Saturday, 7 August 2021

Rabbit of the Sky?

A 'pest' is an animal operating in an area, where humans don't appreciate it. The word's useage is similar to that of 'weed', as applied to 'troublesome' plants. The difficulty is that the agendas of animals and plants are not the same as those of humans. In the sense of their destructive impact on environments, humans could be described as the ultimate pest species. There are now complaints about the activities of introduced Canada geese in New Zealand (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/07/the-rabbit-of-the-sky-flocks-of-canada-geese-plague-new-zealand-countryside). The Canada geese have been labelled the 'rabbit of the sky'. They are described as 'aggressive, territorial, noisy and excreting more than 1 kg of faeces a day'. The terminology isn't quite right but one could say much the same about humans. The basic complaint in the article, is that birds (collectively) are in a 'grey' pest control area in New Zealand. This means that their automatic eviction/destruction isn't easy. Humans basically want to dictate which animals and plants can live around them.

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