Of all the critters we’ve made extinct (on purpose or accident)… why not skunks?
What ecological impact would thier disappearance have?
And why don’t we start w/ the one that lives near my house!
or… if the PETA Commando’s won’t let us… why don’t we send a bunch over to Iraq? It could be a new and incideous form of Bio-Terrorism to be used on the Terrorists
We probably could eradicate skunks if we really wanted to.
Best way would be to put a $10,000 bounty on each dead skunk someone sends you and run that program for a decade or so. Of course, people would probably start breeding them on farms to collect so maybe the plan has some flaws…
That said while I have no real clue of the environmental impact of removing skunks I am a believer that everything has its place in the natural order and removing them would destabilize the environment at least temporarily. Doubtless equilibrium would reassert itself probably without the complete destruction of the ecosystem but still doesn’t mean you want to go there.
The animals voted and decided we should take our opposable thumbs and get out.
Seriously-history reveals many incidences where man attemped to alter an ecosystem, with dismal results. Kudzu didn’t get into the US by itself, you know.
Skunks? Where’s your prioirites? NYC and Florida have massive Cockroach problems. If we were going to get rid of anything, that would be at the top of my list.
Start? The only reason we haven’t managed to kill off more species than we have is that the ones still around are slightly faster or better at breeding and avoiding us than we are at finding and killing them.
And I, for one, wouldn’t shed a single tear over the total eradication of roaches, wasps, hornets, ants, and termites.
I’m sure they wouldn’t be too upset over the total eradication of the human species, either. They have as much right to this Earth as we do. We ain’t special.
Well,I consider myself special compared to the goddamned yellow jackets and hornets.Unfortunately, I don’t think they CAN be eradicated,but if someone finds a way to do it and it finds its way onto a ballot,guess how I’ll vote.
I never claimed otherwise and while they admittedly have as much right to exist as I do, I’m bigger and can step on them while all they can hope to do is bite or sting me and hope I’m allergic.
The skunk would seem a very poor choice of species to eradicate. Hell, all they do is stink a little bit (and I don’t really mind the smell).
If we could get rid of any species (besides microorganisms), the choice would undoubtedly be the mosquito. They cause more disease and misery than just about anything else. However, a lot of birds and such eat them, so the ecological impact could be severe. Even so, it would probably be worth it.
But getting rid of insects like wasps, things that don’t really cause that much harm to humans, would be bad. These insects pollinate flowers and such, and sometimes plants can be entirely dependent on a single species of insect for pollination. Betware the law of unintended consequences.
How marvellous, d’ya get midges? I can’t decide which I hate most out of mozzies and midges*, at least wasps advertise and they don’t actually feed on us either.
*Not forgetting horseflies, speaking of great filthy biters.