> I for one, am getting tired of not having a good answer
> to the question "how could everyone we trust have screwed
> up so badly

Here's another one, Jim,
From the 1980's.

In Calif, yellow star thistle is a devastatingly invasive weed.
A search was launched for a biocontrol in it's home country (I believe
it was Turkey).
They found two flies--the Peacock Fly and the False Peacock Fly.
The False also used cornflower as an alternative host, so gov't
adamantly did not want it imported.

So they set up careful protocols, quarantine, and examination, and
imported a few Peacocks--being very careful to exclude the False
Peacocks (the two look similar).

The Peacocks were released.
Several years later the biocontrol proved to be quite effective and
had spread widely (yellow star thistle no longer produces a honey flow
in my area).

When they checked the seedheads to confirm the presence of the
biocontrol, they were surprised to find no Peacock Flies, but a
thriving population of False Peacocks!

Was a bit embarrassing for them.

Randy Oliver

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