95 replies to this topic

[Reacker]

 ...but i'm sure a biologist such as yourself could put together a list of benign species that would be OK for transportation between boarders as we do with other trades...

 

Do you have any idea how absurd that is? The amount of work required to do this for even a single species could take a team of dedicated scientists several years and many hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses, if not millions. Then even after you've wasted many years and quite a lot of money (which you would never be able to raise in the first place, and good luck finding qualified researchers willing to waste their time with this dead end project) generating this report, you'll have to convince a whole lot of politicians that it's worth expending their political capital to introduce/change the relevant legislation just so some completely inconsequential hobbyists who are mostly children with no money or ability to vote can be vaguely entertained until their attention span shifts to something else. 

 

Edit: the more I think about this, the more ridiculous it becomes.

 

You're proposing that that a level of study be done on random imports to a level of completeness that vastly surpasses the level of study that we have done on the overwhelming majority of native species just to please some money less hobbyists.

 

You're proposing that there is any way that you could ever possibly convince even one single high level regulator that they should risk their career and reputation for all time by passing a law allowing unrestricted importation of a slightly different version of the same type of insect as the several in the US now that are invasive imports causing significant economic damages just to please some irrelevant children.

 

You're proposing that it's even possible to study every possible eventuality of a species being introduced into a completely new environment, this environment itself not being exhaustively studied and understood, and declare it to be 100% benign in all possible cases of escape or pathogen spread or any other potential consequence. 

 

You're proposing that even with a magically obtained and legislated list of allowable ants, that the hobbyists currently demanding legal imports would ever be satisfied with a finite number of options when there are tens of thousand of exotic species around the world. 

Edited by Reacker, January 17 2017 - 4:17 PM.

[CallMeCraven]

 

I do think it's flimsy. I also think there should be some kind of invasive level set to the more common ants that are wanting to be obtained. I am not an expert on any particular species, but i'm sure a biologist such as yourself could put together a list of benign species that would be OK for transportation between boarders as we do with other trades. My beef is more or less with the blanket law rather then the lifting entirely. I thinks it's safe to say that A.texana wouldn't survive or become an invasive issue in michigan if it had gotten loose.

 

The problem with this is that you can not guarantee that they would not become an invasive issue. As a rangeland ecologist working for the USDA, I got asked fairly often why x or y is listed as invasive, because it is never seen in the area. MY response to them every time is that they are invasive because the have the POTENTIAL to be invasive, regardless if that behavior is actually seen. Another important thing to consider is that actual definition that is used to describe if a plant or insect is invasive, which, put bluntly, is a species that CAN cause environmental or economic harm to an area or region. This definition is important when considering relaxing current protocols, because regardless of the species' success in an area, if the possibility of the species causing damage exists, than it is invasive. Even common ants, which may be considered benign, can carry disease and parasites which can have huge effects on the environment and agriculture, and even be able to persist through "tough" conditions. With how heavily dependent the world is on Agriculture, and not just that within the US, these restrictions are very reasonable as they are.

 

I would also like to remind people that regardless how harsh your winters are, plants, animals, and insects adapt. In a family such as formicidae, with prolific multiplication, adaptation can happen in a very limited number of generations. I have spent a long time battling invasive plants introduced to the US from Asia. These invasive plants came from warm, subtropical conditions to near arctic conditions (North Dakota at the time) with annual heavy snow pack, and I hate to say it, are doing very well and displacing very large portions of previously diverse and native range. In a world that is undergoing climate change, shortening mild winters, longer summers etc., these invasive species are able to adapt and overcome more easily. Additionally, snow is an insulator, so deep snow is not a very good "limiting factor". We need to err on the side of caution, because good intentions, when given an inch, will take a mile. If you want an example, google my current ecological hell, Cheatgrass, Bromus tectorum.

 

*Sidebar*

I would also like to add that I realize this may seem hypocritical as I am currently undergoing the APHIS process to get a permit to transport ants between states. I would just like to state, as I did in that post, that it is an experiment in the system utilized by APHIS to issue permits, and I fully expect to be denied. If by the crazy chance I get a permit, it will most likely sit idle, as I have lots of Pogonomyrmex occidentalis around me that local farmers would love me to remove, as well as other species that inhabit sage-brush steppe ecosystems.

Edited by CallMeCraven, January 17 2017 - 4:11 PM.

[Connectimyrmex]

~Eats popcorn while reading the thread~

But seriously guys, we should not argue about these things. We should keep these ideas to ourselves or just make a private email thread to discuss this.

[dspdrew]

No, discussions should be public unless they're about personal or private issues.

[Connectimyrmex]

That's true. Thanks.

[Ricardo]

Lol,. If you don't like the idea of shipping ants that's totally fine. If. you do like the idea of shipping ants that's totally fine too. As grown adults everyone has a right to state a opinion even if right or wrong, and everyone can do what they want, If you want to kill someone go ahead, you'll pay the consequences. Just state you disagree and a reason why. No need to argue because if your right there's nothing to worry about.Simple as a Banana.

[Serafine]

Lol,. If you don't like the idea of shipping ants that's totally fine. If. you do like the idea of shipping ants that's totally fine too. As grown adults everyone has a right to state a opinion even if right or wrong, and everyone can do what they want, If you want to kill someone go ahead, you'll pay the consequences. Just state you disagree and a reason why. No need to argue because if your right there's nothing to worry about.Simple as a Banana.

There is a difference between opinions and actions. The US (and Canada) has very strict laws about transferring ants from one place to another and they should be enforced much more, ESPECIALLY on commercial trade which is the biggest invasive species dispenser on the globe.

 

Mankind had only about 500 years (more like 300 years for most parts) to shape the US countryside into the ecologically broken disaster it is today - and there's actually even spots that haven't been touch at all and are worth saving, unlike in Europe where humanity had over two THOUSAND years to ruin pretty much every spot you can possibly access and all hope has been abandoned a long time ago anyway.

 

It's also a matter of your audience - AntsCanada is so fixated on promoting native species because their channel is clearly (well, it's getting more obvious with every new video) geared towards a younger audience which often not only lacks knowledge about their native species but also lacks competence to properly care for the exotic ants they (illegally) acquire from sources that are dubious or shady at best. If they screw up with an ant from their garden it's not too bad (there's plenty of alates that would never make it anyway), if they order an established young ant colony from Chile for $100 and then screw up (or let them loose in their garden because their short attention span is reached) it is a much greater loss/issue.

And we seriously do not need more illegal ant trading, not because it has an influence on the proliferation of invasive species - these are going to invade places via commercial trade goods anyway - but because lots of the people shipping illegal ants have zero respect for the ants, their habitats or the way they acquired them. For them the ants are just money and if they have to destroy their natural habitat to obtain them these people do not care. Just google "puppy mafia in Europe" or how baby tigers and lions are illegally obtained and imported to the US as pets. We don't need that for ants.

Edited by Serafine, January 18 2017 - 7:46 AM.

[Loops117]

 

 

Then would you agree that pure human indulgence is a pretty flimsy reason to help invasive species do what they are already doing? Do doctors need to take preventative measures like washing their hands if most patients are going to become sick through contact with other patients? And if the doctors said that washing their hands wasn't any fun, would you care?

I do think it's flimsy. I also think there should be some kind of invasive level set to the more common ants that are wanting to be obtained. I am not an expert on any particular species, but i'm sure a biologist such as yourself could put together a list of benign species that would be OK for transportation between boarders as we do with other trades. My beef is more or less with the blanket law rather then the lifting entirely. I thinks it's safe to say that A.texana wouldn't survive or become an invasive issue in michigan if it had gotten loose.

 

My interests are in conservation. Allowing hobbyists access to ants without them even understanding why the exotic ant is appealing goes directly against what I believe in. I plan to take the hobby in the opposite direction by invigorating people's interest in native North American ant genera and species. It is not a coincidence that no biologist encourages a lift on the importation ban. I am attempting to raise colonies that have never been kept before in captivity, and I am not interested in preventing other people from doing the same by diluting the hobby with somebody else's native, "boring" ants.

 

You are right, and i was wrong. I do believe that with our current regulations that the whole ban isn't as effective as it should be. But all in all, the ban is there to help protect our biodiversity for as long as we can and hopefully come up with a solution before it is too late. I'll stop talking about my ideas and opinions on the shipping policy only because it does spread and encourages others to break the law, which is the opposite of what i want even though this whole conversation makes me seem redundant. I am an advocate for researching and working with local species, and i'll always encourage others to do the same.

 

Sorry

Edited by Loops117, January 18 2017 - 7:43 AM.

[CallMeCraven]

 

 

 

Mankind had only about 500 years (more like 300 years for most parts) to shape the US countryside into the ecologically broken disaster it is today. 

 

I do not mean to kick your soap box out from under you because you are on a roll, but this is pretty harsh. Yes we have large scale ecological problems, like my previous example of cheatgrass, but "broken disaster"? The vast majority of the US still functions ecologically similar to its pre-europeon colonization. Obviously there has been a shift in plant communities, for better and worse, but our land management techniques are breaking away more and more from previous continental systems that we previously utilized that have aided to the skewing of our ecological systems. We have lots of work to continue improving on, but hey, at least we employee a few people like me to study, learn from, and educate others on our ecological processes in hopes of avoiding "broken disasters". You should also give some of Europe some slack, they have more than parks there also .

* Rant over

[Loops117]

Just putting this out there.

Today, as i was just talking about ordering some more cultures, a co-worker of mine opened a box of computer parts. The moment he emptied the box, out fell about 20+ silverfish and some various other dead bugs. I collected what i could, and killed the rest once i was able to assess the situation. But I'm 100% positive most escaped into the warehouse...full of boxes. If you're aware of the infestation abilities of the silverfish, you would be aware of the situation i am now facing due to Accidental Shipping.

 

[Martialis]

I hate those things.. I kill silverfish whenever I can. They were in my house for a while.

[Serafine]

 

 

 

 

Mankind had only about 500 years (more like 300 years for most parts) to shape the US countryside into the ecologically broken disaster it is today. 

 

I do not mean to kick your soap box out from under you because you are on a roll, but this is pretty harsh. Yes we have large scale ecological problems, like my previous example of cheatgrass, but "broken disaster"? The vast majority of the US still functions ecologically similar to its pre-europeon colonization. Obviously there has been a shift in plant communities, for better and worse, but our land management techniques are breaking away more and more from previous continental systems that we previously utilized that have aided to the skewing of our ecological systems. We have lots of work to continue improving on, but hey, at least we employee a few people like me to study, learn from, and educate others on our ecological processes in hopes of avoiding "broken disasters". You should also give some of Europe some slack, they have more than parks there also .

* Rant over

 

You are right, the US is in a FAR more natural shape than Europe, except the areas that are heavily use for agriculture. You can actually preserve something that can be described as pure nature while all we can preserve in Europe is the unstable environment we have shaped into existence for over two millennia.

 

 

I hate those things.. I kill silverfish whenever I can. They were in my house for a while.

Actually they're rather harmless. They do not transmit any diseases and they do not damage infrastructure (only your clothes and similar stuff if they can reach them).

Edited by Serafine, January 18 2017 - 12:21 PM.

[Martialis]

They climb extremely well. I've seen them scale walls in less than a minute. 

 

I wonder how ants would like them..

[Loops117]

I want to culture these guys, but read that they concentrate toxins in their bodies due to their eating habits. I'm hoping that i'd be able to start something then eventually ween out the toxins?

[Reevak]

I want to culture these guys, but read that they concentrate toxins in their bodies due to their eating habits. I'm hoping that i'd be able to start something then eventually ween out the toxins?

From what I have heard, you should just wait until the next generation of silverfish before you feed them to your ants because the toxins build up in their bodies from what they eat. I'd probably remove the original silverfish that may have toxins in them ASAP so they don't somehow rub off on the next generation. And personally, I would wait until the generation after that before feeding them to ants but that is probably not necessary (I'm just paranoid).

 

I hate those things.. I kill silverfish whenever I can. They were in my house for a while.

Do you still have them? If not then please tell me how you got rid of them. In the summer they come out of the walls of my room and bathroom and are the worst. I despise them.

[Martialis]

Dunno.. I'll wait and see.