Searching for a children's science fiction book published around 1975 (I'm confident I read it sometime around 1979 but No Later than 1982). The book was about human, intergalactic colonists, who find a habitable planet. However, there is a population of dangerous native monsters/beasts that the colonists decide to eradicate in order that the humans may live in safety. The eradication program is quite successful, but the humans discover the beasts are a crucial part of the ecosystem, necessary to control the growth of an aggressive plant species (some sore of tangle vine) that starts to overtake the planet. The colonists must then go on a search/rescue mission trying to find any surviving beasts otherwise the planet will be overrun by the vine.
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Not just interstellar, but intergalactic? The colonists actually left our Milky Way Galaxy of 100,000,000,000 stars and traversed millions of light-years to another galaxy? How was that relevant to the story? (Or was the author just using "intergalactic" as a buzzword?)– user14111Commented Jan 5, 2020 at 6:09
2 Answers
It’s not an exact match, but could you be thinking of The Legacy of Heorot by Larry Niven?
It has colonists who have been brain-damaged to varying extents by the hibernation process that they used to travel to the new planet, and a devastating predator which they have significant trouble defeating, but once they wipe the predators off the island they realize that the predator’s complex and cannibalistic life cycle means there is nothing preying on the juvenile predators (which have a completely different form) and they soon face hundreds of the predators as the adolescents age and metamorphosize, rather than the dozens they faced earlier.
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2Note that was published in 1987, which may be too late, and it wasn't really a children's book.– DavidWCommented Jan 5, 2020 at 2:42
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Could it be The Humans of Ziax 11 by John Morressy?
Toren is a boy who was born in space after his parents left Earth following an unnamed disaster (possibly over-pollution). The humans resettle on a planet they call Ziax II which is inhabited by peaceful golden-furred aliens, and not so peaceful giant cockroach monsters and killer grass.
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1You should edit this answer to tell why you think this work matches the one sought in the question. An unsupported one-liner like this is prone to get downvotes, or possibly even deleted. Commented Sep 22, 2020 at 18:54
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2I've taken the liberty of adding a review I found and a copy of the (fairly distinctive) book cover. Note that grammar isn't optional :-)– ValorumCommented Sep 22, 2020 at 18:58