by Tom Blair
Columnist

You’ve heard about all the snakes in Florida and other southern states that don’t belong there? Maybe you’ve watched Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel showing monster snakes big enough to eat a human. Did ya see Larry the Cable Guy wrestling with carp in Iowa and feral hogs in Arkansas? Well, that’s just the tip of the iceberg of all the crap that has invaded America in the name of science or stupidity.

 We have over 100 fish from other counties in our rivers and lakes, eating our good fish, flying into boats, and eating vegetation that is essential to productive waters. Not to mention over 80 snakes, lizards and exotic amphibians that are destroying our native wild life. Bad crayfish, Asian crabs, water fleas and barnacles, and other types of exotic crustaceans have come to our shores too.

 Bug critters? There is OVER 470 different species of insects, including, disease carrying mosquitoes and vegetation, crop and tree-eating worms and African Killer Bees that shouldn’t be here. I can’t seem to find information on how many people are killed by African bee in the U.S. but there are hundreds of people and pets attacked yearly.

 When I winter in Mesa, Arizona, there are several local news reports of killer bees attacking dogs and people during the year. I heard about two deaths in this past winter; however, one was due to a hiker who fell off a cliff fighting off killer bees. Killer bees killed a couple of dogs in one neighborhood near us this winter, and these bees have spread across Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, California and Nevada. Every year they move further north and east.

 The Nutria, a large rodent (up to 2 feet long), was brought here from South America and introduced for its fur, but after the fur market went south, many were turned loose. While the Nutria devours weeds and overabundant vegetation, it also destroys native aquatic vegetation, crops and wetland areas. This critter’s destruction is enormous in the South.

 There are feral dogs, cats and pigs running wild, carrying disease, killing wildlife and roaming our lands doing billions of dollars in damage.

Now, there are quite a few different creatures that were brought to America that seemed to “fit in” with our ecological system, only because we were lucky, but if we don’t start watching our borders more closely and stop letting in animals, vegetation, food or people with harmful things, we’re gonna cease to exist one day soon.

In 1854, Chief Seattle, a wise Native American, said, “Man did not weave the web of life – he is merely a strand in it; whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.”

Tom “Road” Blair
Website: www.tomroadblair.com