Eons ago when I was a lowly freshman at college I remember sitting in my very first wildlife and fisheries course. One of the first things the professor tried to get through to us was the difference between preservation (do not touch) and conservation (touch with care). I was still pretty much a kid at the time, but I distinctly remember thinking that my major was going to be an easy one if so much time was being devoted to such a simple concept as the difference between preservation and conservation when compared to all of the other lessons I was being taught at the time in other courses – this fisheries and wildlife biology thing would be a breeze. Fast forward nearly 20 years later and the difference between preservation and conservation has so much gray area that I wish I would have listened to that man more carefully. I’m going to talk today about animals and plants gone bad, or at least animals and plants that lack manners.

A former governor of Alaska once said that nature cannot be allowed to run wild. In a country of 300 million and a planet of 6 ½ billion people there may be some truth in that statement. As a natural resource manager, I know that nature will run as wild as it can, my job is to steer it where it benefits people the most. The fact is at the end of the day all of our feet is tied to the ground and we live off of the ground, no matter how big of a house one lives in, no matter how little of the outdoors one chooses to use and enjoy – we all rely on what is around us in many ways.

 There are an estimated 750,000 native species in the United States, only half of which have been described with some understanding of their biology and needs. During the course of our nation’s history some additional 50,000 non-native species have been introduced into the country. Not all introduced species are bad and we need them. More than 90% of all the food produced and eaten by us are from non-native species such as rice, corn, wheat, and livestock worth over a trillion dollars a year.

Dan Ashe is a fisheries biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. He has worked out of the Jasper, Texas field office since 2005 helping to manage east Texas reservoirs including Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend. Dan has also worked as fisheries biologist in Puerto Rico, California, and Alaska but now calls Texas home.