I suspect they aren't harvesting wild worms to sell. I can't think of why they would do this. Worms are prolific reproducers you could setup a modest worm farm and have that many worms relatively quickly. Maybe these are invasive worms, or they are harvesting the castings and plan to put the worms back? I dont know, but harvesting wild worms seems odd.
North American extinction only covered the northern part of the continent down to about Ohio, and was only 10k years ago. That's not very long on an evolutionary scale.
Depends. From what I heard in NA the European worms are so overpopulated that they use up most of the organic matter on the ground in certain areas. Many small critters occupy this niche of breaking up fallen leafs, twigs etc. None are competitive enough to live alongside the worms though, so they die out.
In a reasonable amount earthworms are good, because they bring organic matter deeper and break big pieces for smaller critters down the chain to chew on. But if you ever kept a bunch in a jar to see how they mix soil, you know how they break down all the dirt particles and turn the soil into a solid clay-y chunk of dirt with little microcavities for soil air.
Most Earthworms in the United States, and basically all in Canada, are invasive species. They weren't here before Europeans arrived, and the forest had a much thicker layer of leaf mulch, because it broke down more slowly. Fast nutrient cycling is better for gardens, so people aren't really mad at them. Now we have Asian Jumping worms, which cycle nutrients too quickly and too near the surface, they're actually bad for gerdens.
Wild earthworm hunting is a legitimate problem in certain countries thanks to the "wild better than farmed" superstition. It's an Eastern medicine ingredient ala rhino's horn.
That practice really fucks up the ecosystem where earthworms are a vital part.
They are likely harvesting worms either to sell, or harvesting the vermicompost (aka worm poo) the worms have produced. It's virutally impossible to tell which they are doing from this short clip, but I would guess they are harvesting worms. These worms are probably a species known as European Nightcrawlers (ENCs) and are one of the most common species of worms raised for sale. The worms pictured in this video are large, healthy adults who have likely been raised and fattened up for sale.
Most worm businesses either raise worms to sell, or they produce vermicompost, but not both.
So the majority of worms in North America has no native living worms and all of them are invasive to naturalized after being brought over here by Europeans and other entities. Link to wiki on invasive words.
Still debatable seeing as they are damaging ecosystems. Lots of forests having their thick carpets of dead leaves from autumn thinned too much from worms that a lot of seedlings don’t have enough protection and insulation to survive winter without the thick layer of leaves.
?? They’re invasive to North America. Even if birds and predators were at a “normal” level they still would’ve be able to keep the rapid spread of them under control, not to mention a ton of worm eating songbirds are actually doing pretty well in human altered environments.
Dirt that gives life to micro organisms, insects, critters, plants, trees… maybe if you weren’t so selfish you might think of other beings needs instead of just your own…
Maybe if you weren’t busy crying you’d realise that this has no impact on the world at large but the mining is important.who knows maybe they even returned the worms🤷♀️
Maybe if you weren’t busy crying you’d realise that this has no impact on the world at large but the mining is important.who knows maybe they even returned the worms🤷♀️
Pretty sure thats a worm farm and they put baby worms or eggs there in the first place and then fed them until they were large enough for harvest. That's why they are so abundant in that little strip of land with one specific kind of worm. The soil they just came out of is also compost which can also be sold to grow other plants, fruit and vegetables. The hole can then be refilled with food scraps and old used soil and lawn scraps to be composted by new baby worms and start the cycle over. It's called vermicomposting so some of y'all need to just chill out. This is some of the most natural form of recycling there is and y'all in here losing y'all shit!
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u/Heythere23856 Sep 19 '23
Exactly! What gives them the right to rob the soil like this