b) didn't get mauled (nor did anyone else so far as I know), c) gave an amazing line with "Fuck you and your fucking tiger." The gone whatever is the owner put the tiger in his SUV and took off.
+3
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Not shooting the tiger was probably self-defense more than anything else. Cops carry pistols that work against people that stand upright and have a bunch of easy-to-hit organs. Trying to kill a tiger with what is probably a 9mm pistol is a really tall order; you aren't likely to get through the skull without hitting it dead-on in the eye, which is a damn hard shot, and hitting it straight-on in the chest means shooting it after it's already jumping at you because otherwise you just end up hitting the shoulders.
Still blows my mind that there's no Federal law against keeping tigers as pets.
+8
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
I'm still annoyed that people didn't walk away from Tiger King wanting major animal welfare reform in Florida.
Is there an article to that? It SOUNDS like the guy with the pistol is the Tiger's possible owner trying to recapture his pet, and other guy is rightfully WHY THE FUCK DO YOU HAVE A TIGER?
New Zealand is a hedgehog paradise. Whereas in Europe they are hunted by pine martens, foxes and badgers, New Zealand’s hedgehogs have few predators. Unchecked by the food chain, they meander blissfully through forests and gardens, hoovering up an astonishing number of native creatures.
With the exception of a few local bats, New Zealand has no native land-based mammals. Its bird population adapted to this state of affairs – some, like the Kiwi, are flightless, or nest on the ground. When stoats, cats, possums and rats were introduced, they wreaked havoc: crunching down rare insects, killing fresh-hatched chicks, and slurping the eggs of ground-nesting birds.
Hedgehogs are also key culprits. “It’s increasingly coming to light how much damage they can do,” says Nick Foster, a PhD candidate at the University of Otago who is researching hedgehogs. A single, dedicated hedgehog will consume numerous native lizards, bird eggs, and wētā – a kind of large flightless cricket found only in New Zealand. One study found 283 wētā legs in a single hedgehog stomach. “That means in a 24-hour period this hedgehog has guzzled up 60 or so animals,” Foster says. “It’s a banquet.”
Yeah no seriously, this is gross to even remotely imply that it's good news.
Hedgehogs and other introduced animals are horrific in their effects here. We've already banned pet ferrets (Morally questionable given my understnading is Pet ferrets cannot survive without human supervision... but you dotn really want to find out that they can, givne the damage stoats and weasels already do), i could get behind banning pet hedgehogs. As much as i love them, Pet rats also become questionable under this logic. Pet cats and dogs are probably here to stay, but i'd say that there should be the political will to legislate cats being an indoor pet only - and likewise, legislate dogs being on leash only outside of designated leash-off areas.
Or you know we can crack jokes about how cute hedgehogs are and i can keep rescuing the maimed birds and lizards i do manage to find alive. (Sorry to be a grump, but yeah. Ground reality of this stuff is Not Fun)
Sidenote: If you're buying a pet ferret it's almost guaranteed to already have been spade/neutered. Virtually all pet store ferrets come from Marshall Farms and while I have my issues with them as a company they only sell fixed ferrets. The ferrets literally get tattoos on their ears after being fixed among other things (descenting and initial vaccine doses).
I don't doubt that unfixed ferrets could become and ecological disaster in NZ where there's no predators to speak of but that would take an intentional act by someone that would involve lying to a breeder because the breeders are both rare and also very aware of where the animals are banned (because they don't want to see them put down). That said yeah it's probably best to just not take any chances that some asshole decides they want to start their own ferret farm and then doesn't understand the animal they're dealing with and assumes chicken wire will keep them penned in (it won't, like even a little bit).
But as far as America goes? America has a breed of ferret that's slightly larger than the domesticated variety that's endangered. So I'm incredibly skeptical of people who scaremonger about ferrets becoming the new ecological disaster that feral cats are. Even if domesticated ferrets could breed they lack the biology, instincts or behavior to come anywhere near cats. Frankly they'd be food for birds of prey and coyotes until they were gone entirely.
In new Zealand we have an illegal ferret underground. So that's fun! (Doing some research, one of the main drivers is.. Japan, because power ferrets from new Zealand are perceived as better quality).
There are a few legal breeders, but these are people working with DOC (department of conservation) to hunt rabbits... Yet another plauge species over here
Re: cats, I just don't think you're ever going to get the political will too ban then to that degree. There are also complexities where when you remove cats, rat and other vermin populations explode, do you have to take a holistic approach. Which further complicates the political will for things. For Gods sake we have anti-1080 conspiracy theorists here, despite this being one of the safest ways we've come up with to destroy invasive pest species
The other complexity is much like dogs, pet cats seem to be integral to human mental health. We're seemingly wired to have animal contact. So I'd rather push for restriction (which can also be correctly sold as good for the animal) than elimination
Is there an article to that? It SOUNDS like the guy with the pistol is the Tiger's possible owner trying to recapture his pet, and other guy is rightfully WHY THE FUCK DO YOU HAVE A TIGER?
Texas is a bastion of Libertarian political philosophy, which is why only 4.2% of it is public land and why there are likely more tigers in captivity in Texas than there are in wild in the whole world.
A woman who was found alive in a Utah national forest on Sunday after going missing for nearly six months had said she "wanted solitude and isolation," a sheriff's office spokesman told The Washington Post.
They took her for a physical and mental health check, then said hey, she didn't do anything illegal, and if she wants to return to the forest, she is welcome to and we will make sure she is aware of resources available to her when she is there.
I'm getting big "Into The Wild" vibes with this. Which is horrifying, there's wanting isolation and solitude to yourself it's quite another to make your friends and family get upset by the uncertainty that she may be dead under mysterious circumstances. That's what happens when people care about someone when they go missing without explanation.
In new Zealand we have an illegal ferret underground. So that's fun! (Doing some research, one of the main drivers is.. Japan, because power ferrets from new Zealand are perceived as better quality).
There are a few legal breeders, but these are people working with DOC (department of conservation) to hunt rabbits... Yet another plauge species over here
Re: cats, I just don't think you're ever going to get the political will too ban then to that degree. There are also complexities where when you remove cats, rat and other vermin populations explode, do you have to take a holistic approach. Which further complicates the political will for things. For Gods sake we have anti-1080 conspiracy theorists here, despite this being one of the safest ways we've come up with to destroy invasive pest species
The other complexity is much like dogs, pet cats seem to be integral to human mental health. We're seemingly wired to have animal contact. So I'd rather push for restriction (which can also be correctly sold as good for the animal) than elimination
In new Zealand we have an illegal ferret underground. So that's fun! (Doing some research, one of the main drivers is.. Japan, because power ferrets from new Zealand are perceived as better quality).
There are a few legal breeders, but these are people working with DOC (department of conservation) to hunt rabbits... Yet another plauge species over here
Re: cats, I just don't think you're ever going to get the political will too ban then to that degree. There are also complexities where when you remove cats, rat and other vermin populations explode, do you have to take a holistic approach. Which further complicates the political will for things. For Gods sake we have anti-1080 conspiracy theorists here, despite this being one of the safest ways we've come up with to destroy invasive pest species
The other complexity is much like dogs, pet cats seem to be integral to human mental health. We're seemingly wired to have animal contact. So I'd rather push for restriction (which can also be correctly sold as good for the animal) than elimination
A poison used to control and eliminate invasive mammal populations (particularly possums) here in NZ. A lot of the conspiracy stuff is driven by hunters who are upset they might not be able to hunt anymore (I'm in camp fuck them), some animal activists (who seem to want to ignore the chicks that get eaten alive by possums and other such fun,), and just general anti government conspiracy of three what's the real goal bollocks.
The science meanwhile days this is by far the best we've got and it's actually working
Henrietta Thoreau could have at least jotted down a quick poem about her plan and left it on the kitchen counter. Seems like she wanted solitude and drama.
To be fair this seems like a really easy way to get people to not look for your murder victims
I imagine the police would still check on her, but now you're talking about a patrol car instead of search and rescue. I get wanting to be alone, but you gotta fill out some basic paperwork in a situation like this, like at least send a text that says gone fishin. Otherwise your precious solitude is going to be scattered by the downdraft from a rescue helicopter hovering over your new tree house.
I wonder how on target they actually are. We use a different poison (I think) to control pest mammals here in the states and it is ... not specific. At all.
A woman who was found alive in a Utah national forest on Sunday after going missing for nearly six months had said she "wanted solitude and isolation," a sheriff's office spokesman told The Washington Post.
They took her for a physical and mental health check, then said hey, she didn't do anything illegal, and if she wants to return to the forest, she is welcome to and we will make sure she is aware of resources available to her when she is there.
I'm getting big "Into The Wild" vibes with this. Which is horrifying, there's wanting isolation and solitude to yourself it's quite another to make your friends and family get upset by the uncertainty that she may be dead under mysterious circumstances. That's what happens when people care about someone when they go missing without explanation.
She did not ditch her friends and family or anything. Her mistake was that she drove there, and then some park Ranger found her "abandoned" vehicle and so she was reported missing.
I wonder how on target they actually are. We use a different poison (I think) to control pest mammals here in the states and it is ... not specific. At all.
Its probably more targeted in NZ because unless its a bat, all mammals are invasive pests. So it can only target the invasive ones by default.
Before following any advice, opinions, or thoughts I may have expressed in the above post, be warned: I found Keven Costners "Waterworld" to be a very entertaining film.
I wonder how on target they actually are. We use a different poison (I think) to control pest mammals here in the states and it is ... not specific. At all.
Its probably more targeted in NZ because unless its a bat, all mammals are invasive pests. So it can only target the invasive ones by default.
Yeah, this.
Our native mammals are... some bats. That's it. (They're pretty cute, trying to evolve back into land dwellers, and of course, endangered.) You could make an argument for Kune-Kune (pigs brought here by the maori, the name translates to "Fat and Round", they're dorable jolly things), but they're not really endagered and well supported with breeding programs, as well as being a semi-popular pet. I'd like to have some myself some day, they're lovely. Very scritchable, super friendly, very trainable.
If there's a drop, there's signs warning you not to take your dog in the area, you fucking moron. It has been HUGELY successful in wiping out a lot of things - this is why it pisses off hunting groups, because their precious deer eat it and die. (I have a very, very dim view of hunters and guns in New Zealand, as we simply lack any kind of non-introduced fauna that actually requires this or justifies that sort of hunting. There's not a living off the land excuse, or self defense, it's all for sport).
The 1080 bait itself is 0.15% sodium fluoroacetic, the rest is just cereal, binder, and green dye (which makes it very visible to us humans so we dont grab it and eat it thinking it's bush candy or something). All the research etc backs this, and it's not like we've sat there going "This is good enough" - DOC (Department of Conversation) continuously funds looking for alternatives, and bait drops are only part of the anti-pest strategy (we have predator free reserves, including one in my very city, community trapping programs, predator free islands, there's a lot of work going on.)
But for the wild areas, there's simply few options as good as aerial drops of 1080 - you cannot do intensive trapping like you can in suburban bush or farm-land adjacent bush in the really wild areas. And trapping doesnt let you cull deer or goats at that (And would be hazardous to our native kiwi etc)
and the thing is? This is working. Last i checked, we're on track to be predator free by 2050. The city i live in has an increasing diversity of native bird life thanks to our trapping programs - bird life that used to be infrequent sightings for me is now turning up in my back yard. There are even some people complaining about hte fact that one of our native parrots - the Kaka, the north island relative of the more famous Kea - is cheerily eviscerating non-native trees across the city now. (Native trees, meanwhile, are just fine, because they evolved to deal with these antics from the Kaka)
I enjoyed the note in the article that 1080 is also used in Western Australia, because it's naturally occurring there. So the local plants and critters have evolved to be immune to it, naturally.
I enjoyed the note in the article that 1080 is also used in Western Australia, because it's naturally occurring there. So the local plants and critters have evolved to be immune to it, naturally.
Australian wildlife strikes again!
I swear all we need for real life space Marines is Australians and power armor.
I enjoyed the note in the article that 1080 is also used in Western Australia, because it's naturally occurring there. So the local plants and critters have evolved to be immune to it, naturally.
Australian wildlife strikes again!
I was surprised by that too. Thought they'd be using PAL not NTSC, but guess that's just the refresh rate, right? Maybe doesn't affect the resolution.
I enjoyed the note in the article that 1080 is also used in Western Australia, because it's naturally occurring there. So the local plants and critters have evolved to be immune to it, naturally.
Australian wildlife strikes again!
I swear all we need for real life space Marines is Australians and power armor.
Then the Australian Space Marines would lose embarrasingly to a bunch of emus.
I enjoyed the note in the article that 1080 is also used in Western Australia, because it's naturally occurring there. So the local plants and critters have evolved to be immune to it, naturally.
Australian wildlife strikes again!
I swear all we need for real life space Marines is Australians and power armor.
Then the Australian Space Marines would lose embarrasingly to a bunch of emus.
Yeah, but they'd be space emus. They're more like cassowarys.
I enjoyed the note in the article that 1080 is also used in Western Australia, because it's naturally occurring there. So the local plants and critters have evolved to be immune to it, naturally.
Australian wildlife strikes again!
I swear all we need for real life space Marines is Australians and power armor.
Then the Australian Space Marines would lose embarrasingly to a bunch of emus.
Yeah, but they'd be space emus. They're more like cassowarys.
And let's be fair here, Cassowary are terrifying. Emu? Pretty nice! Very chill. Easily spooked by geese (I once had to "Defend" the Emu in the Australian exhibit from an aussie goose that was beign a jerk. And by this i mean the Emu, both as tall as me, stood behind me while a grey goose that didn't even reach my knee attempted to threaten them). I mean, they're still big birds, I dont recommend pissing off an Emu, but they're not you know, that bad. Chill enough that multiple zoos let em free roam where they can interact with people, and you know how dumb people as a whole are. (Also if you've never seen a baby emu playing chase with a zookeeper, you're missed out in life)
Cassowary meanwhile have no idea they're no longer raptors. They're omnivores who mostly focus on fruit, but anyone who pays attention to nature knows it's never the predators you watch out for (They're LAZY most of the time and meals that fight back are not wort the trouble). But Omnivores or Herbivores? Oh boy. Do Not Fuck With These Things.
And this one is armed with GIANT FEET RAZORS.
Attached to legs they run on every. single. fucking. day. Every day is leg day for these fucks. DO not invite them to kick you, you will spend your remaining moments trying to figure out why your spleen and stomach are no longer part of your bodily anatomy.
All I need to know about cassowaries I learned from two places:
Far Cry 3
This dude on Twitter that posted videos of his daughter playing in their yard while a crocodile wandered around, but also posted videos of the family locked in the closer and crying for first responders to hurry after a cassowary broke into their house and tried to hump their artwork.
Posts
Hedgepigs.
what
30-50 Feral Hedgehogs
It's clearly a tongue-in-cheek joke that no one could possibly take seriously.
......I think?
Oh good, let's just sprinkle some spiders on this and a pinch of teeth falling out to create the most perfect fucking nightmare scenario ever. Maybe add a splash of punching somebody but it doesn't work or running away but not getting anywhere?
The really fucking insane part is the person had to climb back and save their own ass. So did the builders just not give the slightest shit about safety and thus had no rescue plan in place this obviously-possible situation happened, instead of forcing the poor bastard to climb back or just die horrifically?
Oh, and just for extra nightmare, it looks like the railings on the side opposite to the guy are straight-up fucked, so not only did the glass panels not stay in place, they came loose with enough force to destroy the supposedly-solid safety railings. If he had dodged in a different direction, he could easily have been walloped by a glass panel, fallen through the bridge, or gotten pitched over the side thanks to a busted railing.
Good news: She is found 5 months later.
Great news: She left intentionally and was living in a national forest.
https://www.insider.com/utah-missing-woman-found-forst-wanted-solitude-isolation-deputy-2021-5
They took her for a physical and mental health check, then said hey, she didn't do anything illegal, and if she wants to return to the forest, she is welcome to and we will make sure she is aware of resources available to her when she is there.
This is why you don't go to these places. I wouldn't trust any of the engineering on this shit.
One sympathizes.
Would love to have heard that first conversation.
"Ma'am you've been declared a missing person for several months now your family and friends are worried about you"
"Tell them to fuck off"
https://aeon.co/essays/what-chinese-corner-cutting-reveals-about-modernity
This is a really good article on the cultural issues that produce... well, collapsing glass bridges that someone has to rescue themselves from. It's a complex problem
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To be fair this seems like a really easy way to get people to not look for your murder victims
Come Overwatch with meeeee
Yeah no seriously, this is gross to even remotely imply that it's good news.
Hedgehogs and other introduced animals are horrific in their effects here. We've already banned pet ferrets (Morally questionable given my understnading is Pet ferrets cannot survive without human supervision... but you dotn really want to find out that they can, givne the damage stoats and weasels already do), i could get behind banning pet hedgehogs. As much as i love them, Pet rats also become questionable under this logic. Pet cats and dogs are probably here to stay, but i'd say that there should be the political will to legislate cats being an indoor pet only - and likewise, legislate dogs being on leash only outside of designated leash-off areas.
Or you know we can crack jokes about how cute hedgehogs are and i can keep rescuing the maimed birds and lizards i do manage to find alive. (Sorry to be a grump, but yeah. Ground reality of this stuff is Not Fun)
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At a minimum, we desperately need to get cats restricted to being indoors worldwide. At least dogs aren't climbing trees to wipe out nests or killing countless prey animals on a regular basis expressly for fun; the damage dogs can do has largely been done, as everything else they might threaten can fly or climb.
The gone wrong is that this tiger escaped. The gone right is that this sheriffs deputy a) didn't shoot the tiger, b) didn't get mauled (nor did anyone else so far as I know), c) gave an amazing line with "Fuck you and your fucking tiger." The gone whatever is the owner put the tiger in his SUV and took off.
Still blows my mind that there's no Federal law against keeping tigers as pets.
Fucking Florida.
Sidenote: If you're buying a pet ferret it's almost guaranteed to already have been spade/neutered. Virtually all pet store ferrets come from Marshall Farms and while I have my issues with them as a company they only sell fixed ferrets. The ferrets literally get tattoos on their ears after being fixed among other things (descenting and initial vaccine doses).
I don't doubt that unfixed ferrets could become and ecological disaster in NZ where there's no predators to speak of but that would take an intentional act by someone that would involve lying to a breeder because the breeders are both rare and also very aware of where the animals are banned (because they don't want to see them put down). That said yeah it's probably best to just not take any chances that some asshole decides they want to start their own ferret farm and then doesn't understand the animal they're dealing with and assumes chicken wire will keep them penned in (it won't, like even a little bit).
But as far as America goes? America has a breed of ferret that's slightly larger than the domesticated variety that's endangered. So I'm incredibly skeptical of people who scaremonger about ferrets becoming the new ecological disaster that feral cats are. Even if domesticated ferrets could breed they lack the biology, instincts or behavior to come anywhere near cats. Frankly they'd be food for birds of prey and coyotes until they were gone entirely.
There are a few legal breeders, but these are people working with DOC (department of conservation) to hunt rabbits... Yet another plauge species over here
Re: cats, I just don't think you're ever going to get the political will too ban then to that degree. There are also complexities where when you remove cats, rat and other vermin populations explode, do you have to take a holistic approach. Which further complicates the political will for things. For Gods sake we have anti-1080 conspiracy theorists here, despite this being one of the safest ways we've come up with to destroy invasive pest species
The other complexity is much like dogs, pet cats seem to be integral to human mental health. We're seemingly wired to have animal contact. So I'd rather push for restriction (which can also be correctly sold as good for the animal) than elimination
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Texas is a bastion of Libertarian political philosophy, which is why only 4.2% of it is public land and why there are likely more tigers in captivity in Texas than there are in wild in the whole world.
I'm getting big "Into The Wild" vibes with this. Which is horrifying, there's wanting isolation and solitude to yourself it's quite another to make your friends and family get upset by the uncertainty that she may be dead under mysterious circumstances. That's what happens when people care about someone when they go missing without explanation.
What is 1080?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_fluoroacetate
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080_usage_in_New_Zealand
A poison used to control and eliminate invasive mammal populations (particularly possums) here in NZ. A lot of the conspiracy stuff is driven by hunters who are upset they might not be able to hunt anymore (I'm in camp fuck them), some animal activists (who seem to want to ignore the chicks that get eaten alive by possums and other such fun,), and just general anti government conspiracy of three what's the real goal bollocks.
The science meanwhile days this is by far the best we've got and it's actually working
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I imagine the police would still check on her, but now you're talking about a patrol car instead of search and rescue. I get wanting to be alone, but you gotta fill out some basic paperwork in a situation like this, like at least send a text that says gone fishin. Otherwise your precious solitude is going to be scattered by the downdraft from a rescue helicopter hovering over your new tree house.
I wonder how on target they actually are. We use a different poison (I think) to control pest mammals here in the states and it is ... not specific. At all.
She did not ditch her friends and family or anything. Her mistake was that she drove there, and then some park Ranger found her "abandoned" vehicle and so she was reported missing.
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Its probably more targeted in NZ because unless its a bat, all mammals are invasive pests. So it can only target the invasive ones by default.
Yeah, this.
Our native mammals are... some bats. That's it. (They're pretty cute, trying to evolve back into land dwellers, and of course, endangered.) You could make an argument for Kune-Kune (pigs brought here by the maori, the name translates to "Fat and Round", they're dorable jolly things), but they're not really endagered and well supported with breeding programs, as well as being a semi-popular pet. I'd like to have some myself some day, they're lovely. Very scritchable, super friendly, very trainable.
If there's a drop, there's signs warning you not to take your dog in the area, you fucking moron. It has been HUGELY successful in wiping out a lot of things - this is why it pisses off hunting groups, because their precious deer eat it and die. (I have a very, very dim view of hunters and guns in New Zealand, as we simply lack any kind of non-introduced fauna that actually requires this or justifies that sort of hunting. There's not a living off the land excuse, or self defense, it's all for sport).
The 1080 bait itself is 0.15% sodium fluoroacetic, the rest is just cereal, binder, and green dye (which makes it very visible to us humans so we dont grab it and eat it thinking it's bush candy or something). All the research etc backs this, and it's not like we've sat there going "This is good enough" - DOC (Department of Conversation) continuously funds looking for alternatives, and bait drops are only part of the anti-pest strategy (we have predator free reserves, including one in my very city, community trapping programs, predator free islands, there's a lot of work going on.)
But for the wild areas, there's simply few options as good as aerial drops of 1080 - you cannot do intensive trapping like you can in suburban bush or farm-land adjacent bush in the really wild areas. And trapping doesnt let you cull deer or goats at that (And would be hazardous to our native kiwi etc)
and the thing is? This is working. Last i checked, we're on track to be predator free by 2050. The city i live in has an increasing diversity of native bird life thanks to our trapping programs - bird life that used to be infrequent sightings for me is now turning up in my back yard. There are even some people complaining about hte fact that one of our native parrots - the Kaka, the north island relative of the more famous Kea - is cheerily eviscerating non-native trees across the city now. (Native trees, meanwhile, are just fine, because they evolved to deal with these antics from the Kaka)
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Australian wildlife strikes again!
I swear all we need for real life space Marines is Australians and power armor.
I was surprised by that too. Thought they'd be using PAL not NTSC, but guess that's just the refresh rate, right? Maybe doesn't affect the resolution.
Then the Australian Space Marines would lose embarrasingly to a bunch of emus.
Yeah, but they'd be space emus. They're more like cassowarys.
And let's be fair here, Cassowary are terrifying. Emu? Pretty nice! Very chill. Easily spooked by geese (I once had to "Defend" the Emu in the Australian exhibit from an aussie goose that was beign a jerk. And by this i mean the Emu, both as tall as me, stood behind me while a grey goose that didn't even reach my knee attempted to threaten them). I mean, they're still big birds, I dont recommend pissing off an Emu, but they're not you know, that bad. Chill enough that multiple zoos let em free roam where they can interact with people, and you know how dumb people as a whole are. (Also if you've never seen a baby emu playing chase with a zookeeper, you're missed out in life)
Cassowary meanwhile have no idea they're no longer raptors. They're omnivores who mostly focus on fruit, but anyone who pays attention to nature knows it's never the predators you watch out for (They're LAZY most of the time and meals that fight back are not wort the trouble). But Omnivores or Herbivores? Oh boy. Do Not Fuck With These Things.
And this one is armed with GIANT FEET RAZORS.
Attached to legs they run on every. single. fucking. day. Every day is leg day for these fucks. DO not invite them to kick you, you will spend your remaining moments trying to figure out why your spleen and stomach are no longer part of your bodily anatomy.
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This dude on Twitter that posted videos of his daughter playing in their yard while a crocodile wandered around, but also posted videos of the family locked in the closer and crying for first responders to hurry after a cassowary broke into their house and tried to hump their artwork.