On Sep 16, 5:57 pm, Nick Cramer wrote:
I saw a news story this morning about a town in Northern California which
(again) has been invaded by Egrets and Herons. I did a Google search for
"egret heron invasion Northern California" to find out more about it and
got 15,000 hits. Many of them come from other continents. Their populatio
ns
are growing everywhere in the US, thanks to their protected species statu
s.
They maim and eat our pond fish. Your tax dollars at work. sigh


Currently the bulk of American taxes goes to the military. That is
not to say that the soldier is treated well - a lot of the money is to
pay the debt from wars we have and are fighting, much of it goes for
storing nuclear weapons and making more of them (arms were our biggest
export this year I believe), the military industry gets a really big
chunk... Our infrastructure has been neglected for years, budgets for
the arts has been cut, education and science budgets have been cut
(getting a research grant is almost impossible for a young
researcher). I had to LMAO or cry when I heard someone at the
convention complain about our country becoming more and more like the
third world - we just had to cut taxes before it was too late
(apparently this person was unaware that the countries considered 1st
world pay much more in taxes than we do). but I do digress

Odd - I did the search with your string and came up with nothing
significant. Just because you get thousands of hits does not mean
that any of them relate to the actual topic you have in mind. For
example there could be thousands of sites that are talking about
egrets dieing in Northern California because of an invading parasite.
It was fun to read that African egrets came into this country
naturally and are now well established. They are not a protected
species as far as I could find.


"Unlike most exotic animals that have made their way to North America,
the cattle egret arrived without human help and generally is
considered a welcome addition to the continent's fauna. Complaints
arise here and there about noise and odor stemming from colonies
situated too close to residential areas. But to balance the ledger,
each cattle egret eats more than 600 grasshoppers and crickets a day--
equal to half its body weight --placing the species firmly among the
farmer's best feathered friends.

Some competition for nesting sites and nest materials occurs between
the newcomers and native herons in northern breeding colonies, but not
in the South, where cattle egrets arrive after snowy egrets, little
blue herons, Louisiana herons and other wading birds have established
their nests. The flip side is that little blue herons often hang out
with cattle egrets and have learned to feed with cows. In the pastures
of North America, this beautiful African heron found an empty
ecological niche where it could prosper, adding yet another chapter to
the world's most astonishing avian success story
"