Thank you for clarifying, and I completely agree. Both looks and perceived intelligence definitely play into people’s (myself included, though hopefully not anymore) decisions to address invasive species and save endangered ones.
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What plants do you have around your pond/detention basin? 
Some plants (looking at you bush honeysuckle) middle the waters.
I highly doubt it. Every spring there is an ephemeral stream running down the mountain, which is way to small (.5 ft deep?) and drains into the ground anyway. Amphibian here species are all the wonderful pickerel, green, wood, and mink frogs, spring peepers, and spotted salamanders. I think the salamander is kind of threatened. Anyway, we should stay on subject.
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There is cattail, common toadflax, creeping thistle, hairy vetch, willow, woolgrass, and a whole bunch of other plants, some good, some less so.
Saving salamanders is on topic.
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Work on getting rid of the non-natives and invasives and get some pickerelweed, blue flag iris, arrow arum, Rose mallow. Good luck!!
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Thank you, I’ll try that and will add some wapato, too!
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It’s impossible to overstate the disastrous effects that ornamental cyprinids have on pond ecosystems
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/382487629_Food_web_collapse_and_regime_shift_following_goldfish_introduction_in_permanent_ponds
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If you think killing would brake your heart to do, i think you shouldn’t. Thinking about nature is important, but your killing act is not a decisive action to nature. Invasive species need a great (really great) strategy to be defeated. The specie is not going to be extinct or well-controlled just because you are killing some individuals. Nature has no regrets in the average amount of cases. If you feel bad about doing that, that’s ok. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Other people are probably doing that act, even if that not resolve the problem at all. It doesn’t depends just on you. Think a little on what your heart can deal with.
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Some people use the term “snapping turtle” to mean any turtle that a beak that could potentially bite.
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I frequently encounter the invasive black Arion slugs in the PNW and 1000% can not kill them. I know they are negatively impacting the banana slugs, but they are just so big and beautiful and interesting and just living their little life.
I do easily and frequently kill invasive plants tho. It’s sadder and harder for me when it’s a huge multi-decade tree, but I do it for particular species (like tree of heaven or black locust). I recently had to cut down a BUNCH of Norway maple that were at least a couple decades old and legit had tears in my eyes, even tho I know they are incredibly detrimental to the local ecosystem, and that I’m going to plant a bunch of natives in their place.
For me I think it’s the sentience/age/interactions of the creature that really get to me and make it hard.
Just do what you can, and teach everyone you can everything you find important. Most people just don’t know anything about this. Thanks for bringing this up 
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I feel sorry for invasive species. It’s not as if it’s usually their fault that they are in the wrong part of the world.
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yeah humans are responsible for many of them at the end of the day. But I suppose that is all the more reason that it is on us humans to do the right thing and eliminate them as painlessly as possible to help the local ecosystems.
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In Cape Town Himalayan tahr culled for reintroduced klipspringer (smaller and cause less erosion)
Pine plantations and historic eucalyptus avenues (trees are silver bullet good!!) for locally indigenous plants.
The exotic ducks that hybridise with our local species.
Hard decisions that people on two sides fight.
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Are those the same pond? The background trees and landscape look very different, if it was landscaped differently it would cause confounding variables
If an organism is a non-native invasive it should always be removed humanely from the environment. The controversy should not be what to do with an identified invasive species, but what constitutes an invasive species. It’s the opinion of some scientists that while non-native species add extra strain to the environment, they balance themselves out by participating in the environment (they both consume more energy, but add more energy). This is almost certainly the case in my area of SFL, where the urban environment can no longer sustain native species, but can support adaptable exotic (but not invasive) species. And often exotic species occupy new niches and don’t compete with native species, an example being anole species in FL. The four widespread species (green, brown, bark, and knight anoles) occupy completely different niches (twig dweller, terrestrial, trunk dweller, canopy giant respectively), and apparently seem to coexist. The python issue is more complicated however. Their primary range is some of the last remaining true wilderness in Florida (the Everglades and Big Cypress), rather than an already degraded environment. Are they simply an exotic, or a destructive invasive? The evidence seems to point to pythons having a serious negative impact on native small mammal populations, and thus they should be humanely removed, but that is far from settled. Regardless they are one of the most beautiful and impressive animals I’ve had the privilege of observing in the wild.
In conclusion, if an animal is not sustainable in the environment it needs to be removed. But as humans themselves are part of the environment, we can affect our environment by introducing exotics, which can sometimes improve rather than degrade the environment. So we need to scientifically discern whether an exotic is beneficial or harmful (invasive) to the environment before removing it.
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to kill an invasive animal can be easy, considering. kill a fish, squash or spray a bug, shoot a sika deer
in my country, the worst invasives are plants. i live an a terrible agricultural country, vast fields, like 30 hectares is allowed max and the farmers are unhappy with that. this alone is pretty destructive. and among all this terrible fields are two groves near the brook. nice, right? but most trees in there is acer negungo. and most herbaceous plants is jerusalem artichoke and goldenrod. Sure, there are some other trees and shrubs, and nettles, but it is mostly foreign. to do something with that would require a massive effort and lot of roundup.
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24 posts were split to a new topic: Using Roundup to Kill Invasives
Sometimes, I remind myself that, in North America, I’m invasive too.
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I am not in favor of fishing anyway, as you hurt a feeling vertebrate in every case. If you cannot stop fishing just do it only for gaining food for yourself, your family and your friends. So no moral questions will occure.
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