Re:Australia: How 'bin chickens' learnt to wash poisonous ca...
by stareatgoats on Friday November 25, 2022 @04:46AM
(#33740838)
There is obviously a long tradition of trying to stop the negative effects of invasive species, especially as it affects livestock and crops. Sometimes with chemicals, sometimes by introducing "natural enemies" in the environment, and now also as in your example by sometimes teaching livestock to avoid the new menace. Many times causing other, sometime serious, problems instead.
I'm not saying let nature have its course at all times, only that over time nature will likely solve the problem of an invasive species in its own way, and we should learn to expect it and work with it.
Re:Australia: How 'bin chickens' learnt to wash poisonous ca...
by h0l0cube on Friday November 25, 2022 @05:34AM
(#33741066)
I think with cane toads, the lethality and sheer number has very different implications. There are many species in Australia that are on the brink of extinction, whereas in other continents that have been affected longer by human intervention the species loss has already happened.
> Cane-toad sausages laced with a nausea-inducing chemical have been dropped from helicopters ahead of the toads' front line.
> The aim is for animals to become sick from eating the baits, teaching them to avoid the toads just as the pest moves into their habitats.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-14/cane-toad-sausage-dro...