16 replies to this topic

[AntsOnTheCoast]

Good evening,

 

I plan on catching a few queens during the springtime. I'm not going to keep her but I'll care for it as it's nursing her nanitics, and I plan on releasing her after she has about 10-20 workers. Do you reckon this is appropriate? I already have a colony and it's in my best interest to care for ants but I just am not capable of keeping more than one colony long term.

 

What are your opinions for releasing them? Yes, they are native species (native to my backyard, actually!). I'll make sure to find them a place away from another colony and with the suitable conditions, but I just have doubts if they'll survive. 

[JezzieBee]

You could also find someone in your area who could take them

[Martialis]

Most scientists actually recommend against releasing captive-raised ants.

[Vendayn]

Releasing ants is fine if they are from very localized area. Like walking distance. Some don't like it cause say its cause of some pathogen/disease that can spread from inside the house to outside...but then at that point there would probably be way bigger worries than ants lol. And not different than driving in the desert or/and walking in mud as an example, and then transporting the mud from a whole new area on either a vehicle or shoes to another region/area. That has an even greater chance of releasing some disease to the area, since its dirt (or whatever it happens to be stuck on the car/shoes) from not even the persons local area. Not to mention if bringing dirt or any particles of the ground from another country (which probably happens a lot with people backpacking in jungles and what not, I doubt they clean their shoes over and over as they keep adventuring in the jungle). I bet a lot of aircraft have brought over particles from another country to other countries...again just as good of a chance of bringing "foreign" contaminates as a captive ant colony and then releasing it into the wild.

 

Antscanada is a very well known ant keeper and he releases his ants with much success. He is also followed by hundreds of thousands, almost a million, on Youtube.

 

Just make sure they are local, even an ant a mile away might be considered the same species today. But, later it might find out they aren't the same species at all and only native to that local area. Also, make sure they are native (I know in your post you said they are, but this is for others who may read this too), releasing non-native ants even if they are local is very bad. Even if the non-native ants are everywhere, its highly recommended not to release any non-native ants as its very bad for the local ecosystem.

Edited by Vendayn, June 14 2017 - 9:33 AM.

[sgheaton]

I'm pretty sure I've flung my "no-longer-desired-queens" into the neighbors yard..............

 

Edit.

Mind you I found them in my backyard to begin with. 

Edited by sgheaton, June 14 2017 - 10:39 AM.

[Saltynuts]

I don't see anything illegal, immoral or otherwise wrong about releasing something you caught in your back yard back into your back yard.

[AntsOnTheCoast]

But will it harm the ants or endanger the colony in any way? What's a nice way of doing it?

[Vendayn]

What I do is dig a hole, plenty enough to put the ants in. Then put a flat object of some kind (like a rock) to cover part of the hole and cover the hole 100% with dirt/sand or whatever is in your backyard. While its possible they dig out and become conquered by another colony, I find a high success rate doing it like that. Been very successful saving Pogonomyrmex californicus colonies this way. And a Myrmecocystus colony once (they were going to be destroyed by construction). But, giving them a hollow space and only way out is to dig, gives them far more safety than just being emptied on the ground (which has a VERY low success rate).

 

It does partly depend what ants are around though. If you already have a huge colony of ants near/in your backyard, it probably wouldn't work out too well. I find areas that only have a few ants, or (in my case), if there is only Brachymyrmex and no Argentine ants, I choose those spots. A large colony of ants will travel pretty far to kill another colony, though depends what species are around you.

[Reacker]

Releasing ants is fine if they are from very localized area. Like walking distance. Some don't like it cause say its cause of some pathogen/disease that can spread from inside the house to outside...but then at that point there would probably be way bigger worries than ants lol. And not different than driving in the desert or/and walking in mud as an example, and then transporting the mud from a whole new area on either a vehicle or shoes to another region/area. That has an even greater chance of releasing some disease to the area, since its dirt (or whatever it happens to be stuck on the car/shoes) from not even the persons local area. Not to mention if bringing dirt or any particles of the ground from another country (which probably happens a lot with people backpacking in jungles and what not, I doubt they clean their shoes over and over as they keep adventuring in the jungle). I bet a lot of aircraft have brought over particles from another country to other countries...again just as good of a chance of bringing "foreign" contaminates as a captive ant colony and then releasing it into the wild.

 

Antscanada is a very well known ant keeper and he releases his ants with much success. He is also followed by hundreds of thousands, almost a million, on Youtube.

 

Just make sure they are local, even an ant a mile away might be considered the same species today. But, later it might find out they aren't the same species at all and only native to that local area. Also, make sure they are native (I know in your post you said they are, but this is for others who may read this too), releasing non-native ants even if they are local is very bad. Even if the non-native ants are everywhere, its highly recommended not to release any non-native ants as its very bad for the local ecosystem.

 

 

"The professional Myrmecologists who bother posting on these forums explicitly state that you shouldn't be releasing captive ants back into the wild, but I do it and here's a pile of unverified justifications for why what I'm doing is okay even though the Myrmecologists say it's not okay. Also here's an example of a youtuber with nearly a million followers doing it, and since subscriber count equals moral authority it's fine to do. Finally, here are a bunch of instructions on how to do this with additional arbitrary and unverified restrictions on what is and is not okay. You should listen to me over the actual scientists because I have neither the slightest professional qualifications on this topic, nor am I citing any relevant literature."

Edited by Reacker, June 14 2017 - 9:06 PM.

[Vendayn]

 

Releasing ants is fine if they are from very localized area. Like walking distance. Some don't like it cause say its cause of some pathogen/disease that can spread from inside the house to outside...but then at that point there would probably be way bigger worries than ants lol. And not different than driving in the desert or/and walking in mud as an example, and then transporting the mud from a whole new area on either a vehicle or shoes to another region/area. That has an even greater chance of releasing some disease to the area, since its dirt (or whatever it happens to be stuck on the car/shoes) from not even the persons local area. Not to mention if bringing dirt or any particles of the ground from another country (which probably happens a lot with people backpacking in jungles and what not, I doubt they clean their shoes over and over as they keep adventuring in the jungle). I bet a lot of aircraft have brought over particles from another country to other countries...again just as good of a chance of bringing "foreign" contaminates as a captive ant colony and then releasing it into the wild.

 

Antscanada is a very well known ant keeper and he releases his ants with much success. He is also followed by hundreds of thousands, almost a million, on Youtube.

 

Just make sure they are local, even an ant a mile away might be considered the same species today. But, later it might find out they aren't the same species at all and only native to that local area. Also, make sure they are native (I know in your post you said they are, but this is for others who may read this too), releasing non-native ants even if they are local is very bad. Even if the non-native ants are everywhere, its highly recommended not to release any non-native ants as its very bad for the local ecosystem.

 

 

"The professional Myrmecologists who bother posting on these forums explicitly state that you shouldn't be releasing captive ants back into the wild, but I do it and here's a pile of unverified justifications for why what I'm doing is okay even though the Myrmecologists say it's not okay. Also here's an example of a youtuber with nearly a million followers doing it, and since subscriber count equals moral authority it's fine to do. Finally, here are a bunch of instructions on how to do this with additional arbitrary and unverified restrictions on what is and is not okay. You should listen to me over the actual scientists because I have neither the slightest professional qualifications on this topic, nor am I citing any relevant literature."

 

You sound very butt hurt, and unable to come up with anything but a bunch of troll-like ranting. Nice try at your failure of an argument, try again.

 

Do you then not agree that picking up a mud/dirt or whatever on a shoe/vehicle or even plant material, and then that shoe (or whatever else) goes potentially long distances, that it then does not have the same or greater chance of releasing some highly unlikely pathogen of releasing an ant colony? Or an aircraft going across the ocean to other countries, also transporting foreign contaminates to other areas? 

 

All I see in your post is a troll who can't properly argue the point I made above, who is unable to refute any of the above. And will probably go on to talk about some fantasy, conspiracy of a pathogen of releasing captive ants, ignoring dirt, plant material and everything else that gets transported all the time from long distances on peoples shoes/clothes/vehicles/bicycles and many other things that pick stuff up. That has just as much chance (if not greater) of releasing something bad to the local environment.

Edited by Vendayn, June 14 2017 - 9:19 PM.

[Reacker]

The only one who sounds butt hurt here is you.  Do you really think that the actual scientists telling you not to do these things are so inept that even though it's their job to spend their working lives thinking about these factors you list that they somehow missed them in the consideration of their advice, and that you in your assumed unique capacity for higher reasoning have managed to work through the bs to come to the conclusion that you should completely ignore what the experts are telling you?

[Vendayn]

The only one who sounds butt hurt here is you.  Do you really think that the actual scientists telling you not to do these things are so inept that even though it's their job to spend their working lives thinking about these factors you list that they somehow missed them in the consideration of their advice, and that you in your assumed unique capacity for higher reasoning have managed to work through the bs to come to the conclusion that you should completely ignore what the experts are telling you?

Still haven't refuted my points above. 

[BMM]

Has there ever been a documented case of released ants causing environmental harm, other than invasive species obviously? I don't think anyone is going to argue that Mikey knows more than professional myrmecologists, but it'd be good to know where this cautionary rule comes from. I'm speculating, but perhaps it's grounded in the fact that laboratory conditions are purposefully contained and artificial. I don't think many of us, if any, are keeping ants in conditions that isolate them from the environment. Consequently, I'm doubtful that the ants I keep on my shelf are exposed to anything different than the ants that live a few feet away on the other side of the wall.

[Reacker]

 

The only one who sounds butt hurt here is you.  Do you really think that the actual scientists telling you not to do these things are so inept that even though it's their job to spend their working lives thinking about these factors you list that they somehow missed them in the consideration of their advice, and that you in your assumed unique capacity for higher reasoning have managed to work through the bs to come to the conclusion that you should completely ignore what the experts are telling you?

Still haven't refuted my points above. 

 

I'm not trying to refute your points, only displaying the unjustified arrogance of your actions. The actual scientists have been saying for years more than I ever could on forums that I know for a fact that you've visited regularly. Even if the recommendations of the scientists in this area are basing their instructions on pure speculation, the speculation of trained scientists is worth infinitely more than the speculation of an amatuer who's experience is limited almost exclusively to a decade of staring at the ants within a couple hundred feet radius of your apartment. 

Edited by Reacker, June 14 2017 - 9:34 PM.

[Vendayn]

 

 

The only one who sounds butt hurt here is you.  Do you really think that the actual scientists telling you not to do these things are so inept that even though it's their job to spend their working lives thinking about these factors you list that they somehow missed them in the consideration of their advice, and that you in your assumed unique capacity for higher reasoning have managed to work through the bs to come to the conclusion that you should completely ignore what the experts are telling you?

Still haven't refuted my points above. 

 

I'm not trying to refute your points, only displaying the unjustified arrogance of your actions. The actual scientists have been saying for years more than I ever could on forums that I know for a fact that you've visited regularly. 

 

And no ones still (even the scientists) ever refuted the argument that transporting dirt/sand/plant material or whatever it happens to be on shoes/bicycles/vehicles or (again) whatever it happens to be...is less "dangerous" than releasing native ants. So going to the desert to get ants, then transporting all that sand on the car, would then have a greater risk of a pathogen than releasing some ants found locally in walking distance. 

 

If you really cared about stopping a pathogen being released (which has never happened with ants, but I suppose it could have the same chance as transporting dirt or whatever on a car/shoes), then you alsoshouldn't go outside or drive anywhere spreading foreign materials to other places. If the main reason of not releasing ants is to not spread a pathogen to a local environment, you then also should care enough to not drive or go anywhere transporting foreign materials on your vehicle or shoes or feet.

 

Plus that increases the chance of spreading foreign fungus/mold/bacteria and whatever else...so actually going to the desert for example is actually more dangerous than releasing local native ants, and worse because of all the bacteria, fungus and whatever else on the car tires are being spread places.

[Vendayn]

Has there ever been a documented case of released ants causing environmental harm, other than invasive species obviously? I don't think anyone is going to argue that Mikey knows more than professional myrmecologists, but it'd be good to know where this cautionary rule comes from. I'm speculating, but perhaps it's grounded in the fact that laboratory conditions are purposefully contained and artificial. I don't think many of us, if any, are keeping ants in conditions that isolate them from the environment. Consequently, I'm doubtful that the ants I keep on my shelf are exposed to anything different than the ants that live a few feet away on the other side of the wall.

No, and I haven't seen any actual research articles or anything to suggest this has happened. I never see anyone post any actual factual evidence this could be an issue. I just see people posting saying it is without backing it up with proof. And the argument rather fails when driving a long distance (say from a coastal area to the mountains, then back to a coastal area) also has a chance (and a much greater chance I would say than releasing local native ants) of transporting bacteria, fungus or whatever little thing to different areas. Potentially spreading bacteria/fungus, or foreign plant material (even like plant seeds could get stuck) on car wheels to entirely different climates/regions. A lot of people drive far distances in the same state to find ants, and that has a far greater chance of spreading "bad" things, than releasing a local native ant that was in captivity.

 

Of course, I don't have proof of this or any articles to back it up. But it does make sense little fungus/bacteria often get stuck on vehicles or even shoes. Same lack of proof/articles of releasing captive ants. Though I suppose you could use other references (say releasing fish in captivity that you caught in the wild, which assuming they are native and were released into the same exact area), if those wild caught fish for example, ever released something foreign (from captivity) to the other fish. Though in this case, a lot of places outlaw catching fish without a license, but just an example of something that could be similar.

Edited by Vendayn, June 14 2017 - 10:13 PM.

[AntsOnTheCoast]

Let's keep the one on one in the private messages. Thank you both for your opinions, I'll consider them well.