• Question: Is there any animal which is really bad for a food chain?

    Asked by 443cesk28 to Paul, Natasha, Ester, Eoin on 16 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Natasha Myhill

      Natasha Myhill answered on 16 Nov 2017:

      So in a weird way, I would say that we are really bad for the food chain! We dont have many natural predators so we very very rarely provide food for predators, and we consume a vast amount of ‘prey’ – both animal and plant – which would otherwise be food for another animal so in that way we mess with the ‘natural’ food chains a lot more!

    • Photo: Paul McKeegan

      Paul McKeegan answered on 16 Nov 2017:

      Neat question! I can think of two answers to this. One is as Natasha explains! We do tend to eat prey that has never been part of our food chain!
      The other consideration is an animal that doesn’t belong to that food chain, like the cane toad in Australia, or the grey squirrel in the UK, both of which multiplied enormously and pushed other species out of the existing food chain. Sometimes we have introduced species by accident, by taking them with us on boats, clothing etc. Sometimes we have done it on purpose as a way of pest control. I think there are many examples of this going horribly wrong, and no examples of it working brilliantly!

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