Re: responsible use of plants and animals in ponds

**"Marge Talt" m*@hort.net**

Very well put, Lon (therefore I am including the entire post for
those who may not have read it). The points you make are points that
seem to get lost in the 'native only' debate.  Our "natives" (plants
and animals) often require very specific conditions to survive. Once
humans change those conditions, the natives can't survive and the
exotics, who can survive, move in.  What needs to happen is less
human disturbance of the various ecosystems; then what is native
might have a chance.  Banning non-native animals and plants will not
solve the problems we have created.

Marge Talt, zone 7 Maryland
mtalt@hort.net
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----------
From: Lon J. Rombough <lonrom@hevanet.com>

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.

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