The State with the most damaged ecological system due to imports?
Florida. Look at the stats.
The State currently has over 100 varieties of alien plant life imported for various reasons ranging from pretty to helpful. Most have become problems. Kudzu has begun to spread in North Florida, wiping out acres of natural growth, and the Brazilian Pepper tree (fake Florida Holly) has rooted itself in thousands of acres, pushing out natural growth. The pretty berries are Poisson, so is the milky sap, and when they bloom, they attract every stinging, nectar feeding insect for miles around. The Australian Pine, while cool, pretty, and grows in sea water soaked island soils, are brittle and loose a lot of branches in storms. Their soft pine needles blanket everything below them, preventing natural under growth. The Maliluca Tree (Paper Bark) is pretty and fast growing. It also sucks moisture out of the ground like crazy, is drying up natural swamps and swamp lands, which endangers the swamp critters, will happily grow into an owners septic tank and spreads fast.
Now, the critters.
Florida is a tropical climate. Thanks to exotic pet owners, the State now has the following:
Piranha (People think they’re cool pets, undeserving of their savage reputation. The natives in the fishes original habitat know better.) Idiots put them in shallow, man made ponds, which hurricanes flooded and they went into the thousands of miles of canals and streams and are thriving. Some deliberately released them.
There are scores of unnatural tropical freshwater fish living in the freshwaters, some harmless, some ravenously consuming local small fish because folks, instead of disposing of them when they got tired of the critters, dumped them in ditches to ‘be free.’
Eguana’s. Florida has them by the ton. Folks either released or lost them. They hang around wood ponds in the forests and swamps. They get big.
Pythons. Same as above, only now they are showing up in residential areas and are growing.
Monkeys. Started in Cypress Gardens where the original Tarzan was filmed and considered harmless, restricted by the freshwater rivers to the islands – until a major hurricane knocked down trees and monkeys used them as rafts and fled into the swamps. They are growing and spreading. Monkeys are not the cute little buggers you see on TV. They can be real pain in the butts!
Walking Catfish. Someone brought this particularly disgusting creature into the State for fun and profit and raised them in a pond. They breed fast and eat out the other species of fish. They have few natural enemies. The pond flooded in one of Florida’s many hurricanes and the catfish ‘walked’ away over land to other sources of water. In some areas, they swarm over the roads during rain storms, making driving a problem. They will strip a lake of food and fish and move on to the next when the rains come.
Big Cats. In some areas there have been reports of Panther and Puma, escaped or released by owners into the wilds.
The Great African Snail. Some jerk brought them in and they got away. Now they do tremendous damage to greenery and breed fast.
Some imported species of huge frogs. Again, human stupidity runs wild. These frogs are happily eating smaller frogs and even birds, mice or rats as they spread through Florida.
Poison frogs. I read where some jerk obtained some Brazilian poison frogs and lost some. Now these critters are starting their advance through the State. These are poisonous to the touch. They are also brightly colored, just the thing for little kids to grab.
Water lilies from Egypt. Originally brought in because of their beauty. Now they clog hundreds of thousands of miles of drainage canals and swamps.
And, this is just a few.
I have always felt that restrictions should be placed on any imports. Animals should be sterilized before being sold and plants kept out if they seem to adaptable to the climates. Even that doesn’t work too well. There’s a group of Palm Tree enthusiasts who have their own big boats. A few just went to Cuba illegally and gathered seeds and plantings of Palm Trees that only grow there and brought them illegally back into the State. Why? Because they like them and have no consideration for the impact these trees might have on the ecology.
People have even reported spotting small, colorful birds flying around that are not native to the State, often sold in pet stores.
People cannot be trusted with exotic animals or plants. I figure the English have the right idea. If they did not, can you imagine the snakes that would be swarming over the UK by now? Some idiot would just have to introduce the Walking Catfish and then the British, to show their appreciation, would probably send a few nukes over here.
Idiots in some northern state liked to fish with Crawfish (Crayfish, Crawdads) in a big freshwater lake where there were no Crawfish. They dumped in the left overs, figuring the fish would eat them. Well, they did not eat them fast enough. Today, there are almost no fish left in the lake because of the billions of Crawfish that took over. They eat the grass on the bottom of the lake and small, immature fish. The fish used to eat and feed on the grass. Now, people go to the lake and drop down traps and haul up bumper crops of crawfish in an effort to try to eliminate them, but they can’t get them out fast enough.
The fine fishing of the lake is a thing of the past.
Should I mention the Gun Shrimp? It’s a little known shrimp that ‘cracks’ it claws in such a way that it generates enough force to crack open the shells of crabs, lobsters and most shellfish. They can break the finger of a diver. They can kill fish that try to eat them. Someone dumped some off in a Florida salt water lagoon. They are spreading along the coasts, killing the expensive crab crops, ruining some oyster beds, and providing a hazard for anyone who grabs one, especially those who love to catch shrimp. They have been known to break the glass of aquariums they have been held in. Originally, if I recall right, they come from Australia. Some rich idiot, sailing the seas in his yacht, brought some back. Now, Florida gets to pay for his or her stupidity.