Response to MPLS Star Tribune’s irresponsible featured commentary
RE: The carp are coming! (And is that really such a bad thing?) by Greg Breining
Dear Greg:
You are correct about how little we really understand exotic species and their place in ecosystems, but it is your propaganda that provides evidence the loudest. We are and will be finding out just how disastrous they will turn out to be and I don’t think we’ll find a lot of exceptions. Washed up is not how I would describe their arrival. If that is your poetry, please keep it to yourself.
Few of the species I am concerned about washed up on our shores. While many were careless accidents, many others were netted and dug, crated, fork-lifted, loaded, shipped and/or flown to be bought and sold in the market place and then dumped into prime habitats.
#1. We do not describe exotic species with the same language we do immigrants who, unlike exotic species, typically give back more than they take. But you are correct that it is warfare over food and the losers are quantified in diversity lost and species extinct. There are generally no policies based on science conducting this war.
#2. Continents can suffer massive widespread extinctions, it just takes longer. Islands are like saplings that you run over with a bobcat and it’s done with. Continents are like a century old oak that you damage with construction this year and it gives up the ghost ten years later. If Michigan where an island, their EAB problems would soon be over.
No, local ecosystems are not richer in diversity from the addition of foreign species. Overwhelmingly, all of the many local ecosystems I have wandered across all the years I have lived here in Minnesota are moderately to severely degraded from the invasion of non-native plants. Even the rarest of places no longer remain un-touched.
I have personally witnessed thousands of small white lady’s-slippers, Cypripedium candidum and other orchid species including our state flower, Cypripedium reginae growing among them down in the Minnesota River Valley in Bloomington, wiped out of existence from just a half handful of non-native species, primarily reed canary grass (RCG), Phalaris arundinacea.
Not only are the non-native species of far fewer number than the abundant native flora they replaced they are also generally of poor character. If you are talking about people’s little back yard gardens, it is true they can be a diverse source of non-native genotypes but even they lack in diversity from what was on the land before the gardener dug it up. One of the biggest things they are missing is insects. Any responsible gardener would read Doug Tallamy’s “Bringing Nature Home – How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens,” before putting another shovel into the ground. Diversity on a global scale is far more important than people’s back yards.
#3. It is only with exception that you cannot tell a native from a non-native as we see here in Minnesota right now with RCG but you sure can tell its destructive behavior. Botanists don’t know everything and not all natives are well studied or understood. But that natives may change behavior in response to environmental changes, especially something like climate change, is to be expected as diverse ecosystems are dynamic for just that purpose. Non-natives do not or cannot behave in this fashion in their new environments.
I have not walked through the Bay Area’s abandoned groves of Australian eucalyptus but I have walked into endless melaleuca, Melaleuca quinquenervia, stands in Florida and if you are seeing much diversity in there you are smoking something. I hear rumors that more and more Burmese pythons, Python molurus bivittatus, have been showing up lately…yippee!
You are correct that there is no such thing as a good or bad ecosystem but in that regard there is no such thing as a good or bad economy – just different economies. But even the poorest economist can recognize a rich, diverse and thriving economy from an impoverished one. Ecosystem or economy, should we not know which we would have and strive for it? Healthy ecosystems are rich, diverse, resilient and stingy. They know how to capture energy and conserve it by sharing it with all. Non-natives share nothing.
#4. This is the most obfuscative preposition I’ve heard lately, you out do yourself. Exotic species are unequivocally hard to control because too often they are out of control or politically protected. As for the heroic zebra mussel, Dreissena polymorpha, I don’t know of a single environmentalist that would argue that crystal clear water is the end of all goals. What happens to the sharp-shinned hawk, Accipiter striatus, that would have eaten the common yellowthroat, Geothlypis trichas, that would have eaten the emerald spreadwing, Lestes dryas, that would have eaten the midge, Stenochironomus macateei, larvae that would have eaten the plankton algae, Anabaena spp. that zebra mussel, D. polymorpha, got to first?
#5. I don’t like that the world is increasingly made up of a hodge-podge stew of bewildered species collected from all over the globe with just a few dwindling pockets of desperate hold outs that have somehow managed to stay under the radar screen so far. For sure something or someone is hunting them down to destroy them as we speak. I do want and love nature and what you are proposing is miserable.
When is the last time you looked for any wildflowers in a buckthorn, Rhamnus cathartica and Frangula alnifolia, forest – if that even is what it can be called? Between them, exotic earthworms, Lumbricus terrestris (among more than 60 other non-native worms introduced to North America) and garlic mustard, Alliaria petiolata, there is nothing left! Thanks much in part to gardeners we now have our first non-native orchid species helleborine, Epipactis helleborine invading the hills of Winona county. We already had some 44 native orchid species in Minnesota, (the only state with an orchid for a state flower) – wasn’t that enough? Most of them didn’t even bother to figure out what we already had before they were off looking for something new and they found a poor excuse for what they were replacing.
You are correct that Asian carp, Aristichthys nobilis and Hypophthalmichthys molitrix are winning and will end up being the largest single biomass in many of our water ways just as round goby, Neogobius melanostomus now makes up most of the biomass at the bottom of Lake Erie. You are also correct that the time to stop them is before we import them. You talk about “wreaking tremendous change” but as we’ve learned, earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes and meteor strikes also wreak tremendous change – should we then embrace them?
I say; Mille Lacs Lake for Minnesota walleye, Stizostedion vitreum and coniferous bogs for Minnesota orchids!
I am not stupid, of course we will continue to move life forms around the planet, as that is our nature, but must we insist on continuing to do so, so mindlessly? I find my nature to be anything but mindless.
Will people be willing? I find too many people unwilling or incapable of changing just about anything, dangerous or not. Something can be done about many of our invasive plant species but too few people have chosen to do so. We have been effective against many weeds in the past. I still have a copy of the 1925 – State of Minnesota, State Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 43 – Weeds in the Fields, Gardens, and Lawns, as well as the accompanying “Noxious Weeds” colored flyer with The Minnesota Plan for Cooperative Weed Control and Eradication flow-chart on the back. While that program is trashed today, they had most of it all figured out back then.
I also know we do have improved knowledge, understanding and better management tools to fight these problems today. We also have many good people, both in and out of government with skills, knowledge and no small amount of passion who but languish for so much to get done and nothing to do. They have no leadership with vision right now.
A change we can believe in? The person that manages to outlaw the stupid penny will get my next vote for president.
For those who would still insist on gardening with Asian wildflowers and fishing for Asian fish I might suggest they purchase a one way ticket to China and think about staying there.
For you, Homo sapien, I would suggest a one week’s vacation on a treeless (some previous tourist released some damned insect that ate them all) tropical island with a Bengal tiger, Panthera tigris bengalensis, and just six days worth of food – live young wild pigs, Sus scrofa, between the two of you. We will see who goes extinct first.
You are correct that it will take a lot of convincing or if not, LTL
Regards,
Peter M. Dziuk
Minnesota Wildflowers
Columbia Heights, MN
p.s. Doug Tallamy will be speaking at the Wild Ones Spring Conference 2010, 27 February – Radisson Hotel, Roseville
Tags: invasive species
February 2nd, 2010 at 9:17 am
It seems to get anyone’s attention now days, you need to pick a fight with them – remember this!!!!
2 February, 2010
On Mpls-Trib’s Irresponsibility
While listening to the ignorant banter of the likes of Greg Breining has been all too familiar in my career in invasives, it is the MPLS Tribs irresponsible publishing of the article in the first place that perhaps upsets me the most.
While they make their handy disclaimer that thinking like Greg’s may not necessarily represent theirs, you have to wonder what made them consider publishing it in the first place.
Did Greg come to them and say he has this thoughtful, balanced and measured discourse for consideration, or was one of their editors out drinking with Greg one night and it sounded pretty good then?
Worst I think Greg was paid $$ for this leaking piece of tripe. Like a shady deal, purchased in a back alley where content nor quality are ever an issue.
There will be no more early Sunday morning walks for me to SA to pick up this dirty rag.
Sack’s cartoon – 31 January, 2010, Mpls-Trib OpEd, says it best – bon voyage!
Petyer
Minnesota Wildflowers
Columbia Heights, MN
February 2nd, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Dear Greg as you decided to respond as per your email which is printed out below, I thought I would get back to you. We would take any comments you would have but not here as these will be the last of your words on our blog. I won’t even respond to more of your crap here.
You think you get to vomit all over the public stage, and then hardly have to say excuse me and then I have to try and clean you up in an back alley?
You can keep your deals with the Mpls Trib back there.
Cheers yourself.
Petyer
Greg’s private email back:
——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Re: The carp are coming!
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 16:01:37 EST
From: Breining-at-aol.com
To: kchayka-at-c-net.us
In a message dated 2/2/10 12:26:11 PM, kchayka-at-c-net.us writes:
> I welcome any comments you care to make.
1. I didn’t say I liked invasive species or favored their presence.
2. From an ecological standpoint, it’s pretty clear that exotic species adapt in different ways. Some are disastrous. Some are a nuisance. Some are downright valuable to humans. Most fit in so well, we’d be hard-pressed to tell they’re exotic except that we happen to know where they come from. Judging exotics on the basis of the bad actors is really as nonsensical as judging them only on the basis of brown trout and pheasants.
3. Given our trade and travel, the presence of exotic species is absolutely inevitable. Your moral tut-tutting won’t change that.
4. The trade in species has increased biodiversity on a local level. Is that a good thing? Hard to say. It needs study. Your blanket condemnation won’t provide any insight.
5. Carp–Why not learn to love them? They’re here! There’s nothing anyone can do about it.
Cheers,
Greg
February 2nd, 2010 at 4:15 pm
His responses are baffling, but #4 is just bogus. I’d like to see a “natural” site where non-natives have increased biodiversity. My own eyes have seen quite the opposite.
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:07 am
Comment on Breining’s #4: “The trade in species has increased biodiversity on a local level.” Not in any place I’ve visited or worked with native and invasive plants in the past 20 years. I work in local habitats where invasive species make up 90 to 99% of the local biomass. Mr. Breining, please be responsible! You are a nature and science writer???
I cannot improve on turkeyhunt’s post on the StarTrib website on Jan. 29:
Your story is not funny nor informative. In fact the misleading statements are scary. … Securing the future of America’s fish, wildlife and outdoor heritage depends on recruiting and educating a new generation of stewards and outdoor enthusiasts who will invest their time, talent, passion and money in the conservation of our country’s greatest fresh water resource. What happen to you on this one, did a carp hit you in the head?
February 4th, 2010 at 11:24 am
I do not believe Mr. Breining cares what we write about him. Regardless, I emailed him a response:
Mr. Breining,
While I’m not exactly thrilled with Peter’s choice of words, I feel much the same as he does. Whether intended or not, you presented yourself as some kind of authority on invasive species whose words could be trusted. Disregarding the “experts” referenced in your original article, who sound like academics with little or no field experience, you made 2 statements that give you away as a fraud:
1. In your original article:
“If exotic species were unequivocally bad, controlling them would be easier.”
This statement makes no sense at all. If exotics were easy to control we wouldn’t even be having these discussions.
2. In your email response:
“4. The trade in species has increased biodiversity on a local level.”
[see comments above]
I was hoping you were an honorable person with a conscience, but it seems that it not the case. And this is not “moral tut-tutting” as you so eloquently put it. It’s a reality that our native habitats are being overrun with exotics and shrink more each year. And writings such as yours do far more harm than good.
February 4th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Dear Greg,
Thank you for your enlightening take on the pending invasion of the Asian carp. I think your approach says more than you meant to say about where humanity is at today. That you should be playing witness for the defense of a bottom feeder is probably coincidental but appropriate. Have you read “Harvest for Hope” by Jane Goodall? This book should be required reading for any and all who would speak to the condition of ecosystems.
And the condition of the entire world’s ecosystem should concern each and every one of us. Sadly, the hubris and greed of technology and agribusiness are creating a harvest for disaster. The toxic load and soil depletion required just to sustain our industrial age agricultural systems may yet kill us all if not greatly diminish our standard of living. What could be more alien that a shotgun GMO? LTL? At your own perhaps great risk.
Yet we don’t need all of our modern technology to see what happens when unthinking low-tech human beings find themselves in “Eden.” Just consider the Easter Islands. or today’s Haiti. I would submit that the word eco-disasters would not be overstating the case. There are many more that might be cited but why belabor the obvious.
Do we really want to keep following this model? An Asian carp’s slap upside the head is one thing but how easy will it be to choke out the words “LTL” when an enterprising Burmese python is eating your dog or child in Central Park or however farther west this pleasant immigrant manages to migrate. Or try taking LTL to Guam. Bet they just love that endearing brown snake that has wiped out most of the indigenous bird fauna and now turns its beady-eyed attention on people and pets.
It is certainly true that not all “exotic” species are bad but the truly successful one’s can have spectacular impacts ala Michael Pollan’s “Botany of Desire”. There is one that creates more havoc than all the rest combined. Yet it is the only one capable of knowing it and making enlightened observations of the world around it. The island example is very apt. We better learn to see our planet as an island especially with the mindless onslaught of “globalization” – is this process truly inevitable or is it an artifact of greedy corporations and their bottom line spin factories.
Before I go “LTL”, I like to know what it is as a biologist/ecologist and a human being. Just as we wouldn’t let anything or anyone into our personal living spaces just because it suddenly appeared at our door, why should we not apply the same standards to the very earth and water that sustains us? Progress and commerce are no reason to go blind and stupid and in fact provide some of the most compelling reasons not to do so.
February 4th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
I am very pleased that Dwight Robinson has become a much welcomed and qualified commentator on Minnesota Wildflower’s Environmental Justice blog.
February 5th, 2010 at 8:06 am
4 Feb, 2010
Last note to Greg Breining:
After 18 years in the invasive’s trenches I was wondering who in “heck” this Greg Breining was – never heard of him.
I did go to his webpage and discovered he knows how to kayak, knows how to fish, even knows how to count small groups of big shaggy beasts up on Ellesmere Island. He also demonstrates an ability to write and he must be good at it because how else could he have gotten as far as he has spewing pure b… (poorly composted male bovine excrement) and being paid for it? He is right that I sure can’t do that – get paid for b…!
He is not and will not be the first or last “sportsman/nature” writer to wax filletisouffleically about the wonders of nature and really never know carp.
It is clear by the responses to this blog that no one finds Mr. Breining qualified in any way to speak about invasive species except the Mpls Trib – saying way too much about their own qualifications. One thing I know for sure is that regardless of where he has travelled or how many shaggy beasts he has counted, he has never had any clue what he was mindlessly walking all over on his way there. He clearly has not spent much time walking around his home(?) state of Minnesota or if he has, he was walking with his mind, if not with his eyes – closed. When he says it is almost impossible to tell the natives from non-natives, that is more than self evidently true for himself – Greg there is a difference and even someone as boxed in as you can learn it – its called a beginner’s wildflower book!
Being a thousand times more qualified to speak on invasive species, I am done with one excellently self-misinformed “carphugger”.
It still took me a while to figure out what the Trib was up to and it only made sense to me when I realized they were up to nothing. It also revealed their editorial ignorance or at least immaturity.
Nobody there has a clue about invasive species either. But they feel they should say something as it vaguely appears to them of some newsworthiness (and they are the news) and of course they want to present a “balanced” perspective. What better way than to pick up a piece by a highly respected nature writer who challenges people to “think outside of the box” now and then.
First of all they really didn’t “pick it up” but went out to their daily word market and made a purchase – sight unseen. Just like any big box store meat market, that’s what they ended up with – a chunk of industrial farm raised raw meat, injected full of salt flavorings and artificial coloring, completely uninspected (the inspector was let go a long time ago) before being packaged up in a nice plastic wrapper with pretty pictures on it. It will take more than a few mindless opinions to pull out of that pre-packaged box/mind-set.
They also made the assumption – and nearly correct – that nobody really gives a damn anyway.
It is also distressing to me that so many people mindlessly inform themselves in this manner – taking this kind of rubbish as serious news – even state legislators. Any wonder so much misinformed public policy is formulated and legislation passed?
It is the mission of this blog to un-cover at least a few of these seemingly endless public charlatans in all their shapes and forms. By bringing some “qualified” and “balanced” perspectives on these issues we can perhaps begin to pull out of this death spiral we’ve all seem to have found ourselves in lately?
Petyer
April 29th, 2010 at 11:16 am
I like those fighting words. Someone who can speak well for me. I have such fear of all the aquatic species plant and animal, and the land plant invasions happening. Having dabbled in Entomology, Horticulture, Aquaculture and even medical lab technology I understand what is happening to our finite planet it is happening right here where I live. Minnesota Thank you for your voice. /////sally