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Originally Posted by Ukwildlifeo  The grey area is a problem - just look at the Pool frog, we found out it was a native after all, unfortunately after it went extinct. There have been suggestions that the european tree frogs in New Forest maybe natives... |
That's very interesting and I'm wondering just how much we can be really certain about. Perhaps we should regard plants and animals as temporary residents dependent on climate.
It does make sense to differentiate introductions from those species that arrived here without human intervention. But "natives" and "aliens" seem useless terms to me. Are swallows natives or aliens? Probably most people associate them with British summers and they do breed here, but when you see them at home in Africa they don't seem at all "British". So are migrating birds native if they breed here, but not if they breed elsewhere? Do we consider that only all year round residents are native? That doesn't make sense either.