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But is it a pestilence? The situation in North America, as well as Asia and Europe in all likelihood, is different than in Australia, New Zealand and in Oceanic islands where you have animals species that were long isolated from the major continents.. Here in many cases the feral animals are most often filling ecological niches made vacant by very recent human activity or in any event, by events in the past several thousand years. Many ecologists who favor re-wilding portions of the North American continent advocate introduction of non native animals to fill such vacant niches. For instance, feral horses in the western U.S. simply fill a niche occupied by the same species before it was extirpated on the continent thousands of years ago. That is but one example. Another is the case of monk parakeets, which arguably fill the niche of the recently extinct Carolina Parakeet. Likewise, here in Northern California we have recently introduced wild turkeys. Although some of the locals gripe about it, these birds or ones like them, were once native in these parts. Even the feral pigs only occupy niches once belonging to hog like peccaries in many places. The problem, if there is one, that David describes is more the result of the absence of predators. The multiplication of feral pigs in Texas is similar in that respect to the problem of White tail deer abundance in much of the East, a problem which is attributable to the absence of large predators of any kind there, mountain lions or wolves. I don't know if mountain lions still persist in Texas in any numbers, but the local red wolf- not a species but a coyote/gray wolf hybrid - has all but disappeared. Certainly the Jaguar is gone from Texas. If those predators can be restored to something approaching their historic numbers I suspect the feral pig problem would cease to be so vexing. SR ----- Original Message ----- This is, of course, a human created situation and blame is enough to spreadaround for sure. The situation is so bad that therehunting...eradicating...the pestilence has created a 365 day per yearhunting season with no limits on how many pigs one can kill by any meansnecessary, up to and including fully automatic assault rifles, machine gunsand hunting by helicopter. _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
