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VANCOUVER, B.C.––The usual fate of introduced species, even
if they thrive for a time, is to die out eventually from inability to
cope with the climate changes, predators, diseases, and food competition
in their new habitat.
Vancouver Sun reporter Larry Pynn on March 1 eulogized such a species
failure.
“A native of China and Indochina,” Pynn wrote, “the
crested myna was introduced to Vancouver in the 1890s, perhaps arriving
as stowaways aboard a ship or as pets released by Chinese immigrants.
By the 1920s they numbered in the thousands, living as far afield as Ladner
and New Westminster.”
The USDA warned in 1935 that “Every precaution should be taken to
check the spread of this species and prevent its spread into the U.S.,”
but Canada was then much more tolerant of Asian immigrants, both animal
and human, and did nothing to stop the mynas from doing as they would.
Besides, from about 1930 on, the Canadian myna population was in slow
decline, not spreading, coinciding with increasing motor vehicle traffic.
The last two, a mated pair, were apparently hit by cars within days of
each other in February 2003.
