INVASION ECOLOGIES - Rethinking Invasion Ecologies from the Environmental Humanities - page 12

If ducks are transformed into alien and unwanted species when they eat rice
seedlings, crocodiles become instantly invasive when they eat people. Yet, as Simon
Pooley wittily shows in Chapter 15, their reputation in Australia has been
surprisingly ambiguous. Among some of the inhabitants of Northern Australia they
are seen as charismatic and ancient creatures to be celebrated as emblems of local
nativity, as tourist attractions in parks, and as skin providers for the shoe and
handbag trade. As with venomous spiders, however, any substantial increase in their
numbers gives rise to invasive panics based on their threat to visitors and perceived
interference with local recreations. Though few humans will admit to loving the
Australian 'Saltie', Pooley closes his chapter and our topic with a plea that we take
responsibility for the environmental changes of the Anthropocene that now are
bringing all humans and all non-humans into inescapable and dynamic contact.
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