Invasive Who?

Written By: Ashley Beavens

Species that have been introduced, or moved, by human activities to a location where they do not naturally occur are termed exotic. When these ‘exotic’ species cause ecological threats they are than termed invasive and invasive is what they are. Destroying crucial habitat for our native plants and animals, the invasive species start spreading rapidly and taking over.

It is hard to believe that humans are the cause of introducing exotics. Humans are at the top of the intelligence, but we can do some very dumb things. Not thinking about the consequences of introducing non-native species into an ecosystem ranks high on the dumb list. You think we would have learned when the first invasive species was discovered a threat, but no we did not. Now invasive species are just getting to be expensive, causing billions of dollars in damage.

The federal government is engaged in millions of dollars in effort to stop the advance of Asian carp in our freshwater rivers and streams. Asian carp are aggressive eaters that can consume about 40% of their body weight a day in plankton and they tend to push out native fish for the food. These fish were imported years ago and escaped from their holding ponds when rains flooded them out into the local rivers. We should have thought about the potential backfires to working with there exotic species before anything crucial would happen.

If we humans would have thought about our actions before they were brought out, we would have a better ecosystem than what we have today. We would not have a list of several hundred invasive species to worry about or threatened habitat conditions. If we would of just thought on how we could control our own invasive actions, the world would be a better place. It is hard to see that we worry about invasive species spreading and harming the ecosystem, but do we ever worry about our own invasiveness spread?

Humans, in my opinion, are more toxic to the ecosystem then all of these invasive species we have among us these days. We are the ones constantly threatening everything from organisms at the bottom of the ocean to extraterrestrials in outer space. We, ourselves, do not know when to stop until it is too late. When we clear forests, drain wetlands, farm and build cities, dams, and roads, we significantly alter the landscape. This so called human presence severely decreases biological productivity as seen in today’s cities which occupy large patches of what had been some of the most fertile lands.

I would really like for the human species to look at themselves and start with changing their invasive actions before blaming the other exotic species for their destruction. Human destruction to the environment has been more deadly than our Asian carp, feral pigs or zebra muscles that linger about a nonnative niche. Just think back into the past before Stevens Point was founded. There were a variety of animals, peaceful streams, natural rocks, wonderful wildflowers, and hardy trees. Now it is just a polluted human foot print, a human foot print that will last.