From the NY Times, Jan 2, 2011:

A Diet for an Invaded Planet: Invasive Species

There’s a new shift in the politics of food, not quite a movement yet, more of an eco-culinary frisson. But it may have staying power; the signs and portents are there. Vegans, freegans, locavores — meet the invasivores.

From a Oct 22 NYT Article on proper killing and cooking of Canada Geese: Don’t Landfill That Goose. Braise It.

Important article from Nature on the importance of looking at non-native, hybrid, “impure” ecosystems: Ragamuffin Earth (July 2009).

Excerpted:

Most ecologists and conservationists would describe this forest in scientific jargon as ‘degraded’, ‘heavily invaded’ or perhaps ‘anthropogenic’. Less formally, they might term it a ‘trash ecosystem’. After all, what is it but a bunch of weeds, dominated by aggressive invaders, and almost all introduced by humans? It might as well be a city dump.

Credit crunch dining
Rename grey squirrel meat as ’spruce venison’ and watch it fly off the shelves at Waitrose.

so
I dunno. Bloody immigrants – come over here, climb our trees, grab our nuts….

Armstrong and Miller
Kill them. Kill them all.

None of the mamby pamby stuff….
Grey squirrels are non-indigenous vermin that also eat bird eggs and dig up plants to eat the roots, and gardeners often have their entire crops of home grown veg lost in the spring when the grey squiels eat the shoots.
Grey squirrels should be terminated on sight, trapped, poisoned and hunted to extinction in the UK. People caught feeding them should be prosecuted. They have no place here, even though some people find them cute.

Immigrant species are bad – they have done great harm all over.
Safe rule of thumb – if people can (and do) eat the species, its ok. For example no fruit trees have become pests big time even though we import all kinds of food.

This is a comment made in response to Mark Davis‘ Sept 25 2009 article in  New Scientist, Immigrant Species Aren’t All Bad (thanks to Marco Antonio Castro Cosio for sending).

People I’ve been speaking with find it hard to believe that the rhetoric applied to both racism invasive species are symmetrical and mutually destructive. Often the language used to describe invasive animals and plants is thinly veiled xenophobia and racism; and conversely, racists deploy the hostile metaphors describing invasive species to do some of their dirty work.  This is a tiny excerpt from a forum at Bowfishing Country – filed under “politics” and completely devoted to illegal immigrant bashing.

GACarpMAN:
this is OUR country let em come LEGAL like. if they aint legal they aint got no rights. haha i guess you can say they are an invasive species and we as responsible sportsman must eradicate the invasive species

Local papers in Northumberland report today that

Thousands of culled grey squirrels later, the invader’s advance into remaining red squirrel territory is still relentless.

CHILLING killing figures emerge from a new study of the effectiveness of measures in the North of England to halt the spread of the grey squirrel and the decline of the native red.

Between February 2007 and September last year, more than 20,000 greys were killed by the Red Squirrel Protection Partnership, chaired by Lord Redesdale.

But the study says that sightings of greys in the North East have increased rather than decreased, suggesting that the culling of greys has not stopped their advance in what is the final English stronghold of the red squirrel.

…all puns intended. This came my way via Stephanie Pereira at eyebeam … not sure how she ended up there but interesting v.a.v. the invasive enemy vegetation I’ve been interested in:

Matthew 13

From Self Sufficientish.com, the urban guide to almost self sufficiency (Urban Homesteading):

Paul Kingsnorth likens this plant to a major supermarket in his book real England. The following paragraph beautifully sums up how both knotweed and Tescos behavior.

Something to look forward to next spring!
From culinate.com

My friend Leda and I are partners in crime. We conspire to pick noxious weeds in a public park, which, technically, is against the law. I checked. The fine in New York City is $1,000 for removing plants from a park, although writing a ticket for picking an invasive plant like Japanese knotweed should make any self-respecting park ranger blush. When I weigh the tart, zesty taste of knotweed shoots against the threat of a hefty citation, the scales tip heavily in favor of the knotweed.