UKC

I recently stumbled onto the fact that coypu had been a prominent invasive species in Norfolk and had only been eradicated in the 1980’s. Any know of any other similar stories?

If only we had been as successful with the mink!

https://norfolktalesmyths.com/2018/02/28/norfolks-public-enemy-no-1/

In reply to SFM:

Wallabies at the Roaches... But you're probably already aware of them?

https://www.roaches.org.uk/wallabies.html#:~:text=Five%20Bennett%27s%20Wall....

In reply to Clauso:

Didn't the wallabies just die out rather than be deliberately eradicated?

In reply to Lankyman:

According to that website, they may still be alive and kic... hopping.

Check the video out from 2009, and other reported sightings from as recently as 2015.

In reply to Clauso:

Maybe they've migrated to North Wales?

Watch Me Wallaby Wank, Frank (E4 6a)

In reply to Clauso:

Feral savage beasts those wallabies. I seem to remember there being some on an island in Loch Lomond too. 

In reply to SFM:

As I once boasted before on here, as a result of walking the riverside  near my  friend's house in the Vendee, I am probably the only UKC er ever to have come across a coypu couple copulating.  The female was making noises like a strangled duck while a couple of kits swam about oblivious.

In reply to SFM:

Rudy Duck, invasive species escaped from collections. There were worries they would interbreed with the white headed duck in Spain (iirc) so they went and shot them all. Sad in a way, a cute compact duck with a sticky up tail. Loads as Pennington Flash where I learnt to birdwatch. 

In reply to Tom Valentine:

To be fair, it’s not the sort of thing people would admit too (partly coz its nigh on impossible to say it!) and perhaps the floodgates will  open now you’ve broken the stigma. 

In reply to Bottom Clinger:

As long as they arent making babies on the broads there shouldnt be a problem.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Don’t you mean coypulating?

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Sorry to disappoint....

I guess quite a few other birders will also have seen the deed done, hard to miss if you are in the vicinity!

CB

In reply to cb294:

Shucks.

I'm sure I was the first person to throw a decimal penny off the Menai Bridge, though.........

In reply to Bottom Clinger:

Amy excuse...

In reply to captain paranoia:

No, eradication makes complete sense, the WHD is a threatened endemic Eurasian species, while the RD is a rather common American one, and interbreeding is rather common (in part due to rape being a viable mating strategy in ducks, as I mentioned in another thread).

Extinction by interbreeding unfortunately is a conservation problem often overlooked by non biologists.

The very least you need to do is study the issue. For many years it was e.g. feared that European wildcats would be endangered by interbreeding with feral domestic cats, but fortunately cheaper genomics has laid that fear to rest (the other reasons for eradicating feral cats of course remain).

CB

In reply to SFM:

Muskrat.  Escaped and bred in both England, Scotland and Eire, in the 1920s, but after a campaign of trapping & shooting all the existing Muskrats had been eradicated by the late 1930s.

Black tailed Prairie dogs have bred in the wild in the UK but it is believed those too have been eradicated.

Racoons have also bred, but never very successfully.

Mongolian Gerbils have bread in the wild in the UK.

Hialyan Porcupine has bred in the wild in the UK, in Devon in the 1970s but were eradicated before getting established.

Père David's Deer have also bred in Northamptonshire 197's and still believed to be at large.

An excellent read and reference is The Naturalized Animals of Britain and Ireland, by Christopher Lever. and covers mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish!!!