Do feral species count

I was looking at my mammal list, as one does, making graphs and doing calculations when the thought hit me. What do other mammal watchers think of feral species. For example on my mammal list I include wild horse. I saw the horses in Theodore national park and would count them on my mammal list because of the circumstances. Those circumstances being: A, it has to have a range that it previously inhabited like wild horses inhabiting the U.S thousands of years ago. B, the local wildlife has to have adapted to the horses and have some form of predation example being that hyenas will pick of Namib desert horse foals. This shows that the population can be mitigated and not explode in number. Or if they are a predatory mammal they must hunt the local wildlife such as dingos. C, there can be little human intervention like the releasing of more horses or the capturing of dingos to keep as pets. The only form of human intervention should be to mitigate populations when there is no dominant predator. So here is a list of mammals that would fall into the criteria.

  1. Mustang
  2. Gorranos
  3. Namib Desert horse
  4. Dingos
  5. Majorca goats
  6. European mouflon
  7. Kri-Kri

I would like to know if you would add or change this list and what your lists are.

 

Post author

Moses Swanson the XVI

5 Comments

  • Michael Johnson

    It is your list; it is up to you. I record anything that is part of an established wild population. However, I add a note when the observed animal is part of a feral/introduced population.

  • Jon Hall

    I agree with Michael. If the animals are living wild in a self-sustaining population then I count them, even if I would much prefer to see the OG species in its natural range. Domestic species are currently listed on the mammaldiversity.org master list I use and so long as they are there the only way to tick off these species is to find a feral population. I have not even heard off half the species you list though .. what are Gorrano & Kri-kri for instance?

  • Moses Swanson the XVI

    Gorrano are a feral horse population in Portugal. Kri-kri are feral goats on the island of create.

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  • ChadJ

    Agreed with the above. It’s your list, do what you feel is comfortable though I’d agree that if you’re making the list public to make a note that they are feral domestics. I count Cumberland Island Horses on my list without shame, for example, but for a competitive list I would probably not double count them with another population of feral horses.

  • Curtis Hart

    I agree it is your list, so count what you want. That said, I personally don’t count domestics or introduced species. My main reason is I want to see these species in their native habitat and would like to keep that motivation. This means I can never count some species, Dromedary is the only one that bothers me. I will count species that have been reintroduced, such as Black-footed Ferrets.

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