![]() ![]() Every effort was made to recover all the specimens, but enough escaped to produce progeny that soon became a scourge to the trees of Massachusetts. When he failed to find them all, he notified the State authorities of the accident. Trouvelot sought to recover his specimens. The moth itself is not bad to look at, but its larvae is a great, overgrown brute with an appetite like a hog. He was endeavoring with live specimens to find a moth that would produce a cocoon of commercial value to America, and a sudden gust of wind blew his living and breeding specimens of the gypsy moth out of his study through an open window. The scientist did not purposely set the pest free. This winged calamity was imported near Boston by a French entomologist, Mr. ![]() Today, there is a way in which any revengeful person could inflict enormous damage on the entire South, at no cost to himself, involve those states in enormous losses and the expenditure of vast sums of money, yet go absolutely unpunished! Even though Howell was caught red-handed, skinning seven Park bison cows, he could not be punished for it, because there was no penalty prescribed by any law. We are just as careless and easygoing on this point as we were about the government of Yellowstone Park in the days when Howell and other poachers destroyed our first national bison herd. The most aggravating feature of these follies in transplantation is that never yet have they been made severely punishable. The enormous losses that have been inflicted upon the world through the perpetuation of follies with wild animals and plants would, if added together, be enough to purchase a principality. Every introduced species is doubtful gravel until panned out. ![]() The man who successfully introduces into a new habitat any species of living thing assumes a very grave responsibility. Adapted from “Introduced Species That Have Become Pests” in Our Vanishing Wild Life, Its Extermination and Protection by William Temple Hornaday (1913) ![]()
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