Comments on: Eating Invasive Species to Stop Them?

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 07:36:20 +0000

I’d like to thank Fancylads for bring up the point that the horse was effectively a reintroduced species. I’d also like to state that the horse itself is a poor choice in a warning about normalizing invasive species for food. The horse is an animal that has been deemed useful in society, due to its’ use as a pack animal, and has even been named at times being treated the same way as a pet. However, the only use society appropriates for the Asian carp is that it is food. Being an invasive species, it’s not useful for anything else but to be eaten. We do not name wild fish. Therefore, it is inappropriate to compare a useful animal which is not typically used for food, like the horse, with an animal that isn’t too useful outside of being food, such as the Asian carp. Lastly, I’d like to comment on Fellfeline’s comment. The claim that he made that the extinction of North America’s prehistoric horse caused temperatures to rise on Earth during the Pleistocene era just makes him sound like an idiot. This opinion is only reinforced when he goes into his tirade regardig whether the Earth was created 5,000 years ago or not.

By: Eric Graham

Eric Graham — Thu, 24 May 2012 04:49:27 +0000

For the curiously hungry:

http://invasivore.org

By: rlrgarber

rlrgarber — Mon, 21 May 2012 13:16:36 +0000

Garlic mustard is invasive in Michigan. In the spring, the residents harvest the tender leaves for salad and uproot the rest. Eat ‘em to beat ‘em has to include strategies for eradication as well.

By: tigerprince79

tigerprince79 — Sun, 20 May 2012 18:12:04 +0000

This is an interesting article. However, if a reader wanted to take the next step how would they find out which invasive plants are edible, and which are not? You only listed one plant with a 132 year old illustration. Many plants look alike. The article could have been improved by providing the additional information of which invasive plants are edible and which are not.

By: FellFeline

FellFeline — Sun, 20 May 2012 17:07:49 +0000

Very nice comment, Fancylads.

The Younger Dryas wiped out a marvelously endowed North American Pleistocene ecology. This should be sobering to climate change deniers, but a lot of them believe the world was miraculously created 5000 years after the end of the Younger Dryas.

By: Delilah Nichols

Delilah Nichols — Sun, 20 May 2012 16:24:27 +0000

It’s wonderful to see an intellegent answer about the wild horses of America stating the fact that they are reintroduced species rather than an invading one. Apparently the person who wrote this article is not aware that there were horses that had been here before the Spanish explorers appeared, but that the native peoples had hunted them for food to the point of extinction. They had not considered using the animals for transportation purposes until after the Spainiards appeared with their horses. In fact, in the beginning, the native people were afraid of these horses and believed that the horses would eat them.

By: Fancylads

Fancylads — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:27:27 +0000

Since Equus ferus caballus is the name for domesticated Equus ferus ferus, and since Equus ferus ferus has been shown to be genetically identical and synonymous with North American Pleistocene taxa, the feral horse is a reintroduced species rather than an invasive one.
Reintroducing Przewalski’s, Onagers (conspecific to Yukon Wild Asses), Grévy’s zebra (Hagerman horse), and Kiangs (New World stilt-legged horse) wouldn’t hurt either.

North America hasn’t had an intact ecosystem for at least 9000 years.