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Re: responsible use of plants and animals in ponds

Title: Re: [GWL] responsible use of plants and animals in ponds
This was a facetious comment (and I might have hollered about it) but it makes a serious point.  Not everyone is really aware of what is and isn't native.  Some invaders have been around long enough few people know they ARE invaders.  Bullfrogs, for example, are not native to a lot of the country, but they have been spread so thoroughly that most people think they ARE native.  They are highly adaptible and will eat anything they can get in their mouths, including their own tadpoles, so they get along nearly anywhere.
   The most important thing about all this, I think, isn't so much the introduction of non-natives as the loss of natives due to shrinking habitat.  Many natives are losing out because the kinds of places they need to live are disappearing, while the invaders can use places the natives can't.    Here in Oregon the whole Willamette Valley was a wetland when the settlers came.  Indians could scoop up the native frogs with baskets, they were so thick.  Now, with channeling and draining, there are only isolated pockets of the species because the kind of habitat they need is all converted to farmland, while the bullfrogs can use any pond, drainage ditch, etc. to live in.  In places where the right kind of wetlands exist, the bullfrogs don't hurt the natives because they can't get that many of them, and the native frogs breed and are out of the pond before the bullfrogs even get active.
   Pardon the ramble, but the point is that putting goldfish in a pond is NOT going to make that much difference in the long run.  If you really want to help, create a native wetland on your land that the true native species can live in.  Instead of trying to keep the invaders out, give the natives what they really need and they can usually hold their own quite well.
-Lon Rombough


<< Should I also get rid of my dog, two cats, rabbit, and love birds, all
non-native species?
>>

Do your dog, two cats, rabbit, and love birds live in ponds? If yes, then I
suggest you give them up.
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