livingart

that is part of nature mystic and there is really no like or dislike about it as it balances itself out whereas man puts the balance out in nz man(woman included, lets share the blame) brought many animals etc to this country that are now problems he brought rabbits for food, fur and as pets , no predators for rabbits here just the odd hawk and falcon rabbits (surprisingly) bred like rabbits so he introduced mustelids to control them naturally, everyone had jobs back then no time to go shoot rabbit the poor old native animals had no chance as they hadn't had to deal with a major ground predator before and are easier pickings than rabbits, no contest as an example the nz and australian brown quail are taxonomically almost the same bird, the nz brown quail is thought to be almost extinct whereas the australian one is still running around nz the possible reason is the nz quail when approached would sit still and wait for you to walk over and pick it up, easy pickings whereas the aussie quail when approached too closely will startle and take off 2 different reactions the aussie bird evolved with a lot of ground predators with a keen sense of smell, the nz ones evolved with no ground predators (maybe the Weka) so didn't need to run so man mucked up the balance and man needs to fix it though it is probably too costly to do nowadays even one pregnant mustelid left is one too many

he is waiting till they get bigger

the cat is being a cat the bird maybe a mouthful

i know a guy who spent $15,000 bringing 4 pet ferrets from the uk beautiful animals all rescued from a fur farm in the uk probably the biggest and best coloured and furred ferrets i have seen never attacked another animal in their lives i built him a huge steel cage and run for them cost $3,000 used to follow his daughters all over the farm until they didn't close the door properly one day 22 mandarin and carolina wood ducks dead in the morning

i hand reared one once from an inch long and hairless as to young ones sorry phoenix but i would put them down i am not a purist just a realist and even a pet one is potentially a loaded gun

might be alright with the ones mystic had but a wild one would be a "no contest"

i'd run with that ira

your support in the native wildlife battle is duly noted comrade barrie

hi chris and welcome to the forum you can go into your profile and add your location

seemsyou did the cleaning right but cleaning seems to be the last thing you did before your problem so your tank may have gone through a mini cycle again after the cleaning and maybe the subsequent ammonia spike has caused your problem the plants being chewed and bits dying won't have helped as well you could probably do a few 20% water changes to help out as to the agressive fish thingy a picture thingy might help ID it

hi kelaray welcome to the forum how well did you clean the tank?

agree david but too many people own a cat and they are cuter too

too quick on the trigger there deputy wait till you see the whites of their eyes

sorry mystic but i have to agree with barrie on this one yes they are good when handled right but starve your ferret and see what it is like sadly there is still a black market in these and they are still being bred and sold once it leaves responsible hands there is no telling what happens to it not all owners are responsible, same with cat owners this is just one reason why we have the importation laws we have now on animals fish etc ps - i have owned them before ad think the are an incredible animal but they hve no place in the nz environment

ferrets are awesome awesome predators if they were 6 feet long humans would have a huge problem some humans are alright, every wild ferret lives up to its job description

definitely fury angry little things they are

that was why i asked the question of where they were

your obviously not studying nz conservation then i will send the next one to you phoenix, might make a good playmate for rusty traps back out for the next few weeks

didn't think the red shrimp were here sometimes when fish grow up together they get on all right together

welcome to the forums nice selection of fish so where do you live?

ferret is no more, soon to be taxidermied worst part is we live well within the city limits don't worry i have more amhersts, but sadly found my spare swinhoes cockbird dead as well

wednesday morning - 6 young bantams in one pen dead, 2 eaten - suspected weasel Fenn traps out and baited around same pen thursday morning - another pen 3 adult roosters, 3 amherst pheasants 1/2 grown (1 partially eaten) - suspected stoat, no traps sprung changed bait, moved traps, added live cat trap with meat bait friday morning

when i first started i loved my fish too much :oops:

might have to start a new thread i thought wild caught stock would be described as F0 and next generation as F1, ? or is F1 the first production of a hybrid breeding? open to correction