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Many ecosystems are now suffering from imported pests. Usually these pests have no local predator, such as the cane toad or the new whistling frogs in Hawaii.
Things tend to go very wrong every time humans try to solve the problem by importing a new predator, so this time we should just build
one. Aibos, Furbys and similar cheap plastic robots should be fitted out with CCD cameras, frequency gated microphones and solar power cells. When the robot comes across something the right size and color of a pest animal they can either jump on it (hard robotics problem) or sit on it (easier) until the pest dies. Then the killer Aibo moves on.
To help keep things ecological, the Aibos should either be recyclable or re-usable.
Hunting Aibos could either be specialty items, or standard mecha-pets that go hunting while the owner sleeps.
Hawaiian whistling frogs
http://www.iht.com/articles/57160.htm
very loud, no native predators, not enough prey to go around. [tenhand, May 10 2002, last modified Oct 21 2004]
cane toad page
http://www.jcu.edu....TM/staff/rsbufo.htm
cane toads were brought in to kill other pests [tenhand, May 10 2002, last modified Oct 21 2004]
invasivespecies.gov
http://www.invasivespecies.gov
there sure are a lot of them. [tenhand, May 10 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]
The Slugbot
http://www.robotboo.../robotic-hunter.htm
Even powers itself off of the deceased pests [spartanica, May 10 2002, last modified Oct 21 2004]
Cane Toads (1988)
http://us.imdb.com/Details?0130529
Hilarious documentary. Rent it if you get a chance. [jutta, May 10 2002]
[link]
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Why not just start a new food chain? |
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Wait a minute, Furbys *are* imported pests. It would be fun to watch them hunt each other down though. + |
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Is this another job for flocking road cones? |
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Great idea! You will have to develop one that can climb trees so we can rid the UK of those damned North American Grey Squirrels. Then we might see our nice native Red Squirrels (Smaller, quieter and not as violent or destruuctive) in our gardens again. |
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I suggest you develop a robo-cat for this purpose, our cats are quite adept at killing squirrels. But they don't get enough of them, they need robo-back-up! |
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Chocolate-chip freshly baked Croissant from the streets of Paris.... |
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i remember in biology we had to watch a movie on them
and it was just full of them mating. it was so gross. its
kinda the comming of age at our school. once you have
seen it your officially a high schooler |
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A giant scorpion abio would do the job nicely me thinks,
grab the nasty cane toad and then stab it with its big
sharp stabbing tail, if that dosent work though you can
always resort to dowsing them in petrol setting them on
fire and hitting them with a golf club. |
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What a great idea! I have been working on a plan to (a) teach the birds in my neighborhood to eat rabbit and (2) develop a garden treatment chemical that make the rabbits eating my plants poisonous, yet tasty, to the birds. But maybe I just need 2 varieties of seeker/killer robot! |
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It's ideas like this that are going to lead to the overthrow of human civilization. |
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//the overthrow of human civilization// Six years later,
here we still are. |
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Intelligent, autonomous killer-robots? Not enough I say!
They
must also be self-replicating. |
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//self-replicating// and made out of old toad parts. |
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//made out of old toad parts// [marked-for-tagline] |
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Er... Aibos are, within limits, learning robots so there would have to be a delimiter to that or else they'd end up targeting the family dog. |
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Er... Aibos are, within limits, learning robots so there would have to be a delimiter to that or else they'd end up targeting the family dog. |
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[Nelipot] Nothing can possibly go wrong. go wrong. go
wrong... |
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