Most of these don't live in my apartment, but I still consider them a nuisance . . .

10 - the "walking catfish". it eats all other game fish in its pond, then emerges at night to slither through the wet grass to another pond - perhaps as far as 3 or 4 miles away. Don't try to poison them - they slither away if you put fish-icide in their pond. These things were imported as pets by the aquarium industry. One guess as to how they got loose . . .

9 - zebra mussels. america's next nuclear power accident won't be a 3 mile island style "asleep at the switch" disaster. asian zebra mussels like to populate the water inlets and outlets near nuclear cooling towers. they need to be removed - by hand - regularly. hey . . . did we keep zebra mussle pickers in the 2010 state budget, or not? They arrived decades ago in the ballast water of ships which had docked in asian ports of call, and are now endemic to most of north america.

8 - hogzilla - evidently a cross between a native boar and one of them genetically modified pork chop producers. it weighed 900 pounds, and had to be removed with a forklift after being shot. alternatively, most of rural hawaii is being consumed by wild american pigs (normal sized) which are like nonstop roto-tillers

7 - the formosan termite. the only good thing about it is that it stays in the south - can't stand cool weather. the bad thing is that most of new orleans is at risk from them. Arrived in a foreign lumber shipment.

6 - fire ants - the ground based version of african killer bees. they've been known to overwhelm cattle and incapacitate them, then eat them alive - all for stumbling onto their nest. that doesn't explain why fire ants entered an open window at a florida nursing home a few years ago and ate an incapacitated woman alive though. Fire ants arrived in the root balls of plants sent from latin america to garden centers in the southern united states.

5 - japanese beetles - yes, they come from japan, and were NEVER native to america. this species is one of the reasons DDT was invented. there is little in the way of plant life they won't eat, driving homeowners to their local "home depot" on weekends to load up on the pesticide du jour. what about "bacillium thuringis" (a microbe) which allegedly kills the grub? it gets worse - BT is not a native species either, and japanese beetles are showing resistance to BT now, due ITS overuse

4 - giant african snails - these things were imported as pets too. who WOULDNT want to have a slimy pet snail that can get as big as a baseball? ("Mom - can i take the snail out for a walk?" "Okay honey but don't go too far .. .") If snails are that slow, why haven't they been eradicated? Are they using postal workers to get them, or something?

3 - Northern snakehead - its a fish, not a snake. In college i dated a guy who had one as a pet. You could buy them at any pet store. He was nasty (the boyfriend, not the fish) it was probably he who released it into the potomac river. Now there are tens of thousands, and they eat every other fish they encounter. Odd fact - when they drained that pond in maryland to see if the Anthrax guy threw his incriminating evidence in there after 9/11, the only fish in that pond were snakeheads. I hope this doesn't mean they are immune to anthrax

2 - rats - yep they're not ours. they come from europe. Norway, specifically. But that was a long time ago. I'm not planning a boycot of Nokia cellphones or anything. Besides, what rat WOULDNT rather come to america? Its warmer here, and we throw away more food and garbage for them.

1 - burmese pythons - another florida favorite. snake owners released "a few" into the wild 15 or 20 years ago. now there are 10,000 plus running loose in the everglades. florida authorities announced the recent "python hunting season" a big success. 37 snakes were shot. at this rate it will only take 250 years to kill them all - provided they never breed again. On the plus side, burmese pythons love to eat rats - or at least they would, if there were any rats in the everglades. Pythons are eating alligators. Is that a good thing? I don't know who to root for here.

Zebra mussels also have to be regularly removed from the intake pipes of the turbines at Hoover Dam.

so he's not only responsible for the stock market crash - he needs to man up and accept responsibility for the dam debacle too.

As a wildlife biologist, I agree with most of your list, but I have a couple of quibbles with #8 (which should in no way be taken as a defense for feral ["wild"] hogs).

"8 - hogzilla - evidently a cross between a native boar and one of them genetically modified pork chop producers. it weighed 900 pounds, and had to be removed with a forklift after being shot. alternatively, most of rural hawaii is being consumed by wild american pigs (normal sized) which are like nonstop roto-tillers"

First, I have seen many of the "hogzilla" stories and in all the ones that I am aware of, the weight was exaggerated.

Second, I have never heard of genetic modification having anything to do with particularly large wild hogs. Most farm hogs these days would be hard pressed to survive long enough in the wild to breed with ferals.

Third, (and most important given the topic) there are no "native" American boars. They all descend from imported stock.

As far as Hawai'i is concerned, you are absolutely correct that feral hogs are a tremendous problem. But they aren't "American" pigs.

Cheers!

T

PS Oh, just my opinion, but root for the 'gators. ;-)

i'm no football fan, but isn't florida ahead in the rankings?

by "native boar" i meant to say the imported european ones, having recently watched that alarmist cable tv special which begins with a hog hunt down south, then goes to russia for night stalking of the worlds largest russian boar.

i've actually seen 2 wild hogs in my brief days.

the first was in florida, on a rainy afternoon when we didn't go to disneyworld. i was about 8. we were driving through some sort of park or wildlife preserve, and hair brown tusker about the size of a beagle darted in front of our car.

the second time was a friends house on the eastern shore (of maryland). the neighbor shot it. he had to call multiple times to get the wildlife guy to come out and look, because "wild boars don't come this far north" this particular one did, however. larger than a beagle, but not hogzilla sized.

i had to make judgements in my list, and left off some potential up and comers from the invasive species. there's the asian 'mitten crab" which evidently exterminates native american crabs wherever it finds itself.

and the silver carp, which is taking over large stretches of the mississippi river. when disturbed by the sound of boat motors, gunshots, etc it leaps from the water - really high - like 8 feet - a flying torpedo. i saw a video (cable tv again) of literally hundreds jumping at once, as scientists deliberately made noises to take a mid air census. the fish weigh like 40 pounds full grown - if one hits you in the chest while jumping, you need to go to the hospital.

Maybe I'm just a sucker for the topic, but this is your best list yet IMO.

Re #2 and others left off your list, don't forget cats. Big problem for many bird populations especially once a feral colony gets established.

Good list.

As a fly fisherman the invasive we worry about most (at least in the west) is the tiny New Zealand Mud Snail. I don't know how it got to the states, but after first arriving in Idaho, we effectively spread them around the west on our waders and clothing.

These tiny little snails (which I guess are not as tiny in their home waters) have no natural predators, and thus can swell to concentrations of 500,000 per square meter, thus out-competing the native bugs that the trout eat. The irony is we are trying to eradicate these despised non-natives to protect Rainbow and Brown trout which are themselves non-native. Brown trout were brought in from Scotland and Germany, while Rainbows, which are native to the west, have been spread around and displaced "Natives" in many waters where they previously didn't live.

So I guess invasive is in the eye of the beholder.

- Because of zebra mussels, pollution levels in the Great Lakes have been steadily DECREASING over the past decade or so. Native fish populations are steadily rising because of them. Turns out the little fellas are terrific at filtering out toxins. - Fire ants? Seriously? Sorry, there are no reports of any fire ants eating cattle, cats, dogs or tiny children. If any of that nonsense were true, no baby in a car seat would survive more than fifteen minutes anywhere in the South. I can tell you that those bite sting like billy-o and when you do get into a fight with fire ants, the best thing to do is head for a nice soapy shower. - I don't see any mention of purple loosestrife anywhere in the article or here, and yet it's one of the nastiest invasives there is. It was imported by moronic flower gardeners because of it's flowers and has gone to work destroying marshlands, ponds, and creeks, choking out native species of plants and animals and creating deserts where nothing else can grow.

MessyONE,

thank you for mentioning the zebra mussels. Being a Michigander myself, I'm not really a mussel hater after seeing the water quality of affected lakes rise. :)

Also thank you for the fire ant eye roll - I did a Google search myself and couldn't find anything about fire ants actually eating someone.

My favorite part of living in Houston, was dumping boiling water on a fire ant mound. I did see, while waiting at a restaraunt, a group of fire ants eating a baby bird in it's nest. Very nasty little f*ckers. I think the only thing worse than fire ants is chiggers.....

Have the mussles really been responsible for improved water quality of the Great Lakes, or are the regulations that started controlling industrial dumping and non-point sources into the rivers that feed the Lakes (or directly into the Lakes themselves) to credit? I'd also argue that the decreased industrial activity in the Greats Lakes basin is also to credit for the improved water quality.

(Person who grew up on the shores of Lake Superior)

I wonder if we wouldn't have had such a problem with feral pigs in the south if American's in their stupid wisdom, hadn't have (pretty much) eradicated all the large predators that were native to the area....(panthers/jaguars, cougers, wolves, etc)....Although pig-mommas can be very nasty, and personally, if I were a 150 pound couger I wouldn't want to go up against an adult one-on-one if it was healthy.....But I'm sure a wolf pack could take one down......

Great list, but you're forgetting that old hackneyed #1: humans!

I believe every one of those fire ant stories. Grew up in Houston and as a kid climbed into a toy fort which had a hidden ant pile at the top of the ladder. Hand was covered by about 200 of them in about 0.5 seconds. It was a living nightmare; only time I've every been sent to the hospital. It's one species whose extinction wouldn't sadden me in the least.

I've shot a feral pig on our ranch in the Hill Country, TX. 500 pounds of ugly.

My favorite exotic species: the nilgai in South TX. Very fast antelope-like species that you can hunt year round because there are so many. Make great sausage and venison.

A PNW list:

10) tansy ragwort - poisonous, to humans and other animals (like a lot of noxious weeds, including leafy spurge, which can cause blindness)

9) purple loosestrife - bane of riparian areas.

8) English ivy - planted all over, now it likes to do like kudzu.

7) false brome - can occupy entire forests, reducing the understory to just this grass. Out-competes shrubs, ferns, everything. Not that common yet. Yet.

6) scotchbroom - it's just everywhere, and I hate it.

5) nutria - rodents that terrorize. They are not afraid of anything, even my killer dog.

4) starlings - birds that terrorize.

3) spotted knapweed - takes over farms, forming a dense groundcover.

2) cheatgrass - takes over entire farms, usually follows wheat farmers. It's pretty, though.

1) Gorse - flammable groundcover, thorny, almost impossible to remove or contain and actually has caused entire towns (Bandon, Oregon) to burn down.

Obviously, a plant-dominated list. Lots of other species to consider. Like invasive fish that eat native salmonid juveniles or just eat their food. This goes for hatchery "native" fish, too.

Kudzu: Chinese and Japanese native vine (known as the vine that ate the South) that was introduced to the South during the depression and planted as a grazing/soil loss prevention plant. Cows won't eat it. The vine doesn't have enough ground contact to prevent erosion, but southern summers allow the plant to grow over a foot a day. Known to cover whole mountain sides. Found as far north as New Jersey.

In Chattanooga, TN the city has experimented with using goats on areas of kudzu infestation since they are the only thing that will eat it. Unfortunately goats were killed by coyotes.

The Asian Carp can get up to 100 lbs and is in danger of migrating to the Great Lakes. The EPA is currently putting up electric field barriers on the Illinois River to try to keep them out of Lake Michigan. Nature ALWAYS finds her way though. It's just a matter of time till some type of screwup lands one in one of the Great Lakes and then it's just a matter of time till they take over.