scholarly journals Australia’s wish list of exotic pets: biosecurity and conservation implications of desired alien and illegal pet species

NeoBiota ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 43-59
Author(s):  
Adam Toomes ◽  
Oliver C. Stringham ◽  
Lewis Mitchell ◽  
Joshua V. Ross ◽  
Phillip Cassey

Globalisation of the live pet trade facilitates major pathways for the transport and introduction of invasive alien species across longer distances and at higher frequencies than previously possible. Moreover, the unsustainable trade of species is a major driver for the over-exploitation of wild populations. Australia minimises the biosecurity and conservation risk of the international pet trade by implementing highly stringent regulations on the live import and keeping of alien pets beyond its international CITES obligations. However, the public desire to possess prohibited alien pets has never been quantified and represents a number of species that could be acquired illegally or legally under different future legislative conditions. As such, highly desirable species represent an ongoing conservation threat and biosecurity risk via the pet-release invasion pathway. We aimed to characterise the Australian desire for illegal alien pets and investigate potential sources of external information that can be utilised to predict future desire. Using public live import enquiry records from the Australian Commonwealth Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment as a proxy for alien pet desire, we tested for differences in the proportion of species with threatened listings and records of invasions, after accounting for taxonomy. Additionally, we used a United States of America (U.S.) live imports dataset to infer pet demand in another Western market with less stringent regulations and determined whether species highly desired in Australia had higher U.S. trade demand than would be expected by chance. The Australian public desire for alien pets is heavily and significantly biased towards species threatened with extinction, species popular in the U.S. trade and species with a history of successful invasions. Not only does this indicate the potential impacts of pet desire on invasion risk and the conservation of threatened species, but we also highlight the potential role of the U.S. trade as an effective predictor for Australian desire. Our research emphasises the value of novel datasets in building predictive capacity for improved biosecurity awareness.

HortScience ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 53 (11) ◽  
pp. 1560-1561 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa L. Baxter ◽  
Brian M. Schwartz

Bermudagrass (Cynodon spp.) is the foundation of the turfgrass industry in most tropical and warm-temperate regions. Development of bermudagrass as a turfgrass began in the early 1900s. Many of the cultivars commercially available today have been cooperatively released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) and the University of Georgia at the Coastal Plain Experiment Station in Tifton, GA.


Author(s):  
Rosina Lozano

An American Language is a political history of the Spanish language in the United States. The nation has always been multilingual and the Spanish language in particular has remained as an important political issue into the present. After the U.S.-Mexican War, the Spanish language became a language of politics as Spanish speakers in the U.S. Southwest used it to build territorial and state governments. In the twentieth century, Spanish became a political language where speakers and those opposed to its use clashed over what Spanish's presence in the United States meant. This book recovers this story by using evidence that includes Spanish language newspapers, letters, state and territorial session laws, and federal archives to profile the struggle and resilience of Spanish speakers who advocated for their language rights as U.S. citizens. Comparing Spanish as a language of politics and as a political language across the Southwest and noncontiguous territories provides an opportunity to measure shifts in allegiance to the nation and exposes differing forms of nationalism. Language concessions and continued use of Spanish is a measure of power. Official language recognition by federal or state officials validates Spanish speakers' claims to US citizenship. The long history of policies relating to language in the United States provides a way to measure how U.S. visions of itself have shifted due to continuous migration from Latin America. Spanish-speaking U.S. citizens are crucial arbiters of Spanish language politics and their successes have broader implications on national policy and our understanding of Americans.


2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-90
Author(s):  
Bill Imada

In recent years, data has shown that there has been significant growth in Asian American Pacific Islander-owned (AAPI) enterprises. Driven by demographic changes, related in large part to the history of immigration policy, the AAPI population has been growing, and this has been accompanied by AAPI innovators and entrepreneurs leaving greater marks on American society and the U.S. economy. This growth, however, is not without risks and threats. The legacy of being “othered” by mainstream society means that AAPI success in business and in the corporate landscape can be met with resentment and criticism. This article explores the history of AAPI entrepreneurship and current trends. It also examines the challenges that the community may continue to face and offers recommendations on how to ensure continued growth and expanded opportunities for AAPIs in business.


1988 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathy Roe Coker ◽  
Carol E. Rios
Keyword(s):  

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tammy L. Blankenship ◽  
Gary Gackstetter ◽  
Gregory C. Gray

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Susan M. Albring ◽  
Randal J. Elder ◽  
Mitchell A. Franklin

ABSTRACT The first tax inversion in 1983 was followed by small waves of subsequent inversion activity, including two inversions completed by Transocean. Significant media and political attention focused on transactions made by U.S. multinational corporations that were primarily designed to reduce U.S. corporate income taxes. As a result, the U.S. government took several actions to limit inversion activity. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) significantly lowered U.S. corporate tax rates and one expected impact of TCJA is a reduction of inversion activity. Students use the Transocean inversions to understand the reasons why companies complete a tax inversion and how the U.S. tax code affects inversion activity. Students also learn about the structure of inversion transactions and how they have changed over time as the U.S. government attempted to limit them. Students also assess the tax and economic impacts of inversion transactions to evaluate tax policy.


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