BACK STORY - Rethinking Invasion Ecologies from the Environmental Humanities - page 24

it controlled its own Jardin d'Acclimatation, and within a network of colonial
societies (Anderson, 1992: 143-144; Osborne, 2000: 143-145). It kept elaborate
records, which could be consulted by any landowner wishing to diversify his
livestock. But, like those in Britain, French acclimatization efforts never had a
significant local economic effect, nor did they transform the landscape. Instead they
made life a little more curious and entertaining. By the end of the century, the
generalization that 'animal acclimatisation in Europe is now mainly sentimental or
is carried out in the interests of sport or the picturesque' applied in France as well
as Britain, where, according to a commentator in the Quarterly Review , aficionados
of the exotic could savor 'the pleasure of watching [the] unfamiliar forms [of
Japanese apes and American prairie dogs, as well as gazelles and zebras] amid the
familiar scenery' (Anon, 1900: 199-201).
The main economic impact of French acclimatization efforts was in such
warmer colonial locations as Algeria. And though the British society lacked official
or quasi-official support (at least with regard to animals—Kew Gardens was at the
center of a network concerned with the empire-wide distribution of plants that
might produce economic benefits), the Anglophone acclimatization movement also
had great (though not necessarily similar) impact outside the home islands.
Acclimatization societies quickly sprang up throughout Australia and New Zealand,
where members embraced a weightier mission than the one undertaken by Frank
Buckland or the Duke of Bedford. They felt that new kinds of animals were not
needed merely for aesthetic or culinary diversification; they were needed to repair
the defects of the indigenous faunas, which lacked the 'serviceable animals' found
so abundantly in England, including, among others, the deer, the partridge, the
rook, the hare, and the sparrow. The heavy medals struck in 1868 by the
Acclimatisation Society of Victoria give a sense of the seriousness with which they
approached this endeavor. One side featured a wreath of imported plants,
surrounding the society's name, the other a group portrait of a hare, a swan, a goat,
and an alpaca, among other desirable exotic animals. 5
Their passion was rooted in a perception of dearth. Acclimatizers complained
that while nature had provided other temperate lands with 'a great profusion . . .
of ruminants good for food, not one single creature of the kind inhabits Australia!' They
were not discouraged when immigrant rabbits and sparrows began to despoil
gardens and fields, merely suggesting the hair of the dog as remedy: it might be
advisable to 'introduce the mongoose to war against the rabbits'. They continued
to urge 'the acclimatization of every good thing the world contains' until 'the
country teemed with animals introduced from other countries'. 6
As was often the case, ordinary domesticated animals were not of primary
concern to the most enthusiastic and visionary acclimatizers, though in many places
cattle and sheep were more influential than rabbits or rats or sparrows in converting
alien landscapes into homelike ones. But, in Australia, as in Texas and Arizona,
extraordinary domesticated animals could fall into another category. Similar
problems—vast trackless deserts that nevertheless required to be traversed by people
and their equipment—suggested similar solutions. A few immigrant camels arrived