Official Off Topic Discussion Thread #1

[Ulu]

Even when I was a kid with a bicycle hunting in the deserts I never saw too much game.

Crows, toads, snakes and large spiders were common. Sometimes I saw a desert hare (a Jack rabbit) But never a bunny. Sometimes you would see a coyote far off but you could never get close, and my kiddie gun was only good for about 50 yards.

I never saw any large game and even scorpions seem to be rare. But we were not that far off the beaten path.

 

[Hendre]

wow the biodiversity in Africa is incredible lol

It's incredible to say the least. We have 150+ FW fish species, over 2000 saltwater fish species live in or visit our waters, we have a whole floral kingdom to ourselves as well. The fynbos is honestly incredible, check this atop table mountain:

 

[Luke tomkinson]

wow that really is incredible in England the native fish is very hard to find near me I went down to a river and wrecked for a good solid 2 hours down the lake and saw 3 European minnows its so annoying!! The blame is to the the British government the 1970s, the British government introduced the signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) from North America to UKwaters for export to the lucrative Scandinavian market. ... Signal crayfish cause further problems by burrowing into river and canal banks causing erosion, bank collapse and sediment pollution.Aswell as this they kill of millions of native fish each year and decimate their populations and the native uk crayfish

 

[Ulu]

I keep telling people that I live in the desert but then I think about Africa. It’s actually not like the Sahara desert here, it’s more like South Africa.

 

[Hendre]

wow that really is incredible in England the native fish is very hard to find near me I went down to a river and wrecked for a good solid 2 hours down the lake and saw 3 European minnows its so annoying!! The blame is to the the British government the 1970s, the British government introduced the signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) from North America to UKwaters for export to the lucrative Scandinavian market. ... Signal crayfish cause further problems by burrowing into river and canal banks causing erosion, bank collapse and sediment pollution.Aswell as this they kill of millions of native fish each year and decimate their populations and the native uk crayfish

It's a dangerous situation. We are trying our hardest to keep crayfish out, we have a few localised invasions but nothing major. Unfortunately lots of illegal importing for the pet trade is happening

I keep telling people that I live in the desert but then I think about Africa. It’s actually not like the Sahara desert here, it’s more like South Africa.

We have quite a dizzying array of habitats. I'm assuming you mean a dry shrubland type deal?

 

[Ulu]

wow that really is incredible in England the native fish is very hard to find near me I went down to a river and wrecked for a good solid 2 hours down the lake and saw 3 European minnows its so annoying!! The blame is to the the British government the 1970s, the British government introduced the signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) from North America to UKwaters for export to the lucrative Scandinavian market. ... Signal crayfish cause further problems by burrowing into river and canal banks causing erosion, bank collapse and sediment pollution.Aswell as this they kill of millions of native fish each year and decimate their populations and the native uk crayfish

I don’t know what your bass situation there is but bass are just killers on crayfish. California has lots of native crayfish but where there are bass you do not find them and bass fishing is very popular here.

 

[Luke tomkinson]

yea im setting up a 50000 gallon natural mud pond for koi and funnily enough bigger koi just nuke the crayfish I've tried it before and the koi just thrive in natural ponds and put on massive growth from the natural Resources such as crayfish

 

[Ulu]

We have quite a dizzying array of habitats. I'm assuming you mean a dry shrubland type deal?

Yes kind of scrubby and dry.

If you take California as a whole it pretty much covers everything South Africa does climate wise. And actually we do have some sand dunes that look like a mini Sahara but they’re hours of driving from here.

I live on the edge of the foothills to the San Joaquin Valley which is huge. It’s so big that California could not farm it all if we had 4 times as much water and farmers.

Anything that doesn’t get used for irrigation or consumption by humans and animals winds up at the Kesterson wildlife refuge in the middle of the valley.

That’s kind of a marsh and there is a huge migration of waterfowl which goes through there. Coming and going they often pass right over our town and they are Landing in all the local ponds.

 

[Ulu]

yea im setting up a 50000 gallon natural mud pond for koi and funnily enough bigger koi just nuke the crayfish I've tried it before and the koi just thrive in natural ponds and put on massive growth from the natural Resources such as crayfish

Unfortunately bass are fond of eating the baby trout so they are not welcomed in trout fishing waters.

 

[Luke tomkinson]

lol my granny loves trout fishing and has a big trout pond yea their is no bass in uk