That has created a problem. Around 2010, soon after meeting this big, new predator that could outcompete and eat them, South Florida’s mammal populations collapsed. Large and medium-size mammals have been scarce for almost a decade, leaving mostly smaller mammals, like rodents. Some ecologists thought the pythons would become victims of their own success. “They […]
Read MoreThink of the worst invasive species you know. Kudzu: smothering trees and houses, growing a foot a day. Burmese pythons: stripping the Everglades of small animals. Asian carp: hoovering streams clean of plankton and swimming toward the Great Lakes. They all came from somewhere else, arrived with no natural predators, outcompeted local flora and fauna, and […]
Read MoreOff the coast of Southern California, amid a literal sea of troubles—warming waters, microplastic pollution, overfishing—is a 96-square-mile conservation success story. Santa Cruz Island once teemed with feral pigs and invasive Argentine ants until the Nature Conservancy unleashed a coordinated campaign of eradication. That’s allowed the adorable island fox to bounce back from the brink […]
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