Image copyright: Popular Science
Invasivorism, eating invasive plants and animals to extinction. All over the world a looming problem is occurring, invasive plants and animals are entering completely unnatural habitats. Foolishness and carelessness by humans have resulted in these disasters, such includes the Pacific lionfish, the gray squirrel, and the European periwinkle. All these animals are extremely disruptive to the natural ecosystem of the area and their presence can disbalance many factors of that environment such as the food chain. The pacific lionfish continues to eat its way through the Caribbean’s marine ecosystem and could cause enormous disruptions to the fish market if it succeeds. Another example is the gray squirrel in England. The gray squirrel was introduced by humans from North America in the 1890’s resulting in their massive outbreak throughout England. The once-President of the Zoological Society of London was a primary spreader of their outbreak, he was very fond of these creatures and would gift them and release them throughout England. These squirrels also contain new diseases such as Squirrel Pox, completely foreign to England. As a consequence the native red squirrel has been pushed out of the English countryside by its unwelcome cousin. Today the red squirrel survives in the northern parts of Scotland, residing in a fraction of its previous territory like an exiled king. All squirrels strip the bark off of trees to consume the sap. This can have a negative effect on trees. The red squirrel did not breed at a fast pace, limiting the population and the damage on woodlands. In comparison the grey squirrels tend to have larger denser populations that could destroy a woodland.
But how to combat this? We expanded one animal’s territory and nearly destroyed another. For example, we brought the European crab to the US and ended up killing harmless native snails along the coast. While one may say bringing in natural predators of the species is the best solution, the countereffect is pretty obvious, one more invasive species which could spiral out of control. But one type of predator is not that bad when controlled, a predator everywhere with an endlessly growing population, The Human. Our appetites have already driven passenger pigeons, great auks, and the bubal hartebeest to obsolescence. If we can kill out species that had populations in the hundred-millions we can eat out a relatively small, regional population of invasive species. For example, the Pacific lionfish is completely foreign to the southeastern United States and the Caribbean. Jamaican fisherman quickly became familiar with how to harvest these fish and now supermarket giants like Whole Foods and Wegmans have started selling them. Or take the gray squirrel in England. The Hadley Green Bowling Inn in Worcestershire, United Kingdom recently put gray squirrel terrine on their menu, a delicious combatant of the red squirrel’s cousin. All these food items are an example of how Invasivorism can successfully eliminate these harmful animals from foreign territory and shows how Invasivorism is an effective and viable solution.
But there is the dark side, when restaurants or grocers add invasive animals to their products the effect can be deadly for the invasive and perfect for building a market. The ultimate goal of Invasivorism is to eliminate these foreign creatures, yet by selling and consuming these species we may forget about that target and start building an appetite for them. And this “appetite-building” results in the market-building for these species. A grocer may realize that this is a perfect opportunity for sales which chain reacts into a farm or breeding ground for it and less attention towards the eradication of the species. There is a strong possibility that it can backfire and completely lose awareness for the loss of the native species. The flipside of this plan is deadly and as striking to the native species as the plan would be towards the foreign species. Many critics of this plan illuminate this side of it. The more one gets caught up in the technicalities of it one realizes the complexity of it. If the ultimate achievement is the eradication of the species how can one detract a sushi chef earning $425 from a lionfish dish? That market may switch to catching lionfish in its native grounds and drive it completely to extinction. Reaching the balance in between the two extremes is difficult and unforgivingly catastrophic if it fails. Take chef Doug Paine’s Vermont restaurant. Inside, invasive Texas wild boar ribs marinated with the foreign Japanese barberry rush to tables while periwinkle snails in garlic infused butter lays steaming on tables. This restaurant is full of vibrant invasive flavors yet as amazing as it sounds, Doug Paine makes money of off it and his alacrity to add these ingredients to the menu may vanish when removing them.
Invasivorism has many different aspects, from the profit that those culinary pioneers earn to the reintroduction of ecological stability, the way this plan is executed has to be perfect and has to be featuring both parts. If the sea lamprey that has infested the Great Lakes reaches an irreversible demand the population of this animal in its native habitat will collapse and the Great Lakes’ ecosystem with it. All these aspects emphasize the complexity and unforgiveness that the natural world offers and the displays how we got into this problem in the first place, the Homo Sapiens as always the primary cause. But the rapidly emerging climate disaster may have already diminished all other options and this radical idea may be the last viable option.