Re: avoiding unintended releases of plants

[Dwight <boukmn at mindspring_com>]

>From: Brown_D at pcfnotes1_wustl.edu
>Subject: avoiding unintended releases of plants
>
>I think everyone can agree that releasing our aquatic pets into local
>waters is a terrible idea (like the idiot who released snakeheads in
>Maryland).  And the same goes for our aquatic plants, which are rarely
>native to our particular home area.  How to avoid releasing fish is easy:
>don?t do it.  Sell or give them away or euthanize them if you must.  But
>how do you keep from releasing plants into local waters?  Obviously, most
>of us wouldn?t take a swordplant and plant it in a local pond, but what
>about the smaller plants like duckweed, or small floating plants that can
>regenerate from a few leaves and a bit of stem?  How do you keep those from
>getting out into the local water supply?

It's actually much easier than you might realize to release fish and plants
unintentionally.  Quite apart from the dolt that did the Maryland thing.
In Florida, you won't believe the disaster we suffered from unintentional
mass releases or releases under duress during hurricaine Andrew.   Folks
released animals/aquariums they could not take to shelters before the
hurricaine hit.   These things are reproducing and are turing South Florida
into an Eco-contaminated basket case.  You won't believe some of the weird
stuff I run into as I lurk some dark, swampy places.

Take your backyard pond.  They are even more popular than planted
aquariums.  All it takes is a big once-in-ten-year flood to spread the
contents of your backyard pond over a wide area and into tributaries to
far-away rivers once waters receed.  This always crosses my mind whenever I
see video of  large floods in TX.  My point being, it is this is an even
harder problem to control than we may realize once you concider all the
ways exotics can get released.  I am fairly certain 95% of the problem
would vanish if people would be a bit less sentemental about disposing
their exotics. 

Aquarium Plants & Driftwood
http://www.floridadriftwood.com