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Jumping WORMS? Okay, sure thing buddy. What? They're real?
- Thread starter Chris P
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And this was so preventable too. How about not selling non-native worm species for composting and fishing bait?
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Evidently the jumpiness is why anglers like them--catches the fishes' attention.
This crosses over into my professional life, too. Accidental introductions (Asian longhorned beetle, Formosan termite, spotted lanternfly) are one thing, but intentional introductions that have escaped and gone local (Asian ladybird beetle, kudzu, carp, even dandelion) are just as damaging. It's failed more often than it's worked, probably. Darwin even talked about this in Origin of Species, and I'm sure people were aware of it long before then.
This highlights the importance of risk-based border inspections in trade. Cute as the beagles in the airport are, and as grumbly as people get when they can't take an apple on an international flight, the unseen greater threat comes in the thousands of huge container ships plying the ocean at any given minute (Ready to blow your mind? Click here and zoom out as far as you can: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:96.2/centery:16.8/zoom:2)
There are two types of decision errors that can be made: stopping a shipment that is actually fine, and permitting a shipment that should be stopped (I can't recall which is a Type I and which is a Type II error in statistical terms). The consequences of of the former error is lost time, money and value of the product. The consequences of the latter are a lifetime if not literal eternity of ecological displacement, species loss, expense of invasive species control, and on and on and on. It's impossible to inspect everything, but the better equipped the inspectors are, and the more the inspections are based on a scientific analysis of risk the more effective they will be. This is especially important in developing countries. The fall armyworm which is eating up all the corn in Africa would have been prevented by good import inspections; it couldn't have gotten to Africa on its own.
This highlights the importance of risk-based border inspections in trade. Cute as the beagles in the airport are, and as grumbly as people get when they can't take an apple on an international flight, the unseen greater threat comes in the thousands of huge container ships plying the ocean at any given minute (Ready to blow your mind? Click here and zoom out as far as you can: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:96.2/centery:16.8/zoom:2)
There are two types of decision errors that can be made: stopping a shipment that is actually fine, and permitting a shipment that should be stopped (I can't recall which is a Type I and which is a Type II error in statistical terms). The consequences of of the former error is lost time, money and value of the product. The consequences of the latter are a lifetime if not literal eternity of ecological displacement, species loss, expense of invasive species control, and on and on and on. It's impossible to inspect everything, but the better equipped the inspectors are, and the more the inspections are based on a scientific analysis of risk the more effective they will be. This is especially important in developing countries. The fall armyworm which is eating up all the corn in Africa would have been prevented by good import inspections; it couldn't have gotten to Africa on its own.