And just what the heck...
...do they plan to do about it? Revoke the Mallard's pilots licences?
Oz's native Pacific black ducks are apparently at serious risk of extinction, thanks to unwanted sexual advances by feral domestic mallards. According to Victoria University research fellow Dr Patrick-Jean Guay, the "rape" of the Lucky Country's black ducks by "big, sexually aggressive" mallards is threatening the genetic …
... to see Nature Conservation activists so much at odds with nature doing what comes naturally...
It used to be the Puritains who were anxious that no one anywhere should be suspected of having a good time. I see that this particular religious quirk hs now well established amongst the bearded and open-toe sandaled amongst us.
I presume they gained some satisfaction from making these observations? And isn't that illegal under the 2003 'Having sex in a non-prescribed manner' Act? I think the Bestiality Squad should be called in here...
The problem is loss of biodiversity. And it's caused in this case by people bringing foreign species to other continents.
It's not that hard to understand if you try.
By the way, did you know that ducks have the longest penis relative to body size of any vertebrate and that the duck's penis evolved specifically in order to facilitate mating with females who don't want to be mated with?
Meanwhile, the question of why humans have the longest penis of any primate awaits a definitive answer. It probably isn't to facilitate raping the planet.
Because June 5th is Dead Duck Day, the anniversary of the first known observation of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard. Boing Boing had an item about it -
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/04/tomorrow-is-dead-duc.html
That should add something to a few Friday afternoons. ;)
If they naturally interbreed and produce fertile offspring, surely what one is looking at is two strains (or races) of the same species doing what comes naturally? (Of course, there were once people who thought that there was more than one human species, distinguished by skin colour ... 'nuff said).
Hybrids subjected to natural selection often end up with the strengths of both parent strains and few of the genetic screw-ups of either. This is evolution in action!
Loss of biodiversity? Scientifically, one would have to study whether any genes have been lost from the hybrid population, that were present in the parents. With large populations, this is unlikely.