Bennett Rainsford (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
usfuzzies) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
resort_link2014-08-11 08:30 am
usfuzzies) wrote in resort_link2014-08-11 08:30 am
Video: PSA
Someone wasn't doing inventory on liftoff--
[Ben's red whiskers bristle irascibly. This is careless stuff. It happens, but he doesn't have to like it.]
Everyone who goes outside the fence should already be counting their gear, but if you needed a reason, these props are it. Adaptive little critters like this can wreak havoc on an ecosystem, and this ecosystem is plenty problematic already.
The largest 'predators' on Quadratus, the spiders, won't eat props. Hounds may be able to detect them and hopefully the pseudofelinoids-- the beasts or the cats depending on your parlance-- will think they're tasty. But the upshot is that there may not be a control if these things get a foothold in the wild.
We all know what bullfrogs did to Australia on Terra, right? And terran brown rats on Shesha?
Double-check your gear before you go out. Even if you don't care about the ecosystem, the last thing you want is to reach for your last bottle of water and have it run off.
[Ben's red whiskers bristle irascibly. This is careless stuff. It happens, but he doesn't have to like it.]
Everyone who goes outside the fence should already be counting their gear, but if you needed a reason, these props are it. Adaptive little critters like this can wreak havoc on an ecosystem, and this ecosystem is plenty problematic already.
The largest 'predators' on Quadratus, the spiders, won't eat props. Hounds may be able to detect them and hopefully the pseudofelinoids-- the beasts or the cats depending on your parlance-- will think they're tasty. But the upshot is that there may not be a control if these things get a foothold in the wild.
We all know what bullfrogs did to Australia on Terra, right? And terran brown rats on Shesha?
Double-check your gear before you go out. Even if you don't care about the ecosystem, the last thing you want is to reach for your last bottle of water and have it run off.
Re: Video
Well, Terra's my planet. In the first century pre-atomic, some cane farmers on a large island continent introduced a species of toad to try to control the sugar-beetles. That was bad-- the toads were poisonous and the local predators wouldn't eat them, and they turned on local, smaller amphibians and snakes because they were easier than beetles. But there were bullfrogs in the mix, and that was worse; a bullfrog will eat anything it can fit in its mouth. Within a few decades, a couple dozen species of native frog were in danger.
Similar thing happened on Shesha; the rats weren't introduced deliberately. They came in the cargo holds of ships like the props. They decimated the spidermoth population by destroying the nests of the birds the spidermoths preyed on and driving several insect species to the verge of extinction. The companies that had been farming mothsilk failed, catastrophically, and the rats are still there.
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Got it, sir! I promise to make sure t'check for props! Don't carry much on me, anyway.
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That's the best thing you can do. [Ben nods approvingly.] Prevention's much better than cure in this case.
I'm Ben, by the way, Ben Rainsford from the Terran Institute of Xenosciences. I don't think we've met.
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Pleasure to meet you.
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I bet you came here to study all the animals, right?
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And the ecology around them, yes.
[The little fellow's mannerisms remind him of a prospector he met on Nifflheim-- Holloway. Man must be sixty some-odd now. He had the same laid back traveller's way.]
What brings you here?
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I had to leave my best friend behind, though, but she says she'll be okay. She's probably relaxin' right now, but it'd be nice if she also came here.
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