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Posted Nov 9, 2009 by kea
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Animals and plants have always colonised new areas by all kinds of methods since life first evolved.
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Effers, you're not worried about species loss then? It's arguable that NZ has only twice been colonised by animals it didn't evolve - once when Maori brought a rat species, and then later when Europeans brought all sorts of animals in a very short space of time. Without human stupidity and greed those animals would never have come here* and many other species would not have gone extinct.
* i.e. they had no other, natural, way of migrating.
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Posted Nov 9, 2009 by Flying Ants; formerly Effers
kea maybe its a different historical outlook. For example Britain used to be covered entirely by forest which was slowly cleared over thousands of years to create the present English landcape. Things like wolves have gone extinct, and during the last ice age there was a land bridge between Britain and continental Europe, and we had wooly mamoths roaming here until 10,000 years ago until they were wiped out by hunting and climate change.
And in more recent times the Romans introduced numerous fruits and vegetable species such as leeks and apples and possibly the common garden snail which they considered a delicacy. Are we to call the Romans greedy and stupid for introducing stuff, (well maybe yes?  ). But seriously past historical perspectives were very different from our modern environmentally aware perspective...and I don't see the point of labelling them stupid. They weren't stupid just ignorant of the implications.
But yes sea levels have risen and fallen over many ice ages. Wasn't there originally a land bridge between Oz and Papua Guinea which enabled man to reach Oz, and then dingos were introduced and giant species of Kangaroo hunted to extinction.
I suppose I just see the bigger picture of how humans have changed the environment for hundreds of thousands of years, and won't call them stupid.
But hey lets have a bit more Brit bashing, we're the spawn of Satan, for introducing vermin Sorry but I hate that word. But maybe Ivan was using it in the technical legal sense? We have it here for animals such as grey squirrels, pigeons and starlings.
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Posted Nov 9, 2009 by Br. Robyn Hoode - Ginger and Spice and all things nice.
I dont like the term vermin either. I find it's a word that people use when they either have a personal and irrational dislike for something, or want to put animals they want to kill into a lower position than them. I assume this disassociates them a little. Jackdaws, magpies, crows, squirrels, rats...
Unless there is a genuine issue with a colony directly impacting your area and you need to reduce numbers or disperse them etc. I deeply dislike any term that immediately puts a whole species into a certain box labelled 'kill on sight, worthless and deserve to die' or 'protect at all costs at all times no matter what' or anything in between. 
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Posted Nov 10, 2009 by lil~ACE/Scout {Auntie Giggles}
There is no Brit bashing intended. We have to admit, we have messed up eco systems everywhere, even when we were only meaning well 
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