AC has kept non-native animals before. He actually kept a bearded dragon - an animal not native to the Phillipines and absolutely not built for humid climate (they regularly get respiratory infections when kept in humid conditions) - while he made a Youtube video crapping all over keepers of exotic ants, even attempting to divide the antkeeping community into "team native" and "team exotic". Hypocrisy at it's best.
His Tarantula isn't native either (well, at least it's from Asia) and neither were most of his fish (and their aquarium plants).
I'd also advise to not make fun of non-native plants because there are in fact invasive plants that have caused or are causing MASSIVE issues in places where they shouldn't be - Caulerpa taxifola water pest anyone? Water hyacinth?
California is still fighting the Tamarix tree that was introduced in the 18th century as a wood resource, it took two centuries for it to become an issue - today this tree is evaporating more water than all californian cities combined and causes soil salination that makes the ground uninhabitable for most other plants, including agricultural ones. It is very effectively destroying useable land permanently and removing it is extremely difficult and costly.
Also plants can actually change to a MUCH larger degree than animals can even dream of - the european mullein/verbascum in it's native habitat is a single-year small herbaceous plant - fairly insignifcant and easy to overlook. In Hawaii - a biome completely different from it's natural temperate habitat it turned into a multiyear plant, it developed wooden stems (something it doesn't have in Europe at all) and it now grows to giant height in thick bushy patches, completely occupying street sides and hillslides, pushing out all other plants.
The thing with plants is that they don't instantly establish themselves in a new place - they usually require 100-250 years before they are actually able to spontaneously grow in the wild (water plants seem to adapt much faster for some reason), so the issue of potentially invasive plants is mostly ignored in countries where it isn't already a huge problem. Most of our established garden plants are just making this "jump over the fence" right now. Berlin is one of the Epicenters, exotic plants and trees from Asia and America (like Robinia trees) are taking over the inner city and it's suburbs. There is a massive influx of garden plants and "decorative" trees into european ecosystems looming on the horizon and it will be a sight to behold when it finally unfolds.
Edited by Serafine, May 2 2020 - 8:09 AM.
