The high cost of Invasive species

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/34696/story.htm

Thanks.

One issue, there figures of 137 billion are way off and were the estimated costs from the year 2002 I believe. We are well over 170 billion now.

Thank you for posting that link.

I believe the figures from 2002 are the latest available. How much water hyacinth, purple loosestrife and burning bush are you planting on your land this spring, Lauren? ;-) Dode.

I think those are all on backorder, right EQ?

She's got her hands full installing the latest introductions:

Ailanthus altissima 'Heaven Scent'
Alliaria petiolaris 'Breath Fresh'
Lonicera maackii 'Robin Redbreast'
Rhamnus cathartica 'Lew Stool'

Zebras and Quaggas aren't all bad. They filter a large quanity of water. Light is penetrating deeper into the Great Lakes. Fresh water sponges* (also filters) are doing well. The Cormorant, Phalacrocorax auritus came back from extinction. I don't know if the birds are good or bad.

*no resemblence to the ones sold in auto parts stores or to Sponge Bob.

There are more current figures out there available from '04 placing the figure at 167 or 168 billion. I forget which one. My guess is that we will top 200 billion in '06 because of water shed issues but we won't see that figure for about 3 years. Won't the tax payers be happy when we top 200 billion dollars to safeguard public health!

You first honey. I still don't have all the PL cleaned up from here yet and my dear neighbor Ray up the road is sitting on about an acre of these garbage plants so as fast as I clean it up, it ends up back over here.

Oh lucky us, more cultivars of some of the most noxious of the noxious to lure and attract unsuspecting buyers. Their marketing departments must work over time coming up with such catchy "buy me" names for these beasts.

Oh Dode... I was given 3 sites slated for development to go and survey.... wanna come with me this spring?

Everything has a price my friend.

I'm there, Lauren...I got one I want to check out, too. I think I showed the property to you when we went plant shopping the other weekend. It's got lowlands, it's got uplands. i think there might be some rescue-able stuff there. hope I can study up quick enough.

You mean Ray the native plant guru who can't tell an aster from his fanny? LOL!

This message was edited Jan 28, 2006 8:31 PM

UUallace,

Who knows if light was meant to penetrate deep into the water in the Great Lakes. I suspect not. That can have consequences, too. Probably not as many consequences the Asian Carp is going to have when it arrives. Here is a link to many, many audio-files on the damage non-native invasive species are doing to the Great Lakes...home of 1/5 of the planet's fresh water.

http://www.glrc.org/

Rhamnus Cathartica "Lew Stool" cracks me up.

Lew=Loo=Toilet
Stool=..you know.

LOL!

Well, that sort of fits with Rhamnus now doesn't it? Can we say Ducolax (sp?).

Dodecahedron
We have come full circle. In the 19th century Chicagoans pooped in their drinking water (Lake Michigan). The Chicago river was reversed, so Lew's stool went into the Mrs. Sippi river. Now some want more pollution in the Chigago River. This may keep the Big Head Carp out of Lake MI, and the Zebras out of the Mrs. Sippi.
http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/timeline/riverflow.html

They stocked the Great Lakes with salmon in the 19th century. The smelt (i.e. food) accompanied them. In the Sixties people went smelt dipping. If you were in the right river at the right time, you had a years supply of smelt for all of your family.
In the Seventies the goverment put salmon into the Great Lakes again. Can we take them out?
Larry

I think the idea is not to continue ill-advised or uninformed mistakes of the past, in the interest of short term gains for a few. There's plenty of gains to be made for all (humans, other fauna, flora, hydrologies, etc.) if additional thought about consequences are applied ahead of time. There's a lot more money (if you're mercenary) to be made in doing it right the first time and less spent later cleaning up messes or repairing disasters.

The "you ought to just lay back and learn to enjoy it" concept has somewhat lost it's luster.

Dode: good catch.

EQ: the rest are made up, too. §:oÐ

After thought
I went salmon fishing in the Seventies in MI. No fun. Horny salmon do not eat. You had to drag the bottom with a treble hook and snag them in the side. That was not legal. Now they have "salmon lures" which they have a weight in the middle of a treble hook. Dynamite works better and is as much of a sport.

Well, alewives were also brought into the Great Lakes...and you may remember what fun they were. No, we can't take the Salmon out....but we sure as heck could quit stocking them. Salmon are obviously not native to this watershed. They're going to swim upstream to spawn .....where? The fishery they were hatched at? People still go smelt fishing like crazy in Chicago...it's a ritual. Been there.

Why V V, by the sounds of those manufactured cultivar names... I'd say you missed your calling.

And this... Man, I should frame it and put it on my wall-