Interesting/Little Known introduced populations

Great Argus said:
Monk Parakeets manage to survive in New York city and Chicago, some parrots do seem to cope with cold weather alright.
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Yes , I've seen them in Madrid too , but those are birds native to the foothills of the Argentinian Andes and the Chaco , I know that they are resilient and hardy when it comes to surviving extremities in temperature.

Conversely , yellow headed Amazon parrots are native to the tropical forests of South East Mexico and Northern Central America where the temperature may vary a little (I know they are found in pine forests where the microclimate is cooler) but it is largely humid and generally hot throughout their range.

I just wouldn't expect them to be able to survive during harsh European winters unaided by people.
 
Here in Sweden, we got several different populations of the Mandarin duck. Escaped/released ducks that reproduce on their own in the wild. I've seen one of the populations myself.
We also got some Wood ducks that have had successful breedings in the wild, but they do not seem to be as widely spread as the mandarin.

Another waterfowl we got and that we actually are culling is the Egyptian goose. It's widely spread over Germany but recently we got a bigger population in Sweden as well. It's classed as invasive here and the species is now illegal to hold/trade/breed/whatever.
 
Daniel Sörensen said:
Here in Sweden, we got several different populations of the Mandarin duck. Escaped/released ducks that reproduce on their own in the wild. I've seen one of the populations myself.
We also got some Wood ducks that have had successful breedings in the wild, but they do not seem to be as widely spread as the mandarin.

Another waterfowl we got and that we actually are culling is the Egyptian goose. It's widely spread over Germany but recently we got a bigger population in Sweden as well. It's classed as invasive here and the species is now illegal to hold/trade/breed/whatever.
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I've seen feral Egyptian Geese in southern California before, they seem to be doing reasonable here too. I'm not aware of any actual culling of the species here though.
 
Another waterfowl species we got in Sweden that is now actually a part of the Swedish fauna is the Canada goose. It's not a "little known" species, but I have a book about how they got here and the whole history behind it and it is pretty interesting.
To shorten it down:
The nature photographer, hunter and nature lover Bengt Berg had big success in helping the greylag population in Kalmarsund in Sweden and he started to think about to breed and release Canada geese into the wild as well, even tho the species was not a part of the Swedish fauna back then.

He bought one breeding pair of Canada geese from The Netherlands, but the female died and the male fell in love with a greylag goose.
He then imported several Canada geese from America and he had no success in breeding them. They just did not want to breed.
Two brothers ("Hagenbeck") from Hamburg in Germany decided to help Bengt Berg and gave him a breeding pair.
In 1930 this breeding pair actually laid 6 eggs and successfully hatched, this was the start of the Canada geese population in Sweden.

He started to give away Canada geese to people around Sweden for releasing into the wild to make the population spread more than just in his closeby area. And now it's (together with the greylag) the most common goose species in Sweden. I could count to hundreds at my local beach some weeks ago, and they even polluted the water so you were not allowed to swim there :D:rolleyes:

So basically one mans big dream (with help of others) got us this huge population of Canada geese here in Sweden.
 
The Egyptian Goose was first released in New Zealand on Kawau Island in 1860, and spread to the mainland from there. When the species' population was at its largest, the species was distributed from Kaipara Harbour south to northern Hawke's Bay. This population eventually went extinct, however (it might have intentionally been eradicated for an unknown reason). The Egyptian Goose no longer exists in New Zealand at all any more and cannot be imported.
 
Great Argus said:
Monk Parakeets manage to survive in New York city and Chicago, some parrots do seem to cope with cold weather alright.
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Mitred Parakeets did well in New York as well, the population lasted for almost a decade before one fall when all traces of the birds vanished.
 
Italy has the Red Avadavat, Red-billed Leiothrix, and Vinous-throated Parrotbill. The Ashy-throated Parrotbill might also still exist there, but was last reported to eBird in 2015.
 
Cassidy Casuar said:
House Finches in Greece?
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I overlooked the fact that there is also a second feral House Finch population in Europe. It is located in Murcia in southeast Spain. From what I can tell, this population didn't exist until earlier this decade.
 
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Cassidy Casuar said:
A while ago, I noticed this old eBird report of five Blue-headed Parrots on Oahu, which is accompanied by a weirdly-worded comment:

They were much more likely to have been Blue-crowned Parakeets, anyway. There are several eBird reports of Blue-crowned Parakeets being seen in the area in which this sighting took place.
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It's blue crowned conures. I've seen them personally. Its a small flocks that lives feral at a resort on the north side of the island. They're very dedicated to their location, and sleep in the palm trees above the parking lot for the resorts public beach area.
 
The origin of the Brown-capped Emerald Dove on Norfolk Island is apparently something of a mystery. HBW includes the dove's population on Norfolk Island in Chalcophaps longirostris rogersi, which is the subspecies that is native to coastal New Guinea and eastern Australia, but in the past it was believed that the dove was introduced to Norfolk Island from elsewhere in the Pacific. I wonder whether or not the Norfolk Island population has actually been formally identified as being of the rogersi subspecies?
 
I saw this article that I thought looked interesting about the introduced population of nilgai in Texas. As the only animal large enough to push through and make holes in fencing, the antelope are connecting fragmented areas that could benefit local wildlife. In a camera-trap study of fence holes made by nilgai, fourteen species were recorded using them.

The most common species was white-tailed deer, then the nilgai themselves with feral pigs being third most frequent. However other species that were found using the nilgai holes included wild turkeys, collared peccaries, bobcats, American badgers, coyotes and ocelots, the latter species is federally threatened and stands to benefit from the increased connectivity.

The article is included below:
Wild Cam: Fence-busting feral antelope open up Texas range | THE WILDLIFE SOCIETY
 
I know the purists hate it, but Texas, and North America generally, are examples of increased biodiversity thanks to feral and introduced populations. Even the mid-sized mammal “apocalypse” brought on by Python’s in south Florida is but a blip as populations reset and adapt to the presence of a new predator.

It’s just my opinion.

I like the idea of 20,000 Aoudad thriving in West Texas next to 1,500 Desert Bighorns, more than the possibility of 5,000 Desert Bighorns achieving carrying capacity and no Aoudad.
 
Pleistohorse said:
I know the purists hate it, but Texas, and North America generally, are examples of increased biodiversity thanks to feral and introduced populations. Even the mid-sized mammal “apocalypse” brought on by Python’s in south Florida is but a blip as populations reset and adapt to the presence of a new predator.

It’s just my opinion.

I like the idea of 20,000 Aoudad thriving in West Texas next to 1,500 Desert Bighorns, more than the possibility of 5,000 Desert Bighorns achieving carrying capacity and no Aoudad.
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Well I hate it. The ecosystem is well balanced, and any exotic species (but especially large ones) present in an ecosystem can easily throw it off. Call me a purist if you will, but I would take the 5,000 Desert Bighorns any day.
 
Cassidy Casuar said:
It's a good thing that the African Sacred Ibis was eradicated from Florida; the species was apparently forming hybrids with the American White Ibis.
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birdsandbats said:
No, those are juvenile American White Ibis.
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Looking at Bird data, there were never very many at all to begin with, and they are unreported since 2015. Very unlikely they were hybridizing. Either way, @birdsandbats is correct that the two darker birds are juvenile American White Ibis.
 
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