Alternative Invasive Animals and Plants

[Fir Street]

Camels in the Cariboo weren't a success during the 1858 Gold rush with the last dying in 1905 but what if they were till the railroads came . would they be like Australia's wild camels ?
Victorians were into creating botanical gardens and many introduced plants and Animals like the Himalayan blackberry and The Pea Cock (1) that are considered invasive now days .

What alternative Animals or Plants could be considered invasive world wide today because of those Damn Victorians ?

(1)https://joyofbirdwatching.com/peacocks-stealth-invaders/

 

[Silver01]

Leaving aside the victorian's I always thought if any Sahel kingdom via trade of exotic animals established it's self on modern day Suriname, Guyana, french Guyana and north Brazil how many African species could survive there

 

[GameBawesome]

There was once a plan to introduce Hippos in the Southern United States to become meat and to clear an invasive flower.,. Judging by Colombia, imagine how disastrous that would have been?

 

[Lalli]

There was once a plan to introduce Hippos in the Southern United States to become meat and to clear an invasive flower.,. Judging by Colombia, imagine how disastrous that would have been?

Pablo Escobar's parents move to United States just before his birth and later him becomes president of United States .

 

[Hugh Third of Five]

There was once a plan to introduce Hippos in the Southern United States to become meat and to clear an invasive flower.,. Judging by Colombia, imagine how disastrous that would have been?

Hippos have a slow rate of reproduction. If they became a problem in the 19th century, they'd be culled.

 

[Plateosaurus]

Idea: Koalas get introduced to California to take care of invasive eucaluptus trees.

 

[Silver01]

There was once a plan to introduce Hippos in the Southern United States to become meat and to clear an invasive flower.,. Judging by Colombia, imagine how disastrous that would have been?

But Colombia outside of the andes is mostly savanna and degrees of rainforest not like the southern usa

 

[GameBawesome]

But Colombia outside of the andes is mostly savanna and degrees of rainforest not like the southern usa

Sorry, should've clarified. When I said Southern USA, I meant around Louisiana, and probably along the Mississippi River

 

[Pesterfield]

Asian elephants introduced into South America to work the timber industry?

 

[Lalli]

Asian elephants introduced into South America to work the timber industry?

These re-produce really slowly so if they beging to become problem it is easy to deal with them.

And industrialisation would make elephants completely obsolete and generally probably more worthless when there would be machine making same things faster and more effectively.

 

[Citycat]

Emus are released into North America in the early 19th century. They cause havoc on American farms and occasionally defeat settlers in battle, causing humiliation and embarrassment like they did in Australia during the Emu Wars (arguably the lowest point for homo sapiens as a species).

 

[Quinkana]

These re-produce really slowly so if they beging to become problem it is easy to deal with them.

And industrialisation would make elephants completely obsolete and generally probably more worthless when there would be machine making same things faster and more effectively.

Tbf South America (Brazil and co) are big enough for the elephants to escape there and set up populations there. We still have uncontacted tribes there, elephants disappearing into the rainforest and creating populations there is plausible.

It's more about neglecting the animals' effects that make these scenarios plausible I think.

On alternative invasives monitor lizards in US like the Nile monitor (the southern species which is a lot more adapted to the cold) is a plausible scenario in the future, and it's luck that we don't have them in the US rn, although we do have water monitors as introduced species in Florida i think.

Wallabies and kangaroos could be invasives in Europe and America I think. They don't have big enough populations in those areas though, same with llamas. They could be hunted by wolves and pumas but kangaroos should put up a decent fight.

In Asia chameleons and tegus would be plausible invasives. Asia has much milder weather and predators that're not very attuned to prey like that, so they'd defo wreck havoc. Pronghorn in Asia could work too, but I don't think anyone would be stupid enough to do it.

 

[Captain Jack]

There could easily be a a sustained population of feral cameos in the American southwest. It’s really just chance that we don’t have them today.

IOTL the US created an experimental camel corps just before the Civil War, but it was disbanded due to the outbreak of the war. The camels were simply turned loose and some established themselves in the deserts of the southwest, though others were caught during the war and ended up in various hands. The camel experiment was never revived after the war, but small numbers were imported commercially which meant there was a small supply of escaped and abandoned camels that mingled with the feral population. This population never grew large enough to become fully self-sustaining, but it lasted several decades with the last sightings in 1890.

Railroads were what really put the kibosh on camel usage. The post-war era was the great railroad boom, so rail filled most of the role camels were suited to in terms of connecting the arid and mountainous regions that were inhospitable to horse and oxen based transport.

So, if we imagine that someone had successfully imported camels a decade or two earlier* they would have had a much longer period for their usage to become more widespread and accepted. This would in turn mean a much larger population ( from both reproduction and import). I think that’s enough to get a self-sustaining feral population of camels throughout the region. Camels reportedly had no difficulty surviving in the area, which isn’t a surprise, and given how rugged and remote it can be I don’t think it would be feasible to remove them, even in modern times. The US-Mexico border would also complicate that. Plus, with enough time, I think the camels would come to be seen as a symbol of the west, just like the mustangs.

*IIRC the first proposals to import camels date to the beginning of the Mexican-American war to equip the expeditions from Texas to California. In reality it took a decade from those first proposals for the federal government to actually purchase camels, but there’s no reason they couldn’t have done it earlier if the idea was put persuasively enough. It really did make sense for the conditions. Or maybe an enterprising individual or company could have obtained camels privately to equip their own activities.