De-extinction

[Outdated]

Gamba Grass was introduced into Australia's Top End back in 1931 for no reason at all, that's around the same time when the Thylocenes and the Kangaroo Rats (The Dippies) became extinct. For the cherry on top, the CANE TOADS being introduced into our Australian eco-system!

I love your attitude to all things feral, I'm much the same, but I think you're getting your grasses mixed up.

Buffel Grass was introduced in the 1930s, actually 1928, as cattle feed and there's disputes going on in New South Wales, Queensland and the NT right now over it's removal. Ecomentalists want it gone but cattle producers say their entire industry would collapse without it.

Gamba Grass was introduced illegally in the 1980s by that famous Australian Dick Smith. One of Dick Smith's best mates owned a cattle property at Rum Jungle and this particular property owner had applied several times to be allowed to import some Gamba Grass as a feed trial and his applications kept getting knocked back, and for good reason. When Dick Smith was on his around the world helicopter solo flight he picked up Gamba Grass seeds and as he returned to Australia he stopped off in Rum Jungle and supplied his mate with seeds.

Gamba Grass is useless as cattle feed, it's too woody and it's also poor in nutrients. It grows taller than the local Long Grass and it's stems form in to thick woody canes a bit like bamboo, this means that when it burns it burns much hotter and for much longer than the local Long Grass. This has given rise to the NT suffering forest canopy fires for the first time in recorded history.

Cattle farmers hate Gamba Grass just as much as everyone else and they would also love to see it eradicated but finding enough man power for that in a region that has the lowest human population density in the world isn't going to be easy.

Needless to say, Dick Smith is not a popular character in the top end.

 

[Hazel_1914]

I want to see someone bring back the passenger pigeon. Nearest living relative is Zenaida macroura or the mourning dove. Z. macroura is a common songbird and game bird in the United States and the passenger pigeon once lived in even greater numbers.

There was also the ivory billed woodpecker. It is related to the still-living pileated woodpecker, America's largest woodpecker. It hasn't been seen since the 1930s.

 

[Hazel_1914]

For what little bit it's worth, mourning doves can be hand raised. I used to catch the babies when they fell from nests or were hit by motor cars, and then raise them as pets until they were big enough and strong enough to release. They're a bit too large for house pets as they fly about 35 miles per hour and have a 30cm wingspan. My doves ended up getting back with their original families or finding mates and making their own little dove families in the trees.

Passenger pigeons wouldn't breed in captivity. They bred like the ibis in great rookeries and too many of them hatched at once.

I wish people wouldn't treat Columbidae species as vermin. There's no such thing as "just another pigeon."

 

[Outdated]

Though this may not be a popular thing.....

You've obviously put a lot of thought in to this, I wish more people would do the same.

People rightly worry about the impacts that we are having on our world but most like to forget that Evolution is an ongoing thing, all life species that are unsuccessful will die out in the end and that's the way things should be.

As a simple example of the problem - Australia has no conifer trees. Except for a very small patch of native conifers hidden deep in the Tasmanian wilderness. Scientists have kept this location secret for many decades because just the impact of people coming to have a look would destroy their fragile ecosystem.

So why doesn't Australia have any conifer trees? Because they are too unevolved to survive in Australia. As our continent broke away from ancient Gondwana and drifted north it got hotter and fires became more common. Eucalypts evolved and adapted to fire, conifers didn't so they died out.

Ecalypts evolved further, fire became a regular seasonal occurrence and many trees evolved to actively use fire as a part of their breeding cycle. Many species of Eucalypts and a large number of our other trees as well won't flower until after they've been burnt. These plants deliberately attract fire, they need it and want it so that they can flower again.

Pine Trees can't even take being mildly scorched without dying.

Now lets look at the problem of those Tasmanian conifers. Should we protect them and try to prevent them from going extinct?

We've already extracted all the scientific and historic information about them that we're going to get and they serve no purpose in this modern world. It's only by pure luck that this one tiny patch of ground in Tasmania remained untouched by fire for millions of years. They're unfit to survive in Australian ecosystems, they are an anomaly.

Should we spend time and effort trying to save a species that for all intents and purposes should have been dead millions of years ago? Would this not amount to an attempt to halt Evolution and prevent it from taking it's natural course?

It's a reasonably easy question to answer when it's just a pine tree we're talking about, but if it's a cute cuddly mammal or a pretty bird people get emotional about it instead.

 

[Outdated]

Passenger pigeons wouldn't breed in captivity. They bred like the ibis in great rookeries and too many of them hatched at once.

I was amazed when I moved up to the top end an saw Torres Straight Pigeons for the first time. There's nothing remarkable about them at first sight, until you get up close and realise the size of them - about the same size as a domestic chicken.

These birds migrate every year between Papua New Guinea and Australia's north coast. They eat fruit from the Carpentaria Palm which is poisonous to all other animals.

Torresian imperial pigeon - Wikipedia

 

[scleod]

It's a reasonably easy question to answer when it's just a pine tree we're talking about, but if it's a cute cuddly mammal or a pretty bird people get emotional about it instead.

This is so true. A tree is just as much a living thing, contributing to the environment around it. Trees even communicate with you when you speak to them. When someone speaks (positively) to trees/plants or play "positive" music they omit a sound wave and move towards that someone. Side note it also helps them grow faster. Yes there have been documented studies. So to be fair animals/ plant/trees etc are worth getting "emotional" over. But in the name of science sometimes you have to " let nature take its course". Things must faze out. Though with regards to trees there is hope in the future that there is less of a need for survival out of forest fires, due to a reduction in forest fires overall. Not a complete elimination of course as they have their time and place.

 

[Hazel_1914]

You've obviously put a lot of thought in to this, I wish more people would do the same.

People rightly worry about the impacts that we are having on our world but most like to forget that Evolution is an ongoing thing, all life species that are unsuccessful will die out in the end and that's the way things should be.

As a simple example of the problem - Australia has no conifer trees. Except for a very small patch of native conifers hidden deep in the Tasmanian wilderness. Scientists have kept this location secret for many decades because just the impact of people coming to have a look would destroy their fragile ecosystem.

So why doesn't Australia have any conifer trees? Because they are too unevolved to survive in Australia. As our continent broke away from ancient Gondwana and drifted north it got hotter and fires became more common. Eucalypts evolved and adapted to fire, conifers didn't so they died out.

Ecalypts evolved further, fire became a regular seasonal occurrence and many trees evolved to actively use fire as a part of their breeding cycle. Many species of Eucalypts and a large number of our other trees as well won't flower until after they've been burnt. These plants deliberately attract fire, they need it and want it so that they can flower again.

Pine Trees can't even take being mildly scorched without dying.

Now lets look at the problem of those Tasmanian conifers. Should we protect them and try to prevent them from going extinct?

We've already extracted all the scientific and historic information about them that we're going to get and they serve no purpose in this modern world. It's only by pure luck that this one tiny patch of ground in Tasmania remained untouched by fire for millions of years. They're unfit to survive in Australian ecosystems, they are an anomaly.

Should we spend time and effort trying to save a species that for all intents and purposes should have been dead millions of years ago? Would this not amount to an attempt to halt Evolution and prevent it from taking it's natural course?

It's a reasonably easy question to answer when it's just a pine tree we're talking about, but if it's a cute cuddly mammal or a pretty bird people get emotional about it instead.

I'd not be able to speak on whether they should save that patch of conifers, but I do think you'd love the long leaf pine/wiregrass ecosystem in the Deep South.

Longleaf pines evolved in conjunction with wiregrass. Both species benefitted from fires. Native Americans used to burn them regularly and the pines would drop seeds from their pinecones when the heat caused them to pop open...just about as soon as the grass fire had burned out.

I have helped burn some loblolly pines as well, we got a couple magnesium road flares and stuck them on sticks and just went through the brush setting fire to about forty acres. It was enough to trigger a growth spurt in these pines and help bobwhite quails find nesting spots.

The Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida have some wonderful flora evolved to work with fire.