Where they are welcomed, wild creatures can find a way to make use of nearly everything.
...Despite the scolding tone that native-plant advocates can sometimes take, they are making an irrefutable point. The earth is teetering near a tipping point of no return. In the context of environmental apocalypse, there is no time — and no square inch of garden space — to waste. Every Cassandra in human history has felt this way: desperate to make others see the truth before the towers are on fire.
I am one of those Cassandras. I wrote a whole book about how we can learn to be better neighbors to the wild creatures who share our ecosystems.
But I am also learning how much more complicated this question of who belongs and who does not can sometimes be. Burmese pythons are incontestably devastating the Everglades. But starlings don’t appear to have nearly the negative impact on native cavity-nesting birds that they were long presumed to have. And as the climate changes, we are seeing that it is also changing where specific plants and animals can thrive. Through seed dispersal, introduced creatures can end up being what allows native plants to survive climate change...
Margaret Renkl https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/08/opinion/invasive-species-debate.html?unlocked_article_code=1.jE0.2MIP.EOSOW939tMsP∣=em-share
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