The thought that humans should be caretakers for the natural world is as old as Genesis.

“Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth,” sayeth the King James Version.

A quick look around makes one wonder if we’re smart enough to handle the task.

Consider Real Fact No. 882 from my favorite source of trivia, a Snapple bottle cap:

“In 1859, 24 rabbits were released in Australia. Within 6 years, the population grew to 2 million.”

Who knew rabbits would reproduce like rabbits?

Today, the bunnies that European settlers introduced as a source of meat cause widespread economic and environmental damage.

The same could be said for any number of non-native species that people have accidentally or intentionally set loose upon an unsuspecting landscape.

The Florida Everglades is among the latest victims. It is fighting an infestation of huge pythons, freed by not-so-smart pet owners when the snakes got too big.

Who knew cute little baby pythons would grow up to be 26-foot-long, 200-pound killers?

The big snakes are wiping out raccoons, opossums, bobcats and other mammals, according to a recent study. Authorities believe tens of thousands of Burmese pythons are slithering through the Everglades, growing large enough to swallow whole alligators.

Auburn University is trying to help by using specially trained Labrador retrievers to hunt the serpents. Let’s hope the dogs find the snakes before the snakes find them.

Closer to home, wild hogs have rooted up everything from the baseball fields of Florence to the wildflowers of Bankhead National Forest. Some of these wild boar escaped from farms. Others were turned loose in a brilliant move by hunters.

Even wildlife experts have joined in the fun, doing everything from releasing 50 alligators at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge to stocking freshwater lakes with giant saltwater bass. Who knows the ultimate outcome?

The National Invasive Species Information Center lists 30 animals, 46 plants and 20 microbes that have been introduced into the United States with not-so-good results.

From kudzu to fire ants, zebra mussels to hemlock woolly adelgids, Russian knapweed to Chinese privet, Africanized honeybees to mile-a-minute weed, sudden oak death to thousand cankers black walnut disease, we seem determined to mess up this whole dominion-over-the-earth thing.

Executive Editor Scott Morris can be reached at 256-740-5721 or scott.morris@

TimesDaily.com.