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Neighthirst t1_iwkikp5 wrote

Reply to comment by buzzonga in Van Wert Co. Sheriff: 25 to 40 thousand minks with a diet consisting of 'fresh kills' released from farm by FancyFrostFire

Haha, As an Australian this gives me a strong sense of deja vu.

For those who may not know, European settlers introduced rabbits for hunting, but they spread quicker than they could hunt so they introduced foxes now over 150 years later both rabbits and foxes are wreaking havok to our environment.

And they didn't learn their lesson so similar thing when they introduced sugar cane, they brought cane beetles with them so later introduced cane toads to eat the beetles so now we have plague proportions of cane toads because all the native animals die when they eat them.

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heyimjason t1_iwl04gs wrote

Kinda seems like the first thing there to mess up the original habitants was Europeans.

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nervouslaugher t1_iwl7q4x wrote

It wouldn't exactly be a stretch if we considered Europeans an invasive species

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glassteelhammer t1_iwlixur wrote

Don't forget cats.

And I say this as a cat person.

But they are fucking with Australia's wildlife.

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FriendoftheDork t1_iwlmcyh wrote

Could you release some English to hunt the foxes?

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Alaishana t1_iwr5vh2 wrote

But then... you got an infestation of English upper class twats.

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muskiier t1_iwm1vkj wrote

True. But, in this case, the species (mink) are native to most of North America.

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drengr84 t1_iwlio5s wrote

Homo sapiens are an invasive species, worse than any parasite. Parasites don't usually try to kill their host, because that would be self detrimental. We have powerful brains with self awareness, yet we choose destruction over sustainability.

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Cultural_Wallaby_703 t1_iwlj7tt wrote

Many parasites do. It depends on the parasite and the host

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drengr84 t1_iwlkt97 wrote

Parasites that are able to move to another host may kill their host. Parasites that rely 100% on one host for survival tend to avoid killing it.

In my bad analogy, humans don't have a secondary host to jump to.

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