'Rat Snake' vs 'Brown Snake'

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I was not intending to correct spelling, rather it was to change to the plural.

That's odd, since I wasn't using it in a plural sense. Anyway, we can probably move on.

Prickly pear cacti are just one of many examples where introduced species have been a success. Most of of the species are not a problem. The species introduced for biocontrol also worked very well. Introducing new species is not automatically bad, I'm well aware that it goes bad often, but that is not a rule.

More often than not it goes bad, but it's true, sometimes it works well. But this is a different issue. You seem to have flipflopped from wanting to replace brown snakes to wanting to control vermin.

The general idea I'm talking about, is the introduction of species to fill a niche that cannot be filled by a native species. I'm also not saying that it should be done or proposing an exact species or method.

You literally said you wanted to replace a lethal snake with a non lethal snake. You are now completely changing what you said you wanted to do. It's fine to say 'okay, maybe that wouldn't work but how about this' but it gets a bit tedious when you pretend you were saying something completely different. Look at your first post. It's quite blunt and obvious.

A more specific example could be urban areas in SE Qld. Many areas do not have predators to effectively control a number of pests, for eg. house geckos, cane toads and rodents. Even if someone didn't care about the death and permanent health issues associated with boosting brown snake numbers, the still wouldn't be able to control cane toads.

South east QLD is loaded with native snakes including very common non venomous species which love to eat rodents and house geckoes, as well as a snake which can sort of eat cane toads (keelbacks are often said to be able to do it, but it's sort of like I can drink vodka or beer if I want to. It won't kill me if I do it a bit, but apart from recreation, I'm much better off drinking water or milk or tea. Cane toads don't kill keelbacks but they don't do as well on them and much prefer other prey. The same is true of snakes which are sympatric with toads. Any snake which eats toads is going to prefer a far less toxic native frog, so they're going to reduce frog numbers before switching to toads. Crows also eat toads, but again, there are other things they prefer. The important thing about biological control is that it needs to be very target specific, and nothing particularly likes eating toads and anything which does eat them will prefer frogs. This fundamentally rules out all predators as appropriate candidates for biological control of toads (huge funds and brilliant minds have spent decades on this issue and the most prominent one has given up and said we just need to get used to living with them - don't get your hopes up about being able to just say 'oh, how about rat snakes' and save the world.

While I don't have a full degree in ecology, I have studied ecology to a reasonable level including conservation biology. This included study of the benefits of invasive species. So it is not just me who understands that these things are not a simple one way argument.

What we seem to be seeing here is a very obvious example of the common concept of some knowledge being more destructive than none. It's cool that you're exploring ideas, but you're getting ahead of yourself and acting like you know more than you do. By all means explore ideas, but you need to be willing to accept realities when you find them rather than knowing a little bit, coming up with an idea, and stubbornly sticking with it even when clearly shown it is completely wrong. By all means study more, learn more, think more, develop ideas, that's great, but stay genuine rather than pretending you meant something other than what you did, keep an open mind, and I'd encourage you to do a lot more study if you want to continue on with this path, as the holes in your knowledge are causing you to say some very incorrect things. As we all (at least should!) know, biological control is an extremely hazardous thing with the potential to do far more harm than good, and you've demonstrated that you haven't learned much if anything about how to select species or identify potential problems in candidate species. You'd do well to study about this topic.
 
To be honest my OP was made while drunk and a bit clickbaitish. Maybe try reading the thread again and tell me where I'm claiming to know more than I do.

You still don't offer any solutions other than a dysfunctional ecosystem, poison and cats. Unfortunately ecology these days is full of low IQ diversity hires and education cash cows.

Also you can replace something that is missing, or replace something that exists. From the start I meant the word in both ways.
 
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To be honest my OP was made while drunk and a bit clickbaitish. Maybe try reading the thread again and tell me where I'm claiming to know more than I do.

You still don't offer any solutions other than a dysfunctional ecosystem, poison and cats. Unfortunately ecology these days is full of low IQ diversity hires and education cash cows.

Also you can replace something that is missing, or replace something that exists. From the start I meant the word in both ways.

Lets reboot this discussion. Which ecosystem are you looking to address and how in your view is it dysfunctional? Once we've established this it'll be far easier to address.
 
Lets reboot this discussion. Which ecosystem are you looking to address and how in your view is it dysfunctional? Once we've established this it'll be far easier to address.

Most Australian ecosystems could be described as dysfunctional. I gave an example of SE Qld above which ties in very closely to the idea of introducing a Colubrid.

Going back a decade I would be arguing the same points put forward by Sdaji. Now I'm much more on the fence as far as considering ecological engineering solutions as being a potentially positive option.
 
To be honest my OP was made while drunk and a bit clickbaitish. Maybe try reading the thread again and tell me where I'm claiming to know more than I do.

You still don't offer any solutions other than a dysfunctional ecosystem, poison and cats. Unfortunately ecology these days is full of low IQ diversity hires and education cash cows.

Also you can replace something that is missing, or replace something that exists. From the start I meant the word in both ways.

I did not offer cats, poison or dysfunctional ecosystem. I literally raised none of these.

Yes, plenty of morons get into ecology, but none of them rise too highly. On this particular topic Professor Rick Shine is pretty clearly at the top in Australia, and he's no 'low IQ diversity hire'.

And no, you can not replace something which isn't there. That would be adding something new. To replace something you need to take it away and put something else there. That's literally the definition or replacing something.

Not surprised you were drunk when you started the thread. Wouldn't be surprised if you were drunk through most of it.
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Most Australian ecosystems could be described as dysfunctional. I gave an example of SE Qld above which ties in very closely to the idea of introducing a Colubrid.

Going back a decade I would be arguing the same points put forward by Sdaji. Now I'm much more on the fence as far as considering ecological engineering solutions as being a potentially positive option.

Sounds like your thinking has gone backwards severely in the last 10 years.

SE QLD already has colubrids. It already has a lot of snakes including pythons which do well in urban areas which like to eat rodents. Carpet Pythons are common, reproduce successfully etc in urban Brisbane along with everywhere else in the region. They love to eat rats and mice. SE QLD has the highest diversity of elapid snakes in the world, the highest diversity of snakes in Australia, and many of these snake species would be extremely vulnerable to the introduction of an invasive snake species.

There are examples where the introduction of a new species can be beneficial, but this is about as far as you can possibly get from such an example.

You have obviously come across the concept of ecological engineering and are trying to find a way to implement it, simply because you like the concept. It is an extremely difficult thing to implement without doing damage, and this is a good example of where some knowledge is more harmful than less. You're literally choosing Australia's most biodiverse snake region to introduce an invasive snake! If ever there was a terrible proposition, this is it. Best case scenario they don't work out and they all die. Worst case scenario they do get going, which guarantees they are going to displace native snakes (and perhaps other animals) and they aren't going to stick around in urban SE QLD. If they are successful there, they're going to spread.

Anyway, you admit you're a troll who made a drunken clickbait style post, I think we're going to go around in circles from here, I don't think anything much of value can be added, this thread does little more than demonstrate the lack of guidance from the owner of this forum has, and why most people talk about APS as they do, and why I should probably listen to them when they say you'd be stupid to be involved with it.
 
I have not at any stage said that I think this should be done, much less proposed any type of action plan that I believe should be implemented. I thought it might have become an interesting discussion, I was wrong.
 
Id say that the simplest viable answer would be no as the amount of trouble we and the rest of the world has had with introduced species i don't think it would be worth the risk but on the other hand i do see the benifets of replacing a species with another but again i would say the benifets would be so miniscule it would not be worth the trouble.
Also on an economic front the sheer cost of doing something like this would be extreme and the cost of mainting the species introduced in the native range of the species it replaced would be extensive so i don't think anyone would look at doing it.
Concluding i do see both sides of the argument here and after doing extensive research i dont think it would be a good idea
 
Id say that the simplest viable answer would be no as the amount of trouble we and the rest of the world has had with introduced species i don't think it would be worth the risk but on the other hand i do see the benifets of replacing a species with another but again i would say the benifets would be so miniscule it would not be worth the trouble.
Also on an economic front the sheer cost of doing something like this would be extreme and the cost of mainting the species introduced in the native range of the species it replaced would be extensive so i don't think anyone would look at doing it.
Concluding i do see both sides of the argument here and after doing extensive research i dont think it would be a good idea

You cannot even get them to boost numbers of native species. There is only one university that I know of in Australia that educates around the basic fact that invasive species are often beneficial.
[doublepost=1560927528,1560927298][/doublepost]Go to a supermarket and find me where roo and emu is doing better than cow and sheep.
 
Most people would agree that humans have had a negative impact on the native fauna and flora in Australia directly or indirectly. In the long run it doesn't really matter life will go on. I would like to see our unique ecosystem maintained and what we have left saved. But nature will always adapt some animals will flourish and some will disappear one day humans may be one of them. Their is no way to add, take or replace any animal from an ecosystem without some impact. Isnt it called the butterfly effect?
 
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