Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

They do... and they thrive... I have it on very good authority.

I just didn't want to come straight out and call you a d!ckhead!

...and if you want to turn a discussion about invasive fish species into a racist argument... go right ahead... make an even bigger fool of yourself!

It's the natural state of islands to become more biodiverse over time
New species are always arriving and extinction is usually a function of landmass
If the habitat is big enough there is a net gain in biodiversity

If you know Perth wetlands, from a hydrological and ecological perspective, then you'd know they are never going back to what they were.
They are now bigger than they once were, eutrophic, and permanent
Where once there were no fish, now there are
Whatever fish can live in those novel waters, good luck to them

The snake neck tortoise, the sea eagles, pelicans and cormorants will be thankful for the increase in productivity

What authority?
Let's examine the truth

Well mate it's you who resorted to insults
.. You lose

Tell me in your own words how saying something doesn't belong where it is because of where it came from is any different to racism?
You don't have to use big words, use pictures or finger painting, whatever level of expression you are comfortable witb

Lets calm things down a little here and stop the name calling......

+1 EB

Jeez, I read this thread this morning and thought it was a worthwhile conversation - I look at it two hours later and it's turned to shite

Go and do something else for a while....

OK....

Yeah, he's making it look like his choice Charlie - Faye probably told him to go outside and clean something up

What, me clean.....? Not exactly well known for my cleaning abilities....

That's why she's giving you more practice !

My apologies EB… my bad!

I just take offence, as I’m sure most Australians would, at being told we are a nation of racists and xenophobes… simply because we are concerned about invasive fish species finding their way into our waterways… which has about as much to do with race as strawberry low fat yoghurt has with mining granite???... I’m tired of a very small percentage out there intent on throwing the race card on the table at every opportunity, no matter how obscure or tenuous the link.

…and if something is a spade, why call it by any other name?

Back to the topic at hand… Beechboro seems to be a hot spot for this sort thing, this is the third time in about seven or eight years I’ve seen a story about invasive species in waterways around Beechboro. The first was actually in Bennett Brook, which ultimately leads directly into the Swan River at Guilford. The next was a lake in a sub division, but it didn’t look like the same lake on the tv report last night. Could it be that some bozo is intent on introducing these species into all their local waterways, for reasons only known to them?... or maybe they were just introduced into one lake through ignorance and now there is a bigger issue in that they have successfully grown, populated and spread?

In saying that, I know of a lake in Mandurah that has monster Koi and Catfish up to about 1m and every few years the shire half drains the lake and nets it, removing most, but not all the fish. If they were really intent on ridding the lake of these fish and potentially stopping their spread, they’d completely drain the lake one summer and let it dry out for a while before refilling it.

I think it's more a case of misguided unknowing aquarium owners rather than intentional stocking. And this will always be an issue when the aquarium trade is totally unregulated, and more to the point, people are uneducated. Someone buys their kid an aquarium for Christmas, 2-3 months later it's looking horrible and half the fish have died so they want to shot it down and get rid of the fish.. Can't just kill it or the kid will get upset... So lets take it and set it free Johnny... "See your fish will live here in the local lake, where he'll have lots of friends and he'll be happy...."

I don't know Jakartagreens qualifications but I question his knowledge of ecology. Many of his arguments are probably better placed in a philosophical discussion about the value of individual species and the value of maintaining distinct rather than homogeneous habitats.

Jakartagreen is right that no introduced species has been proven to cause the extinction of any native species. It is also true that the theories of relativity, bernoulli theory, gravity, etc have yet to be proven either. That is because science doesn't prove anything. Science creates and gathers evidence to support or refute hypotheses.

There is a large body of evidence that suggests that one of the main pressures and subsequent causes of a net loss in biodiversity in australian mammal populations are loss of habitat, cats and foxes. In areas where there are cane toads there are a host of species that can not be found where as in areas where cane toads have not yet reached they are found. In water bodies where there are no redfin the diversity of native fish species is so much more than in water bodies where there are redfin.

In Newzealand it is not proven that the fox, rat and cat have caused a crash in their native species of birds yet it is widely excepted as these predators being the principle cause for the mass extinctions those islands have faced.

In addition to trying to preserve the species that are endemic to australia there are also some very good economic reasons for attempting to exclude exotics. As for species that we have in Australia already you would have to weigh up the value of keeping them versus the value of the damage they cause versus the cost of getting rid of them. In many cases it makes sense to keep them because in their native environments they are threatened. On no account do I believe that that argument should be used as a basis for saying that it is ok to introduce other species that may be endangered in their native environment into the australian landscape.

I would say that Australia's attitude is more a result of having had terrifying experiences with introduced animals going feral and having seen the devastation that can occur when an introduced species expands in an ecosystem unchecked. Certainly Australia is a racist nation but that is because we are people and all communities to a greater or lesser extent have racist attitudes. I was talking to a Japanese emigrant the other day who had some shocking things to say about some of his Chinese and Vietnamese customers. I was talking to a polish guy at the Daylesford market and apparently I should not trust Germans, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Romanians or Serbs but fortunately Austrians are ok. Since these two people are now Australian citizens that makes their little bit of Australia more racist than it would be without them.

Every country is racist.
Never been to one that wasnt.

WhAt I like to confront is each countries own particular brand of it

Australia does have it's own brand, in the conservation field, of a strange sort.
It's intellectual origins can be traced to historical figures and movements and it's been inherited as a kind of strange pedigree.

Its always hypocritical. And never allows for a non human perspective
Even if so called native species dare extend their historical range they are mercilessly persecuted as invaders

The idea of set assemblages or communities of plants and animals has no basis. They are not fixed

Unless you see plants and animals in the setting of biogeography and climate ebb and flow you really can't get meaning out of what we are looking at in today's landscape.

Studying botany and travelling around Asia pacific region I can see the massive migrations and dispersions that have occurred in the past pre and post human involvement
And it's ocurring with or without us
I'll find the same species in central java as in north Queensland
"native"
Yet if it got there today we'd call it invasive, because and only because it migrated after an arbitrary census


The idea of wilderness is a thoroughly western idea, and only a couple of centuries old.