Many of today's biodiversity is being threatened by the introduction of plants and animals that easily overpower native populations. In Hawaii's streams, invasive fish are overcompeting for resources while invasive plantlife steals oxygen from the water. I don't think that anybody would go as far as systematically dredging streams to remove unwanted fish, but an ancient practice incorporated with robotics and the internet can educate and help.
Ancient hawaiians established fish ponds where fish were allowed in and out freely as they were fed daily. A gate was used to control the size of fish that came in and also that went out. as fish grew, they could no longer leave through the gate. they were coralled into channels created with rock walls and easily captured for food.
A robotic fish pond could be created to sort through stream fish populations. Fish are allowed to enter and leave through a series of tubes, of which they are sorted by a series of robotic gates. They will be drawn to the robotic pond by the smell of food, or whatever bait can be used. The internet comes in here: everytime a gate encloses a fish, a picture is taken and put online. Votes can be cast as to if the fish should remain in the stream. if it is allowed to remain, it enters and eats. if it is deemed unworthy, it is led down another tube to be killed (somehow, haven't figured out the most humane way) and the dead fish can be used as fish food.
problems: what fish eat fish.. do fish notice when some of them are missing? Will this create a dependancy for food? If fish smell fish blood will it scare them away?-- twitch, Nov 11 2006 Threatening Plants https://www.denix.o...nvasive/hawaii.htmlInvasive plants [twitch, Nov 13 2006] Mosquitoes http://www.uhh.hawa...~biocomp/hawaii.phpsee: Mosquito and Malaria [twitch, Nov 13 2006] Oxygen Depletion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhosphateSearch: Algal Bloom [twitch, Nov 14 2006] Salvinia http://www.invasive.../2FloatingFern.htmlSalvinia Molesta, invasive. [twitch, Nov 14 2006] mad cow disease would be useful, if you were interested in killing all cows.
maybe we'll just give them regular fish food, and use the dead fish as crab bait (good bait for crabs i must say).-- twitch, Nov 11 2006 Up here in the sticks of Maine, we employ scuba teams to do the "weeding" of dangerous plant life. Much like one would weed thier garden.-- Chefboyrbored, Nov 11 2006 i'm sorry but we can't weed tilapia or other cichlids. they swim faster than us.-- twitch, Nov 11 2006 //problems: what fish eat fish.. //
Pike & Perch are both known to eat other fish. I don't like this idea though. How can you deem one fish unworthy of life, and yet let another live? What would differentiate the two? Fishbone.-- jtp, Nov 12 2006 I freedive with a speargun, and deem one fish worthy of death, and let another live. Of course, I entreat the ocean gods for their assistance in this process.
C.J. Cherryh has gone into this idea before, in detailing how a race that believes only wild-caught meat is OK to eat, deals with such issues.
When this race advances to the level of space travel, onboard fish farms are devised that introduce both random choice and size into the occasion of choosing who gets eaten and who lives another day.-- normzone, Nov 12 2006 tasty fish feed people muddy fish feed fishes-- bulb, Nov 12 2006 i aim to remove the fish that are deemed invasive. that is: they overrun and/or destroy natural habitat by over- competition or outright habitat destruction.
Remove the fish that are directly and indirectly destroying the balanced ecosystem that was in place.
// Once it's in there, it has just as much right to those resources as any other fish.//
So, if i squat on your property and start mining for ore, i now have rights to your property?-- twitch, Nov 12 2006 That's not the same; fish don't 'own' a river. I know we could go into a debate here over whether we really own the land too, but the point is that fish presumably don't have the same concept of land and resource ownership as we do.
I think asking whether introduced fish have a 'right' to resources like native fish is where you go wrong. It's not really about rights at all. A right is a human construct.
I think the voting idea is a bit silly. If we applied the same system to other ecosystems all the fluffy cute animals would be thriving and people would kill off ugly ones. If there is a problem then leave it to biologists or other people who know what they are doing if indeed there are any. It's about responsibly managing ecosystems we've stuffed up, not deciding is any particular fish is 'worthy' to live. What is worth to a fish?-- cetacean, Nov 12 2006 Certain Cichlids, in my experience, are fiercly territorial in an aquarium environment. They seem to have a behavior that one would not really expect from a fish in other things at times, also. (Some attempt to attack people walking by the aquarium)
[twitch], I can't find a link, but I'm pretty sure some of the Tuna farms use a camera in a narrow gate to count the Tuna as they move into the final tank.-- Zimmy, Nov 13 2006 It is not about rights, it is about the survival of an ecosystem. We introduced cichlids to control another pest, mosquitoes. This tactic has proved somewhat successful in the short run, but now they are endangering the survival of a fragile balance. Mosquitoes are also an introduced animal which has proved deadly to many native birds.
Many animals are territorial such as dogs, cats, to mention the obvious ones. It not just about territory, its about over-competition for resources between native and invasive plants and animals.
Invasive plants and animals can destroy whole habitats. See link. Read about Miconia in Tahiti if you like.-- twitch, Nov 13 2006 //Feeding cows to cows led to mad cow disease. This sounds like a recipe for mad fish disease//
Fish eat fish all the time so I can't see how you could make a link to Mad Cow Disease. Example: Sharks eat fish and sharks are fish-- Mind_Boggle, Nov 13 2006 I have known this fact UnaBubba, there were no mosquitoes before Europeans arrived. Hawaii is the most remote land mass on the planet and the polynesians didn't bring them. Because of mosquitoes, we had a bird-epidemic. Some species went extinct, some... well read the link.
I have a right to protect my ecosystem and to kill plants and animals that threaten their existence.
[21 Quest], animals ARE tools. I eat them every day. What ever happened to cow's rights to live anyway? Or fish.-- twitch, Nov 13 2006 The votes would be made my qualified people who know which species are damaging to the habitat.-- twitch, Nov 13 2006 //invasive plantlife steals oxygen from the water//
Methinks you're not a botanist.-- Aq_Bi, Nov 14 2006 [Aq_Bi], that statement you quoted is true. Why do you think we restrict phosphates in detergent... Resulting algal blooms deplete oxygen levels.
it doesn't take a botanist to know that, just a history lesson.
see: oxygen depletion link for algal bloom-- twitch, Nov 14 2006 You never mentioned algae. Plants by themselves always create extra oxygen for sea life. Even in algal blooms it's the bacteria that use up the oxygen.-- Aq_Bi, Nov 14 2006 Do I have to explain everything? yes when they die they rot. Read it. But just for you [Aq_Bi], here is a plant that DIRECTLY depletes oxygen levels: See Link <Salvinia>-- twitch, Nov 14 2006 Fish still eat fish, but you're right, it depends on what fish.
maybe if we cooked them.. for them.
maybe it would be easier to just systematically net the whole stream/river.-- twitch, Nov 14 2006 random, halfbakery