Last month Herbert George Wells (that honey-smelling man!) published a book called The War in the Air. Set in the nineteen twenties or thirties it describes how a German air-fleet invades the U.S.A. and bombs New York. This draws the whole world into a conflict which destroys every major centre of civilized thought and skill. The survivors are left in a worse state than the Australian aborigines, for they lack the aboriginal skills of hunting and scavenging. H.G.’s book is a warning, of course, not a prediction. He and I and many others expect a better future because we are actively creating it.
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5 MORE SPECIES WE PUT IN PLACES THEY SHOULDN’T BE
Cats
Everybody loves cats. Except in New Zealand, which didn’t have any predatory mammals until we brought them with us—which was bad news for the local species, particularly the plump, flightless parrot the kakapo.
Cane Toads
Like the rabbits, cane toads (natives of South America) were introduced into Australia with good intentions—in this case, to eat a pest, cane beetles. They didn’t eat the cane beetles. They ate almost everything else, though.
Gray Squirrels
When the American gray squirrel was introduced to Britain and Ireland, it immediately started throwing its weight around and bullying the native red squirrel close to extinction.
Asian Tiger Mosquito
A particularly annoying and potentially disease-spreading mosquito (it feeds at all hours, unlike many other species), it’s notable for how it hopped continents—it traveled from Japan to America in 1985 in a shipment of used tires.
Northern Snakehead
Look, if you’re going to introduce an Asian species into America, maybe don’t make it a ravenous carnivorous fish that can walk across land and survive for days out of water? That’s just asking for trouble.
