A lot of alien species have been introduced to America like Killer Bees (AH NAH!), Fire Ants and bees in general. Where I live Killer Bees are a real drag. I once had a 30,000 killer bee nest next to my driveway appear almost overnight. Should the government do something about this?

Excellent question for discussion.

The problem I see with government action is the fact that ecological relationships among various species of plants and animals are so incredibly complex that it's very easy to do more harm than good. The classic examples would be introducing rabbits into Australia or kudzu into the American south.

On the other hand, if the situation leads to serious public health concerns or economic damage (the Mediterranean Fruit Fly crisis in California some years ago) it's often too late before you realize that you're in a crisis that will take a great deal of effort and resources to alleviate.

Human beings will, inevitably, make changes in the ecosystem. They may be relatively sudden and dramatic (the vast changes made in the New World with the arrival of Europeans and their plant and animal species) or they may be very slow and difficult to detect. (There has been a decline in the number of amphibians worldwide, and a rise in the number of deformed amphibians, for some time now. This sets off alarm bells in my head, like a canary in a coal mine.)

Amphibian Declines and Deformities

What should be done? Proceed with extreme caution. Listen to reputable scientific researchers, with as wide a variety of political viewpoints as possible, to get as many of the real facts as you can. Test your proposed solutions to the crisis on a small scale, with controlled conditions, to determine what unexpected effects might occur. Hope for good luck.

No, the government shouldn't do anything, but they also should not stand in the way of you getting rid of them either.

If a species is a "pest" it will either be eliminated, it will modify its behavior to a more acceptable position, or it will physically move.

These "foreign" species were introduced by humans. There is truly nothing "natural" about their migration pattern. Therefore, they should be removed (by private individuals whom they harm).

I can't destroy all the africanized bee nests in the Americas, If I could I would.
This kind of alien species thing isn't that new anyway when north and south America or india and asia connected I'm sure there was lots of problems with maintaining a homoeostatic environment.

In fact, not all "alien" species - at least in Florida - were introduced by humans. No one is quite sure how fire ants were first introduced, though one of the two presumably imported species (another is distinctly native) appear to have arrived through the port of Mobile around 1918. They remain an environmental pest, unlike another of Florida's state nuisances, the love bug (a.k.a. march fly). This creature actually migrated here during the forties and fifties from Texas, around the Gulf coast, across the panhandle and throughout central Florida. It is gradually spreading further south and north into Georgia and Alabama (we're returning the fire ant favor).

The government - local, state, and federal - has tried eradicating both species at great cost both financially and in terms of environmental impact, without success. The consensus here seems to be that the fight against these creatures has been more damaging and costly than the creatures themselves.

It may be a different story if a species (alien or otherwise) is posing a serious threat to public health or the agricultural economy, but if these creatures are merely annoying pests, I'd say the government is better staying out of it. In the event that there were a public health risk or, say, a serious threat to crops, then - as Victoria suggest - a very cautious attempt to intervene should be attempted. Hopefully, though, the private sector would be making efforts to contain such pests before things got desperate enough for radical government efforts.