Ok its time to solve the problem of feral animal infestation in Australia, Seabreeze style.. Or this could just be an editorial.. It's a long read, I've kept the long words to a minimum and I haven't mentioned dinsdales crazy religion once. Or just scroll down and look at the pictures...

We have tried shooting them for 200 years and it's failed. It is impossible to get rid of the feral animals without waging bio warfare. They are here to stay. I am about to propose an unpopular approach, bring in more ferals!. Let me explain..

Every ecosystem needs predators. They eat herbivores, which would otherwise overpopulate and starve. Different size predators for different size prey. Wolves eat bison, foxes eat rabbits and so on. Large carnivores are partial to eating smaller carnivores as well. For example, when wolves were introduced back into Yellowstone, they reduced the coyote population and returned the ecological balance. The small mammals who were hunted by the coyote, came back when the wolf did..

Now what are the native Australian predators??

50 thousand years ago there were massive kangaroos and wombats on steroids, and other big mammals roamed the outback, And there were equally impressive predators.





Then it all changed, on 'Real Australia Day' 40000 years ago the Aboriginals came and ruined the party. The aboriginals no doubt wiped out most of the Mega faun. The romantic idea that aboriginals lived peacefully with the land is a myth. They stripped it almost bare. The only animals left were the ones to elusive to be eaten.

All the big plant eaters were gone, and the vegetation became over grown. So the aboriginals began 'firestick farming' which dramatically changed the flora.. Rainforest made way for fire loving eucalypts, and the climate dried as a result..

-Dingo gets dropped off in a canoe- fills the void left by the thylacine.

Fast forward to just before Australia was 'rediscovered' by europeans. The aboriginals have now been the apex predator for 40000 years, they are entrenched in the ecosystem, all the natives are adapted to humans.

White man came and told the aborigines they weren't allowed to live off the land anymore, and their land was given to farmers, who began their own environmental blitzkrieg.

To have something to shoot at, farmers introduced foxes and rabbits, which suddenly entered an environment void of predators, and full of local mammals unprepared for the cunning placental predators.

Joining the foxes and rabbits were also the camel, deer, pig, goat, buffalo, cat, dog, catdog, rats and horse.

There is one thing notable exception in that list, no apex predators. Humans don't like apex predators..

So now the top predators are the fox and cat, dingo, feral dog, goanna and the wedgy.. Hardly a replacement for the aboriginals, or the 'Old Firm'.... Foxes are too small to eat any big animals, cats likewise, dingoes are too rare and feral dogs are just too stupid to catch anything accept domesticated sheep and the odd drunk..

We have replaced the big herbivores. Not the big predators.

Foxes and cats, which have no competition at all are seen as pests. And they are, but the answer is not to kill them all, thats next to impossible. The answer I believe is to return the ecological balance. Unfortunately we cannot return to an ecosystem with humans as top dog. And we can't bring back the old firm of predators cause they are extinct..

The natural Australian environment disappeared 40,000 years ago.


So what's the solution? we cannot get rid of all the foxes, just like the dingo they are here to stay. And even if we could remove the fox what will replace it? nothing?..


Here are the predators australia had before the Aboriginals displaced them. We killed the last one top right because a few farmers lost some chickens, who is to doubt we wouldn't have killed the rest..


First one is a no brainer, we should reintroduce the Tasmanian devil.. The native fox..
/images/misc/forum-image-missing.gif

And we could reintroduce the Komodo Dragon, very similar to the extinct Megalania, and they already eat buffalo.


What Australian predator is keeping the camels from taking over?


How about bringing in the wolf? I reckon the feral dog and fox problem would disappear pretty quick. Along with some lambs.


If we won't bring in apex predators, we can't get angry at animals becoming feral, they are feral because of the ecological unbalance between predator and prey.

We can't get rid of the ferals, but we can match them.. Tim Flannery agrees with me, he even goes so far as to sugest elephants!.. Unfortunately the Greens, Liberals, Labour and Scientologists would all me against my epic plan.