Tweets,
I just got back this afternoon from some field work out of town during the
week. I was able to skim the many messages regarding this thread. I'm not
posting to argue for one side or the other, but to make a point that seems
to have been lost. I know most of us put birds at the top of our interests
and thus birds come to mind first when talking of the affects of keeping or
removing invasive species. Birds are however only one small cog in the whole
picture. Birds are perhaps one of the most flexible cogs and able to adapt
to a myriad of plant species. However, insects, plants, and mammals must be
considered. Many insect species are highly tied to specific plants and their
relationships must be considered. Large mammals are also very mobile and
flexible, but often small mammals are less so. Finally, while it is tempting
to consider plants as "habitat", they are in fact distinct biological
organisms and a wildflower or a tree is a species, just as song sparrow is a
species. All of these taxa have introduced and native members that affect
all other things in the environment.
I don't wish to delve into the argument too deeply as it is a complicated
one and there are good arguments for and against invasive species removal.
In general any invasive species whether it be bird, mammal or plant should
be looked on a case by case basis and those found to be highly noxious (thus
capable of spreading quickly and creating a monoculture) should likely be
treated more severely than other species. Examples include in the plant
world, cheatgrass versus Russian olive or in the bird world starling vs.
chukar, in each example one has few if any positive effects on its own taxa
or the ecosystem as a whole while the other may be bad but its effects are
not as wholly detrimental.

Just my two cents. By the way its nice to see a thread with differing
viewpoints such as this one that has the potential to become nasty, remain
mostly educational and civil. Perhaps if other threads can do the same the
list of banned topics, need not grow.

Scott Downes
downess at charter.net
Yakima WA