Killer Mice Gang Up On Sea Birds

[MrFun]

We're part the ecology no doubt, Che.

Reds is right -- I shouldn't have used the word "completely." Even though we're removed from the predator-prey food chain, we are not completely removed from the ecological system of the planet because we could not live without plants and animals in way of food and oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange.

[chequita guevara]

We aren't removed from the preditor-prey relationships with other animals, we're just far, far better at it. We prey on many different types of species. We're just cleverer than most preditors, in that we confine our prey and breed it to ensure a ready source of food. We also are better at removing rival preditors from our niche, so we don't have to share. The problem is our niche has become global. In addition, we are more successful prey for similar reasons.

[OzzyKP]

I agree, let the mice stay. This is a facinating development.

As for the fact that they were introduced by man and thus "unnatural" BS. Man, as has been said, is a part of the world's ecosystem, and since our very first emergence in the jungles of Africa we have been affecting the environment around us. This is actually natural.

If we attempted to revert every change we've made to animals and plants over our long history the planet would be unrecognizable. We should just eliminate all dogs and cats, creatures we've created and customized over centuries. All the crops and farm animals that our ancestors brought with them as they migrated from place to place.

Heck, the "native" americans aren't native here either, we should demand that all people in north and south america leave. Indian and European alike. Plus take back horses and wheat, and everything else.

It is ridiculous to try and seperate us from nature. We ARE nature. As Che said, we are just better at it than everyone else.

Of course we should be careful from here on out on how we introduce plants/animals into non-native environments, but its too late to backtrack.

Our attempts to "fix" the environment can cause more problems than fixes. Like our attempts to stop forest fires in the United States. Forests are supposed to burn down. They are quick, take out the underbrush, and give the old trees more chances to grow. By stopping the fires we are creating more underbrush, so eventually a fire does occur that catches to quick, and too intense and we can't stop it. Thus it takes down all the old trees, and some of our homes as well. But, but, some of those fires were started by campers, they are unnatural and must be stopped! No. We usually make an even bigger mess when we try to help. Just do our best not to screw things up in the first place, but if an accident happens, just leave it alone (unless its an oil spill or toxic waste dump or something major of course).

[Traianvs]

Uhm you're right about the underbrush fires, but very often they're big fires that demolish the entire forest instead of the underbrush. If you can't do something about that a lot of land will be laid waste, and nature will not be able to recover that easily.
They're not "natural" fires so they shouldn't be there; nature is not prepared for those. In fact nature isn't prepared for us humans either, I'd rather have a few billion of us removed but well that won't happen anyway

I think you have no idea of what you're talking about Ozzy. Exotics can devastate nature when released in an entirely different environment. If you say that because they are alive and organic'n stuff, this means they are nature then you're just wrong. Nature is all about balance; if one species is starting to dominate like modern humans, nature as a whole is ****ed up, species not accustomed to the exotics will be powerless, and all the plants/animals etc that have a symbiotic or other relation to the animals that are being outcompeted will face the same consequences. It's a domino effect that is hard to stop. It's not because there are some trees and some birds that you can call that 'nature'

Besides, there's hardly a way that a colony of exotics could travel thousands of kilometres, oceans etc to settle down in completely unknown territory. That just doesn't happen. Saying animals should simply die because they are defenseless against imported species is a mind-boggingly stupid thing to say.
Nature is very fragile, even though there are many possibilities for it to keep the balance, but if the **** hits the fan, then it's hard to go back to a more healthier situation (an unbalanced nature situation is bad for just about.. everyone living in it, except possibly humans because they can import everything they need and have fewer direct relations with nature anymore)

[Lancer]

Give the island to the French for nuke testing. This will get rid of the mice for attacking the birds, and the birds for being too stupid to live.

Actually I'm on the side of the birds on this one, and though I doubt mice can be eradicated from the island, I'm in favor of massive tax increases to try.

[OzzyKP]

Traianvs many "domestics" we come to accept today were once "exoctics" brought over by us or some other cause.

How did animals end up in every corner of the world? Because for some natural reason or another they found themselves in unfamiliar territory and had to adapt. Did that at times have negative consequences for native species? Sure. Did sometimes the outsider species die out in the new territory? Sure.

Isn't that evolution?

Look at Darwin and the island he wrote about. How did all the critters get there? It wasn't from humans. If it happened there, obviously it happened all over the world. from many different causes. Humans are just one of those many causes.

Its a phenomena that has happened because of and in spite of humans for as long as there has been life on this planet. We cannot run from the spreading around of plant and animal species. That is how evolution occurs.

The article above seems to clearly indicate this. Those mice may very well be evolving right in front of us. Adapting to new circumstances and taking on new traits and behavior unseen elsewhere. If they can change, then so can the albatross. They learned to attack, the birds can learn to defend.

Nature finds a way.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Traianvs
In fact nature isn't prepared for us humans either, I'd rather have a few billion of us removed but well that won't happen anyway

What good do all these human extinction advocates think would come of our removal from the planet? The individual animals on the planet would be just as miserable overall without us as they are with us. Nature has no value except that which we choose to give to it, or which other individual creatures give to it. What evidence do you have that if we were gone other creatures would find the world more preferable in our absence?

[St Leo]

Get rid of the mice.

The idea that we should keep them is bizarre. We introduced them, so we are fully within our rights to remove them.

Letting them wipe out albatrosses would be wasteful. Albatrosses are useful, or may become useful in the future. Yes, at some point, it became evolutionary advantageous for albatross chicks to not waste energy looking out for predators because they had no predators. They put that energy to better use.

Several small islands in the Mediterranean have turned to inhospitable rock because we introduced goats to them. The goats promptly ate every last bit of vegetation and then starved to death.

Australia has had a huge problem with out of control rabbits.

Dodos were wiped out by feral domestic cats.

Let's not screw up again just for the sake of some misguided social "Darwinist" prescriptive morality.

[Tuberski]

You would think that if the mice on one side of the island learned to attack albatrosss chicks and the mice on the other side didn't, the albatross would learn nest on the side where the mice don't attack them.

ACK!

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by St Leo
Let's not screw up again just for the sake of some misguided social "Darwinist" prescriptive morality.

Screw up? Hmmm, albatrosses or mice... I really don't care, so why bother?

[Barinthus]

Matrix got it right - Humans are natural.... as virus.

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Screw up? Hmmm, albatrosses or mice... I really don't care, so why bother?

We are risking a nasty chain reaction in animal populations. By introducing the mice, we rocked the boat. It's in our interests to stabilize it. We want to minimize risk, and risk is minimized by eliminating the mice infestation.

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Screw up? Hmmm, albatrosses or mice... I really don't care, so why bother?

There are mice elsewhere. The albatross are endangered. And since diversity of species is a Good Thing, we should take measures to protect the albatross.

[OzzyKP]

Ah, but if we leave the mice there and they turn into evil bird eating preditory mice, then we are increasing the diversity of species.

[Immortal Wombat]

They are evil bird eating predatory mice already, but I'll bet they haven't speciated yet. They could probably chase all the rare sea-bird species off the island before speciating in fact.