Opinions on Laws.

[AntLove5Ever]

All you're implying is that human involvement can accelerate the invasion process. However, we know that Solenopsis invicta never needed our help to expand its range. They didn't have a problem before we started using mass-treatment pesticides in the 60's, and they don't have a problem after we stopped using them in the 80's. Mass pesticides were completely ineffective on S. invicta's ecological strategy, but they were never the cause of the problem.

USDA/APHIS:


Purdue 2014:

Ok, neat, but you should note one thing. During the period of 1960-1980 (which on the first map we will call green to yellow) the range expanded almost as much in a 20 year period (with human involvement) as it did in a 40 year period (1920-1960 when it was here before pesticide raids). So with human involvement it expands its range twice as fast as with no human involvement (other than bringing them here through travel to get them out of south america and up into the US). So you kind of just proved his point. And also, you missed touching on the mixture of climates WITHIN a state. Because in texas it would be perfectly legal to go out to a desert, snatch some ants, and bring them back to your house in the swamp, and who KNOWS what kind of effect an escape could have on that ecosystem. I'm not trying to say in any way that the laws shouldn't be there, or that I support breaking them, but what I am saying is there is major holes in them, because there is no legal distinction between transporting ants from deserts to swamps, (TX scenario), and transporting from swamp to identical swamp (IE from TX to Louisiana) . One could cause MAJOR ecological harm but is legal, whereas the other would probably do nothing, but is illegal.

[Batspiderfish]

So you don't think the laws are strict enough? That makes the laws easy to follow as they are. Green to Yellow is actually closer to 25 years. After 40 years, their range is nearly doubled.

I don't think anybody should buy or transport ants. It's easy enough to find them in the wild -- they are everywhere.

[Batspiderfish]

Ant colonies have multiple flights during their mating season, which can span from one month to throughout the year. Permits are difficult to obtain because ants are good enough at escaping that it's happened even in laboratory environments with many of the usual safeguards in place. It is the assumption that giving these permits to ordinary Joes would not only be wholly irresponsible and disastrous, but fails to contribute at all to our knowledge of ants (unless you have hundreds of colony samples, a competently planned, well documented, peer-reviewed experiment, they are just your pets.)

Furthermore, just because an ant in one place has the same species name as an ant in the other does not mean they are the same.

Reason one:
New ant species are not often discovered by delving deep into their habitats and finding a unique havens that are untouched by the outside world. Most new species come from taxonomic revisions of preexisting species. This is how Tetramorium caespitum in North America became Tetramorium sp. e, a complex including at least seven different seven species! Our understanding of Formicidae evolution and taxonomy is constantly changing, and in the meanwhile it is completely foolish to be releasing foreign ants into your local ecosystem just because we've presently assigned the two ants the same name.

Reason two:
Speciation, the emergence of new species through evolution, does not happen instantaneously. Every population of one species in every separate environment is being put under separate ecological pressures to change in separate ways. These small changes influence anything from behavior, to morphology, to physiology -- most of which are entirely invisible to us. It is only through genetic analysis that we begin to realize that a species only ties these many genetic lineages together in their capacity to mate with one another -- it's like if you had a bunch of Lasius neoniger that evolved to be pugs in one place, then introduced Lasius neoniger from another that had evolved to be golden retrievers. If these two lineages had previously never had contact with each other, then that native population will likely change forever, and any chance of speciation might be lost. Just because we can't see these changes happening doesn't make it any less of a fundamental reality for all living things.

Environmental stewardship and responsible hobbying REQUIRE us to respect our environmental laws. The people who defend these laws, like me, actually do know what we are talking about.

[Batspiderfish]

Ugh, the typo that you can never fix again, because we need to make sure that the spammers can't edit their posts for whatever reason.

[AntLove5Ever]

So you don't think the laws are strict enough? That makes the laws easy to follow as they are. Green to Yellow is actually closer to 25 years. After 40 years, their range is nearly doubled.

I don't think anybody should buy or transport ants. It's easy enough to find them in the wild -- they are everywhere.

I never said stricter, I meant revised. I don't know the solution either, but I think it is ridiculous that arbitrary lines dictate whether a creature is harmful in the eyes of the law. I'm sure that you can, and probably people have, caused major ecological damage while following the laws. Also, I agree, ants are easy to find, but the GAN program is buying ants, is that bad? (Note you said by OR transport, meaning not both necessarily, but one or the other)

[Batspiderfish]

So you don't think the laws are strict enough? That makes the laws easy to follow as they are. Green to Yellow is actually closer to 25 years. After 40 years, their range is nearly doubled.

I don't think anybody should buy or transport ants. It's easy enough to find them in the wild -- they are everywhere.

I never said stricter, I meant revised. I don't know the solution either, but I think it is ridiculous that arbitrary lines dictate whether a creature is harmful in the eyes of the law. I'm sure that you can, and probably people have, caused major ecological damage while following the laws. Also, I agree, ants are easy to find, but the GAN program is buying ants, is that bad? (Note you said by OR transport, meaning not both necessarily, but one or the other)

That last comment was only based on my opinion of the anting community now that trade is possible at all. The most ethical source for queens is when you find them yourself. GAN comes a little after that.

After six years, I notice that the people who buy their ants tend to be the least knowledgeable. I also notice that there isn't a quality standard for GAN which ensures that the ants being sold are actually the species they are described as. Looking through the North American listings, I see a lot of Lasius niger and Formica fusca, both of which are extremely rare or nonexistent in North America (Lasius niger is almost always Lasius alienus, Formica fusca is almost always Formica subaenescens or Formica accreta.) Being able to identify ants is a skill that was only common before ant trade in the U.S. was practiced -- now it's pretty much only myself and a few others on the forums that can do it reliably. The self-sufficiency of the pre-trade era is what sculpted the community's most knowledgeable members.

The all-or-nothing attitude is not going to work out. If people get sick while in hospitals, it doesn't mean doctors can stop washing their hands. If invasive ants are mostly spread by human infrastructure, it doesn't mean we can give up on responsible hobbying and environmental stewardship.

I am nostalgic for the days when people came to the forums to learn from experts, but now I get to spend as much time and energy arguing for environmental protection as I do identifying everybody's ants for them.

[Martialis]

So you don't think the laws are strict enough? That makes the laws easy to follow as they are. Green to Yellow is actually closer to 25 years. After 40 years, their range is nearly doubled.

I don't think anybody should buy or transport ants. It's easy enough to find them in the wild -- they are everywhere.

I never said stricter, I meant revised. I don't know the solution either, but I think it is ridiculous that arbitrary lines dictate whether a creature is harmful in the eyes of the law. I'm sure that you can, and probably people have, caused major ecological damage while following the laws. Also, I agree, ants are easy to find, but the GAN program is buying ants, is that bad? (Note you said by OR transport, meaning not both necessarily, but one or the other)

That last comment was only based on my opinion of the anting community now that trade is possible at all. The most ethical source for queens is when you find them yourself. GAN comes a little after that.

After six years, I notice that the people who buy their ants tend to be the least knowledgeable. I also notice that there isn't a quality standard for GAN which ensures that the ants being sold are actually the species they are described as. Looking through the North American listings, I see a lot of Lasius niger and Formica fusca, both of which are extremely rare or nonexistent in North America (Lasius niger is almost always Lasius alienus, Formica fusca is almost always Formica subaenescens or Formica accreta.) Being able to identify ants is a skill that was only common before ant trade in the U.S. was practiced -- now it's pretty much only myself and a few others on the forums that can do it reliably. The self-sufficiency of the pre-trade era is what sculpted the community's most knowledgeable members.

The all-or-nothing attitude is not going to work out. If people get sick while in hospitals, it doesn't mean doctors can stop washing their hands. If invasive ants are mostly spread by human infrastructure, it doesn't mean we can give up on responsible hobbying and environmental stewardship.

I am nostalgic for the days when people came to the forums to learn from experts, but now I get to spend as much time and energy arguing for environmental protection as I do identifying everybody's ants for them.

This.

Sterling Heights (1 GAN Farmer)

Species: Unidentified species
Colony size: 5-10 workers
Housing: Test tube
Price: $35-$60
Number of colonies available: 15

...and how can one have 15 colonies of possibly multiple species, and not even try to identify them?


Edit: I'm not the most experienced keeper, and am not, in any way, trying to harass or bully the keeper selling these ants or the GAN project itself.

[AntLove5Ever]

So you don't think the laws are strict enough? That makes the laws easy to follow as they are. Green to Yellow is actually closer to 25 years. After 40 years, their range is nearly doubled.

I don't think anybody should buy or transport ants. It's easy enough to find them in the wild -- they are everywhere.

I never said stricter, I meant revised. I don't know the solution either, but I think it is ridiculous that arbitrary lines dictate whether a creature is harmful in the eyes of the law. I'm sure that you can, and probably people have, caused major ecological damage while following the laws. Also, I agree, ants are easy to find, but the GAN program is buying ants, is that bad? (Note you said by OR transport, meaning not both necessarily, but one or the other)

That last comment was only based on my opinion of the anting community now that trade is possible at all. The most ethical source for queens is when you find them yourself. GAN comes a little after that.

After six years, I notice that the people who buy their ants tend to be the least knowledgeable. I also notice that there isn't a quality standard for GAN which ensures that the ants being sold are actually the species they are described as. Looking through the North American listings, I see a lot of Lasius niger and Formica fusca, both of which are extremely rare or nonexistent in North America (Lasius niger is almost always Lasius alienus, Formica fusca is almost always Formica subaenescens or Formica accreta.) Being able to identify ants is a skill that was only common before ant trade in the U.S. was practiced -- now it's pretty much only myself and a few others on the forums that can do it reliably. The self-sufficiency of the pre-trade era is what sculpted the community's most knowledgeable members.

The all-or-nothing attitude is not going to work out. If people get sick while in hospitals, it doesn't mean doctors can stop washing their hands. If invasive ants are mostly spread by human infrastructure, it doesn't mean we can give up on responsible hobbying and environmental stewardship.

I am nostalgic for the days when people came to the forums to learn from experts, but now I get to spend as much time and energy arguing for environmental protection as I do identifying everybody's ants for them.

Well, there is a section for talking about ID, there is also a section to debate about other topics in the community. "everything else". I think there is some good points against laws, and good points for laws. Also, the main reason people in the community aren't able to ID ants is because of the AC channel. Being on youtube you get an audience of largely small children, who are often idiots. These people come all over the internet, in almost every forum and reddit imaginable and argue with people who know MUCH more than them, with no good points. It's one thing to argue with no points,it's another to stimulate conversation.

[Batspiderfish]

Well, there is a section for talking about ID, there is also a section to debate about other topics in the community. "everything else". I think there is some good points against laws, and good points for laws. Also, the main reason people in the community aren't able to ID ants is because of the AC channel. Being on youtube you get an audience of largely small children, who are often idiots. These people come all over the internet, in almost every forum and reddit imaginable and argue with people who know MUCH more than them, with no good points. It's one thing to argue with no points,it's another to stimulate conversation.

Opinions are great and all, but if they don't have a strong argument or non-selfish reward/purpose behind any of them, they don't really need a platform. I hope to address people's temperence, not their intelligence.

Everybody has access to a range of ants, where they live. Even if the law's ecological boundaries are only enforcible as state boundaries, there is no real societal benefit to meticulously adjusting them to fit the ranges of each of the hundreds of species in the US (especially while we barely understand their distribution, which also changes over time.)

Identification skills are completely necessary to appreciating your local diversity and completely necessary for ethically trading ants. We should be using all of this energy encouraging people to explore local ants instead of gratifying ignorance or impatience.

[shaky33]

Let's give a hand of applause to batspiderfish. Defending ant laws like the king he is.