To those who follow my blog regularly you will know pets figure strongly in my children’s lives, but it’s not just pets – all animals they come into contact with interest them.
This photograph is of a gecko with my daughter – my kids just love them, especially the mini ones with lovely patterns on them. One day I spent a whole day in the library reading about all the different types and looking at pictures.
I’ve heard some people say how much they loathe geckos for the little trails they leave lying around, and even that they swat them just like flies. I remember someone visiting us and even being scared of them, I kid you not. This makes me sad.
Animals in the wrong habitat become pests. Yet, in their own habitat they are needed, wonderful, and a neccessary part of the ecosystem. Asian house geckos are not natives and yet they also love the Queensland environment. I am not sure if they are considered pests. Yet even the most endangered species when a threat to your local village is something to be avoided – ie think of human eating tigers.
However canetoads and mynah birds are considered pests ! Dilemma my kids own an Indian mynah bird. In the natural Queensland environment it is a destroyer, we keep it in a cage, and the house, and stop it from wreaking havoc, rather like people who own cats (who even though I love them tend to destroy so much native wildlife.)
Our mynah bird thinks it is a kitten and is quite a character, but I often think of people who have taken animals not native to a land and created environmental havoc out of their love for that creature that reminds them of home or was good tucker at home. Hmm let’s see rabbits!
Still the mynah bird did not choose to be here, and the measures to control outbreaks of ‘pest creatures’can be complex and even cruel in some cases. It is a massive topic this idea of balance, preserving wildlife, and seeing it as an issue so close to home can even be unsettling.
So much contention – the cuter something is the more we want to preserve it, or save it – the less obvious the more ugly a pest the easier to actively stamp out, it is so easy to hate the cane toad! Yet, in the right space, and place they should not be destroyed.
Are your pets native environment friendly?
If not how do you protect nature from them?
(c) June Perkins, all rights reserved
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