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Interesting/Little Known introduced populations

Discussion in 'Wildlife & Nature Conservation' started by birdsandbats, 3 Jan 2018.

  1. red river hog

    red river hog Well-Known Member

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    Yeah. You're probably right on that. News outlets tend to exaggerate things, to say the least. Especially when it comes to animals. Another source is a national park book that's in my house. It has a picture of a King Cobra in the Everglades pages. I don't know how valid it is though.
     
  2. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    Yes... at Paynes Prairie.

    Examples of such articles?
     
  3. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    As far as I can tell, Lechwe and Pere David's Deer only occur on game ranches in Texas.
     
  4. red river hog

    red river hog Well-Known Member

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    I was reading further into it and it seems to be the escaped one you were talking about. Weird because i really thought I had heard somewhere that there are King Cobras in the Everglades. Sorry.

    These are sightings of loose Lechwes in Texas
    Lechwe on May 27, 2013 by Diogo B. Provete · iNaturalist
    Lechwe on October 13, 2017 at 09:42 AM by Jason Penney · iNaturalist

    This Pere David's Deer seems to be in a bit of a gray area. As you will see in the comments they are debating what the definition of wild is to determine if it is captive or not.
    Père David's Deer on June 27, 2020 at 07:21 PM by Jeff McIntyre · iNaturalist
     
  5. birdsandbats

    birdsandbats Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    The person with the Pere David's Deer literally said that they were wild if you considered ranched animals wild. :rolleyes:

    The Lechwe were probably just escapees but hard to know for sure.
     
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  6. red river hog

    red river hog Well-Known Member

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    Yeah. It's hard to define "wild" though because they may be owned by someone, but they aren't being fed or cared for by them.

    That's what they were saying, but there is a potential for a small breeding population that we're unaware about, although it's unlikely because there were only 3 loose individuals sighted.
     
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  7. vogelcommando

    vogelcommando Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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  8. vogelcommando

    vogelcommando Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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  9. vogelcommando

    vogelcommando Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    On the island of Aruba in the Caribbean Boa constrictors are increasing very quickly and are a real thread for the wildlife on the island.
     
  10. vogelcommando

    vogelcommando Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    Came along a very intresting note about an attemp to introduce American robins in England :
    Around 1909 a surtain Lord Northcliffe brought 18 American robins to England but 1 died. The other 17 birds were all placed in a large aviary and several pairs started to build nests and to lay eggs. Due to aggresion most eggs were however lost and there-after all new eggs were placed in nests of thrushes and Blackbirds and in this way 24 young were raised and later these 24 together with the 17 adults were released on the grounds of Lord Northcliffe possesion.
    This introducion seemed however not having been succesfull because I wasn't able to find any further notes about it.
     
  11. FBBird

    FBBird Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    I have an idea they all migrated
     
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  12. red river hog

    red river hog Well-Known Member

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    I have found that iNaturalist can be a good resource when doing research for this thread. Here are some that have been introduced, but don't have any sightings.

    Cane Toads in China.
    China · iNaturalist

    African Clawed Frogs in Indonesia.
    Indonesia · iNaturalist

    Muskrats and Lesser Antillean Whistling Frogs in Brazil.
    Brazil · iNaturalist

    American Bullfrogs in Russia.
    Russia · iNaturalist

    Red-whiskered Bulbul, Red-vented Bulbul, Alpine Ibex, Crested Myna, Rosy Starling, Red-breasted Parakeet, Alexandrine Parakeet, Aldabra, Giant Tortoise, Nubian Ibex, Zebra Waxbill, Senegal Chameleon, Marbled Water Monitor, Western Green Mamba, and Jameson's Mamba in Mexico.
    Mexico · iNaturalist

    African Clawed Frogs in Japan.
    Japan · iNaturalist

    Reeves's Muntjacs in France.
    France · iNaturalist

    Italian Crested Newts, and African Clawed Frogs in the United Kingdom.
    United Kingdom · iNaturalist

    American Bullfrogs and Vervet Monkeys in Thailand.
    Thailand · iNaturalist

    Pallas' Squirrel, Indian Crested Porcupine, Javelin Sand Boa, and Albanian Water Frog in Italy.
    Italy · iNaturalist
     
  13. birdsandbats

    birdsandbats Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    iNaturalist place checklists are NOT a good resource for finding introduced populations, largely due to the fact that there are many ways things can end up getting added to a place checklist. It would take a very long post to explain all this (especially to someone who doesn't really understand how the site works) but I would say to disregard all these entries unless you can find additional evidence for them.
     
  14. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    Yeah, some of these are nonsense. Notably for Mexico the "introduced species" includes a lot of fantasy. Aldabra Giant Tortoise and two species of mambas is not at all plausible - I think the inclusion of the latter is probably because the Mexican government does Invasive Assessments of various species which have included mambas (basically they are just risk assessments for if the species were to be introduced somehow). Some of the species listed under Mexico "sightings" on iNaturalist were clearly photographed in zoos (e.g. some of the Gemsbok are actually labelled as being at zoos), and under the UK sightings there are several "introduced" waterfowl where the sightings are at St. James Park.

    Basically, iNaturalist is not a good source for this unless you can back it up with further research.
     
  15. red river hog

    red river hog Well-Known Member

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    I didn't know all those things. I thought it was a reliable source. They do have a way to mark sightings to be captive, but when I was looking at the checklist and clicking on each animal, it showed captive sightings and wild ones, which is strange. I did in fact know that users added them to checklists, but I figured that they had sources for them. The ones I haven't found additional evidence for is the Alpine Ibex, Crested Myna, Red-breasted Parakeet, Aldabra Giant Tortoise, Nubian Ibex, Senegal Chameleon, Marbled Water Monitor, Western Green Mamba, and Jameson's Mamba in Mexico. There were verified sightings in southern Texas for some of these though, so it's possible. It also turns out that the Reeves' Muntjacs in France are in private collections, but there was a verified sighting in Belgium, so it's possible. I believe also that the American Bullfrogs in Thailand are only on farms. Indian Crested Porcupines and Albanian Water Frogs don't appear to be in Italy either.
     
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  16. DesertRhino150

    DesertRhino150 Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    There are definitely Indian crested porcupines in Italy - I posted a link to a research paper confirming it back in March, on page 21 of this thread.

    From the Reeve's muntjac page on the IUCN, there was an introduced population living in France but it is now no longer present - the reference for that comes from 2005.
     
  17. KevinB

    KevinB Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    I don't think this information is very up to date.

    For example IUCN doesn't seem to know about some isolated introduced populations of Reeves's muntjacs in Belgium. The species was first seen in the wild in 2009 and the population has since increased in some areas. These populations likely originated from escapees from private collections and animal released by unethical hunters.

    I don't know about France, but it is I think possible a similar situation to the one in Belgium could occur in some parts of France.
     
  18. Zoovolunteer

    Zoovolunteer Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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  19. Carl Jones

    Carl Jones Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Aldabra Giant tortoises introduced to two islands off Mauritius as replacements for their extinct tortoise.
     
  20. Onychorhynchus coronatus

    Onychorhynchus coronatus Well-Known Member

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    Never knew about this , presumably they pose no threat to the island's endemic rattlesnake ?