What Are Invasive Species
Invasive species are becoming increasingly fashionable, but many people are unaware of their implications and significance. Invasive species are closely related to our exotic pets and pose a danger to the environment.
What are invasive species
When we speak of invasive species, we refer to species of animals, plants or other organisms that have been released into a habitat that is not their own. For centuries, this has occurred at the height of global trade, but in recent years exotic pets have become very important.
On many occasions, when we realize that certain species are difficult to keep by our side, the owners come up with the great idea of freeing these animals. This can have several consequences; When releasing a pet to the wild, it will normally die because it is not adapted to forage itself or to defend itself from predators.
However, on other occasions these animals are able to survive in this new ecosystem, and cause imbalances that can lead to the collapse of their new home, as no other organism is adapted to their presence. It is in this case when we speak of invasive species.
What animals are invasive species
Currently each government decides how to legislate regarding invasive species and the keeping of exotic pets: in many countries it is only allowed to have about 20 species of animals and, therefore, it is very difficult for the list of invasive species to be expanded.
In other cases, as in Spain, thousands of species are allowed, and they are banned when they pose a risk to the population. This causes the species to be considered invasive too late, when dangerous wild populations have already established.
Specifically, in the case of Spain, the animals that are considered an invasive species are included in a catalog created by the Ministry of the Environment.
Examples of invasive species
There are thousands of invasive species on the planet; for example, in Australia one of them is the European rabbit, which is a veritable pest that has wiped out large fields of crops. In the United States, many species of Asian snakes have also been introduced.
In the case of Spain, invasive species are very diverse: for example, there are populations of raccoons or even coatis in various parts of the Iberian Peninsula, which have been generated from abandoned pets.
These animals are an example of the health threat posed by invasive species: these procyonids are one of the wild animals with rabies, and they can infect humans, as they are much more trusting than other wild animals.
There are other curious species, such as the Kramer’s parakeet and the Alexandrian parakeet, which are causing serious problems in several cities, counting by the thousands that crowd the trees and buildings. These parrots, like raccoons, affect our birds by taking away nesting places, and in the case of raccoons by eating their eggs in nests.
The American mink is another of the most worrying cases: freed from various fur farms by activists against animal abuse, the American mink is driving our European mink to extinction.
Water turtles such as the red-eared turtle are among the most released, and are displacing other European freshwater turtles. These invasive species are one more example that we must inform ourselves well before acquiring an exotic pet and commit to taking care of it forever.
