This Is What's Missing From The Invasive Species Narrative

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https://www.npr.org/2024/08/28/1198910636/invasive-species-spread-native-plant-animals

We have numerous examples of invasive species in Australia. Some were unintentional (rats/mice) but the early settlers also deliberately introduced invasive species that would turn catostrophic for native ecological systems.
Rabbits - in plague proportions, introduced for sport/food
foxes - introduced by the aristocracy for sport
carp - introduced by European migrants for sport fishing
trout/aquarium fish - some to stock waterways with sports fish, but aquarium fish were released when owners didn't want to look after - some catfish (plecos) have gone on to be a nuisance
wild cats/dogs - domestic pets gone wild
Cane toads - introduced from south america to control insects - now in plague proportions across northern Australia
camels/horses/goats/pigs - running wild across the bushland
European bees - bought over for honey but have outcompeted native bees
Exotic shellfish/seaweed - bought over from ballast water into the harbours of every port

For Part 2 of invasive species - plants

South african grass - bought over for lawns, now spread out across Australian landscape
blackberry - once established, the thorny creeping branches are almost impossible to control without burning.
Conifer - planted for timber, exotic pine trees are now spread out all over Australia
water weed - not sure if these are exotic but due to water pollution this is spread out throughout lakes and river systems

^ How about earthworms? They're invasive in the Americas.

the north American native earth worms were wiped out at the beginning of the younger Dryas and 13,000 years ago new earth worm species took hold in north America after the great flood which Plato spoke about.

Years ago someone who read the then new bestseller by Charles C. Mann entitled "1491" told me that the book said "America had no earthworms before the Europeans arrived" so ...I meant to get a copy to see if that outrageous sounding thing could be true. Never got around to it. Forgot about it until just now.

From Googling around on the web just now...apparently the consensus is that the Americas DID have earthworms prior to Columbus, but...none north of like New York .

Alaska, Canada, the northern tier of US states including all of New England were devoid of earth worms. Were that way because of the long ago glaciers at the height of the ice age. The glaciers pushed them out!

And it was indeed European settlers and their descendants who introduced earthworms (both from the lower 48 and from europe) to this vast northern part of the Americas...did so mostly by accident. Which impacted the soil and ecology.

On top of that invasive earth worms from Europe were...beating up on the native American earthworms in the lower 48. AND more recently some areas have gotten Asian earthworms ( which are athletic and are called "jumping worms")lording it over both native and the European invasive earthworms. Alabama is notorious for that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_ ... th_America

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthworm ... ve_species

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/anim ... rt-insects

https://www.npr.org/2022/04/06/10911994 ... and-canada

Just gonna leave those here.

Yes...apparently the first 'invasive species" was the dingo...probaby brought over long after the aboriginies first arrived 60k years ago. Probably brought over by the New Guinea natives. Not exactly a wild wolf, but not exactly a domestic dog, but in between. But upon arriving in Australia they went wild again.

It mustve been devastating when it first arrived (like you said it probably drove the native marsupial tiger/wolf to extinction north of Tasmania), but by the time the White Man arrived the dingo seems to have achieved some kind of benign equilibrium with the native wild life.

But now all of the invasive species brought over by Europeans undid that. Including feral domestic dogs. And on top of that the dingos are starting to get genetically absorbed by feral domestic dogs. Already are in the eastern part of the country Ive read.

Feral dogs aren't really as big of concern as cats, rats, foxes, etc because they fall into the same niche as dingos.

This is the same logic behind rewilding proposals, where they discuss intentionally introducing an invasive species to fill a keystone niche that's been left vacant.

Usually rewilding proposals don't care about if the fauna are native or not, they care about them being a direct niche replacement.

It's the argument used to justify not killing feral horses in the Americas. Modern horses aren't the same species as the extinct horses of the Americas, but so long as they do the same job they should restore balance instead of contributing to further imbalance (or so the argument goes).