React to this reading, and formulate questions, for Tuesday Sept 16 --

 

Guest speaker Mark Barrow, PhD,

 

 

alligatorchapter.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

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The alligator has come to partially represent, or define, the state of Florida since westerners arrived in America. Unfortunately it seems the animals main reason for existence has been commercial – as a product or as an attraction. Fortunately making the Endangered Species list saved the alligator.

 

 

An animal of the Midwest, the buffalo, or bison, has the same nostalgic connection to its region as the alligator has had to its. It too was exploited badly when Europeans arrived in the Americas. And it may have been saved from extinction by the Endangered Specie list. Before all that it was a highly revered animal by Native Americans, and some early Americans who appreciated the animals beauty.

 

 

With growing population, less appreciation for nature, and a culture obsessed with consumption the future for animals like the bison and alligator may be bleak. Perhaps by raising awareness about the historical value of these animals we can prolong their existence.

 

-Quentin

 

 

 

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If someone thinks it is possible for an immense numbers of birds to attack and kill a town of people (which is the horror story of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds), they would probably be afraid of birds. If someone believes that they will die if they get bitten by a spider, they would probably be afraid of spiders. Since most people know that alligators have the ability to overpower most humans, a lot pf people are afraid of alligators. We are not afraid because we know of a real town that was attacked by birds or had a close friend die from a spider bite or have ever witnessed an alligator eat a human; we are afraid when we believe that something has the ability to harm us.

 

 

Regardless of the behavioral studies mentioned in Barrow’s The Alligator’s Allure: Changing Perceptions of a Charismatic Carnivore, I think that humans legitimately fear alligators as most of them really do have the ability to kill us. Though we should not forget that the alligator is a powerful creature, we must remember that it is simply a part of nature and that it should be respected.

 

 

Humans pushed the alligator to the brink of extinction and then brought it back by declaring it endangered. Once population numbers were up again, it was delisted and Florida implemented a nuisance alligator program which kills the ones that stumbled onto “human” property. Through this complicated series of events, humans have undoubtedly changed the alligator population. We like to keep wildlife at numbers that are fitting to us. We don't want to make them extinct because they are interesting, a part of nature, or maybe even because they are important to the ecosystem that sustains us. As we recall the strategies utilized to control deer populations, we see that the alligator's situation is not original. As the human population grows and grows and grows, we begin to fight with wildlife for resources and we usually win. (We don’t pay much attention to how the alligators feel about all of this but maybe they are thinking the same thing about us. Maybe they are thinking that they have to control the human population as it is not fitting to them. Maybe the alligator attacks on people that we read about are their attempt at human population control.)

 

Barrow says, “What such an examination reveals is not only a longstanding fear of the alligator but also a yearning to tame or domesticate the beast. Euroamericans have long sought to manipulate and control the natural world, to impose order on nature while bringing it under human dominion.” Though this view is interesting, I feel that an examination of the question “Are humans a part of nature?” would be more interesting. Are we just another one of nature’s creations? Is it possible for us to “manipulate and control” nature if we are simply creatures living in nature? Are our actions just as manipulative as a squirrel’s?

 

-Courtney Mitchell

 

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I really enjoyed the first part of this article because it broadened the critique of colonialism to encompass the treatment of wild animals, namely the alligator. It inspired me to reflect upon the varying motivations for typical colonial practices carried out by the Europeans. The Europeans killed/enslaved millions of so called “heathens” on other continents and socialized them in their image. Was this grounded in some sort of fear of the unknown? The drive to tame nature and wild beasts is likely related. Why is it that the Indians did not systematically kill and personify alligators in the same way as the Europeans? What is it in the European colonial culture that moved them to such violent expansionism? Perhaps it was a fear of themselves that pushed the Europeans to such cruelty. They were afraid to look deep within themselves, to find peace in their surroundings, and became (or were all along?) the beast that they so hated, by killing and domesticating their environs.

Ps- I also agree with Courtney… “We like to keep wildlife at numbers that are fitting to us.” Well said!

 

--DEANA

 

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Growing up in Georgia along the border of Florida I had heard the warning day in and day out. Don't play out in the marsh behind the house. Legend in the neighborhood had it that a guy had gone out there in a rubber raft and never came back...the gators got him. This was probably a tale to keep up kids out of the marsh, it didn't work too well, but it did make us wary. I remember going to Okefenokee swamp as a kid and being terrified. Growing up in the deep south, as it were, you learned at a young age to fear alligators. They were characterized as "ferocious beasts". Now this is not to say that these fears are completely unfounded, but it is similar to staying out of the ocean because you are terrified of the dreaded theme song and fin that terrorized crowded movie theaters. It is a fear that is expounded by the media and by misled individuals. This misunderstanding leads to overhunting and endangers species.

 

Maureen Halsema

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I think the author uses the alligator to convey how Westerners view resources and objects of nature. Looking back to history, pioneers first viewed all of the New World as vast frontier to be conquered and explored; nature as the unknown and unpredictable sleeping giant. Rather than respect nature and our interdependence with it, it seems our country has always seen nature as potential. Whether it be potential land space for development or farming, potential resources for energy production, potential for monetary value and gains, it always seems to involve objectifying nature as a resource or external force rather than an integral peer and relationship partner to the sustenance of all life.

 

Why do we as humans have natural necessity for ownership (whether it be land, or other examples such as material wealth) ? What is ownership anyway? Does it stem from the urge of belonging? Has the fundamental Neanderthalian need of 'belonging' to ensure survival evolved into a belongingship that equates to greed? Have we completely evolved in to societies where value is that which satisfies our greed?

 

It is also important to note that this is one western perspective of how we as Americans (with our own western lenses) view alligators. It makes me question what is perception anyway? It is that which we see and then understand? Isn’t everything which we comprehend a product of our decisions and also external forces around us? (If I see a tree as a willow because my value framed perception of the tree is that it is the species willow from the genus Salix and also because I choose to see the tree as a specific species rather than as simply a tree. A logger may see a tree as lumber because he chooses to value the tree based on his gain from what it is composed of-a relationship of both external and internal forces.)

 

Asking these questions are important because how do you formulate solutions to problems like mankind’s greed over the environment or combatting climate change from a problem which is itself indistinguishable? It comes down to the fact that we separate our selves from nature, establishing a subject-object relationship (man with nature) then we pursue problems and solutions under that frame of thinking, which has proven itself ineffective. Think the scenario: Global warming is caused by human activity producing excess greenhouse gases (subject-object relationship and problem). Reducing greenhouse gas emissions (ultimately to 0) will stop global warming (subject-object solution). Or will it? What caused the problem in the first place? Better yet, what frame of thinking caused the problem in the first place? Why will posing another solution under the same frame of thinking work this time around?

 

Jackie Pontious

 

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I agree with Jackie on the point that the subject/object paradigm needs to be replaced or reformed before really tackling "solutions". As it is concerned with the alligator, I believe the media can play a crucial role in instilling a more accurate image of the American Alligator. In another class of mine the instructor asked us to report a) if we have an environmental ethic and b) if so, where did it come from or how did it form? I had the opportunity to read one of my classmate's entries and she divulged that while her environmentally-conscious father played a significant role in the development of her environmental ethic, the Disney movie "Pocahontas" also made her environmentally sensitive.

 

Without getting into an argument about Disney movies, the legitimacy of the depiction of the Powhatan indians, or the historical figure "Pocahontas", it is striking that someone born out of our media-literate culture would go as far to say that a Disney movie instilled some kind of environmental ethic.

 

Perhaps what has been done for the Great Barrier Reef in respect to "Nemo" (that's what clown fish are called now in aquariums and informally in scientific papers) can be done for the American Alligator. Is this idea totally off-mark? Have we (as a part of mass media) been sensitized to the alligator or are we still startled by the pioneer-fear of them?

 

Chris Cox

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 I agree with the idea that humans are afraid of anything that has the chance to overpower us. I don't think I have an irrational fear of alligators, but I do know if I saw one coming at me I would be really nervous. I guess thats an understatement I would be terrified.

 

Anyway on to the article, "the species has not remained a totally passive victim in this process of domestication; rather, it has continually resisted efforts to confine it to human-sanctioned habitat, just as it has confounded efforts to encompass it within simplistic views about its biology and behavior." I think this is interesting, do we really just expect wildlife to let us dominate them. I'm not an animal activist or anything, but I think it is the idea of wildlife rolling over and allowing us to pick and probe that is becoming an issue. So I applaude the alligator for not letting us harass them with our scientific experiments. Why do we need to know about their biology and behavior? Is that really necessary, I already can read about that if I took the time to Google it.

 

I would just like to add that it is funny how Americans can find a million and one ways to use an alligator to benefit them. I'm coming to a realization that people cannot just let wildlife live, but wonder why the so many animals near extinction.

 

--Koryn Stevens