Plague of Rats and Rubbervines: The Growing Threat of Species Invasions

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Summary: A new look at my garden
Review: Every now and then I take a look at my garden - does my passion vine do well?, are my ferns lush and green?, and so on. After reading this book, I'm still looking at my garden, but in a different way. Is that vine a potential invader? That knotweed overthere, is it causing trouble somewhere else where it invades the natural area? Are there potential killer weeds in my garden??

Baskin's book changed my view, not a minor achievement. The reason is simple: A Plague of Rats and Rubbervines is an excellent read, informative and well written! It's about biological invasions in a broad sense, from crop pests and foreign diseases to ecological catastrophs caused by alien wildlife. Writing about such a topic has the danger of monotony, and endless lament on past and lost paradise. But Baskin skillfully knows to circumvent such a negative approach. Although the first chapters sketch a grim picture of the havoc caused by alien invasions, the book than continues by describing what current measures must turn the tide. Quarantain at borders and airports are an essential ingredient of fighting invasions. Though often a nuisance to naive passengers, these measures are much more understandable to me now I've read this book. There are also some succes stories about invasions that have been combatted and nearly or completely defeated.

Rats and Rubbervines does not give an exhaustive overview of all invasions - there are simply to many to do this. But more importantly, such an approach would be of little interest. Instead, Baskin offers the reader insight in the underlying causes of invasions, and the economic aspects involved. After reading Rats and Rubbervines, you have a reasonably balanced overview of this important topic.

There is one minor drawback: readers not familiar with common names of the plants and animals involved would love to see a line drawing or picture of the organisms, but apart from a small number of photographs illustrations are lacking. An idea for a second edition? The book certainly deserves that!

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Summary: Rats and Rubber Vines Tell Tales
Review: In a world shrinking because of an increase in global trade and travel, the economic and ecological impacts wrought by invasive species can no longer be ignored and, in some cases, it may already be too late to react.
That's the premise of a new book entitled "A Plague of Rats and Rubber Vines - The Growing Threat of Species Invasions", by Yvonne Baskin (Island Press/Shearwater Books 2002). Baskin, a Montana-based science writer and author of a 1997 book, "The Work of Nature", paints an occasionally grim picture of how humans have diluted, mixed and meddled with the planet's biological wealth, often with troubling consequences.
Written in an easy-to-read style, Baskin makes her case using plentiful examples, from the so-called Cinderella Snail that once promised economic miracles in the Philippines yet managed the opposite, to the dreaded zebra mussel, the tenacious Kudzu vine and the vanishing iguana. She writes candidly and authoritatively on the propagation of feral goats overrunning parts of the Galapagos Islands, and the common house sparrow that lived and bred innocuously in Europe, but "exploded" upon arrival in North America and New Zealand.
As she put it, "Take the house sparrow, a rather sedentary bird that fledges three to five chicks each year in its European homeland. What formula could have warned the acclimatizers and their like - had they cared - that this sparrow would rapidly take much of the New World by storm? Yet nineteenth century observes reported sparrow pairs producing 24 fledglings per year as the birds exploded across North America, and 31 fledglings per year in New Zealand."
In the Galapagos National Park, feral dog packs were killing off the iguana population in the late 1970s. It prompted a captive-breeding program to bring back the numbers. Baskin noted that "few of the nitty-gritty details of reptile husbandry were known then, such as how to get males to breed with females instead of killing them, and how long and at what temperature to incubate iguana eggs." Studies of free-living iguanas helped provide the answers. Further, many of the dogs, pigs, cats and rats preying on the iguanas were eliminated, but such eradication efforts are becoming increasingly more difficult. Sharpshooters have been hired to reduce the goat population.
On a small island east of Auckland, the author and a companion peered under thickets to catch sight of a kokako, New Zealand's largest surviving native songbird. According to Baskin, the kokako belongs to an ancient family of wattlebirds that exist only there, yet her foray into the bush ended before she had heard its organ-like call. Such an observation might easily have been forgotten by the reader, considering the book is laden with examples of decreasing biodiversity, but Baskin relied on popular culture to cement her point. "The kokako's song reverberates through the sound track of director Jane Campion's 1994 Oscar-winning movie, 'The Piano', which portrays British colonists carving out a settlement in New Zealand's primeval forests in the 1850s," she wrote. "In that era, male and female kokako regularly greeted the down with resounding and complex duets. These days, seeing or hearing a kokako in the remnants of those forests is rare."
For environmental journalists looking to grasp the concept of invasive species in a way that might be easily conveyed to their readers, this book is a necessity. "A Plague of Rats and Rubber Vines" is both reference tool and map for what is being done to help nature fight off the introduction of plants and animals in regions where they have no place being. Baskin quotes Donald Kennedy from a 2001 article in the journal Science: "Modest gestures have been made, such as special laws regarding ballast pumping and used tire inspection. But there is neither a general strategy for dealing with these invaders nor a widespread awareness of our vulnerability. We have made the globe a biological Cuisinart, and we will either have to deal with the consequences or use our scientific capacity to improve forecasting and monitoring."
Baskin acknowledges that some governments are taking steps to thwart the impact of invasive species by adopting new regulations on importation, and by funding efforts to bring problem species under control. Still, mistakes are made daily at airport and dockside customs desks, which allow invasive species to enter regions amid nursery stock, eventually establishing themselves where they don't belong and could cause catastrophic problems. Seed packages sold by international companies routinely cross over political borders without ecological concern. Planes, trains and automobiles all contribute to this process.
Certainly the problem of invasive species differs by region, but the effects are measurable and, in most cases, the culprits can be traced back to their point of origin. It's here that the environmental journalist can play a major role, partnering with biologists to identify the invaders and increasing the level of public awareness. After all, a species invasion can begin innocently enough with grandma tucking a few green shoots into her pocketbook while visiting relatives in Cambodia, and replanting them upon returning home to St. Louis.
---David Liscio, ecology professor Endicott College, Beverly, MA, and correspondent to the Society of Environmental Journalists.

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Summary: A discussion which includes solutions to the threat
Review: Plague Of Rats And Rubber Vines provides a very important discussion of species invasions around the world while also addressing many of the little-known consequences of such invasions, including the consequences of global trade and world travel so popular with Westerners. Plant and animal communities are increasingly being degraded by invasive species, and Plague Of Rats And Rubber Vines provides a discussion which includes solutions to the threat.