Monday, June 10, 2013

Just What are the Perks of being an Indigenous Species?

Coyotes -- a species indigenous to the United States -- displayed in death on an Oklahoma farm

Please explain to me the advantage of being an indigenous species in the U.S., because I'm confused.
The "They're not even native!" protest surfaces as people fumble for why wild horses shouldn't be left to roam.
That argument grows shakier with new levels of  DNA testing and recent fossil discoveries, but let's say it's true.
 Just what are...

THE PERKS OF BEING AN INDIGENOUS SPECIES

Prairie dogs, skunks, raccoons, badgers, rabbits and ravens are considered vermin. As such, they don't even qualify for a hunting season most places. Plink away at will at those native varmints. Bears, bobcats, gray wolves, deer, elk, fox and pronghorn are indigenous, but I can knock on my neighbor's door and see them hanging on the wall, dead and taxidermied with ingeniously cast-from-fresh glass eyeballs.

To be fair, I hardly ever hear of nuisance hummingbirds.
They're not only natives, they can fly backward. Mustangs should work on that.

Native Alligators are spurring economic recovery in Louisiana. Swamp People-wannabes will pay to take to the bayous with guns, but I wouldn't call that a perk for the 'gator. Native centipedes and scorpions appear on reality TV, too, but they're likely to be Fear Factored to death. 

Yeah, so, I'm probably missing something, because I can't see what wild horses will gain if they are proven to be a native species of animal. 

Eaten, shot, hung on fences, walls...
  
And don' t get me started on the treatment of indigenous people.

Labels: indigenous animals, native species, vermin, wild horses

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Posted by Terri Farley @ 3:15 AM

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