A Feather In Their Caps?

Indian rose-ringed parakeets take over Britain, Britain's elite consider even more garish hats for next royal wedding. Read all about it over at the New York Times.

Mixed Signals

A UK man who thought he was doing the environment a favor by catching invasive American signal crayfish out of a local river has been fined £4,000 ($8,000) aftger authorities discovered he had actually caught and eaten the native white-clawed crayfish, an endangered species. Also, turns out he was breaking the law just by trapping for crayfish in Cumbria.

Citizen Science

Should established non-native mammals be granted "ecological citizenship"? That was one of the conclusions of a new UK study, "The State of Britain’s Mammals."

Popping Parakeets

With the headline "Who's a pretty dead boy?" the Times UK announces a ruling allowing the British public to shoot ring-necked parakeets without a permit on their own property. Ring-necked parakeets (Psittacula krameri), native to India, were introduced to Britain about 40 years ago. These escapees from the pet trade have since become a part of many parks and other open spaces.

Meat The Squirrels

More on the squirrel-eatin' Brits, this time from The Colbert Report. Previous ISW squirrel-eatin' Brit coverage here.

Psyllid Sting

The Telegraph has a report today about plans to introduce a biological control to Britain in the hopes of squashing the invasion of Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica, Reynoutria japonica, Polygonum cuspidatum, etc. etc.) in that country. This news is significant not because of the control (a sap-sucking insect) or the weed (perhaps the very bane of the UK) but for the fact that it would be the first introduced species ever approved for use as a biological control in Britain. The proposal still needs to go through a public review, so the psyllids would be on the attack no sooner than the summer of 2009. The insect in question appears to be Aphalara itadori, a psyllid that attacks knotweed stands in its native Japan. You can check out a photo of it here (scroll almost all the way down the page).