Feral animals

[Guest guest]

On 3/30/07, Merritt Clifton <anmlpepl wrote:

>

> posted:

> >If anyone suggested shooting all human immigrants, there would be an

> >outcry, so why is it acceptable to kill feral animals?

>

>

> Killing & sometimes eating human immigrants is actually among

> the oldest of organized human activities.Of historical & anthropological

> note is that purges of feral species were introduced as an " ecological "

> practice by one Jorian

> Jenks, who rose to prominence as agricultural expert for the British

> Union of Fascists.Jenks wrote circa 1935 that the hypothetical fascist

> government he advocated would take " Effective steps...to cope with

> the host of rabbits, pigeons, rooks and other vermin who now levy a

> heavy toll on our fields. A corps of expert vermin-destroyers

> equipped with up-to-date apparatus will clear each district

> systematically. " Later, as editor of the journals Rural Economy and Mother

> Earth, and as secretary to the Soil Association in the 1940s and

> 1950s, Jenks helped to shape the views of nature now predominating

> among environmental policy makers worldwide.

 

Killing human immigrants does indeed happen but it is not official policy in any

country as far as I know. Regarding Jenks, there is a difference between vermin

and feral animals, since animals considered to be vermin may be indigenous to a

place and if introduced, could have been introduced accidentally rather than by

design. The same could be applicable to feral animals but in many cases feral

animals were introduced by design, for example, starlings in US, deer in

Mauritius and Mandarin Ducks in Britain.

It is indisputable that feral animals can have an adverse effect on indigenous

animals and ecosystems and can be instrumental in wiping out indigenous species

and this has happened in many cases. Feral cats and rats have posed a threat to

many bird species in islands, including the famed Kakapos of New Zealand.

Killing or exterminating feral animals could be interpreted as 'environmental

fascism' as the philopher Tom Regan puts it.

The question that arises in my mind is how to treat feral animals when they are

killing indigenous animals. From the animal rights, welfare and conservation

points of view, this is a conundrum that is difficult to address.