Indigenous Animals

[Interpreter]

What would you accept as being indigenous?
My dictionary states:- originating, growing or living naturally in a particular region or environment. This would mean that those wallabies in the Peak District are indigenous, or should they be discounted because they were introduced by man - and escaped? What about wolves which are going to be (re-)introduced into Scotland? Possibly bears too. Will they be accepted as indigenous?
Foreign plants have been introduced are are living quite happily in this country. Read other threads to see the complaints about them choking up waterways.
When I left the RAF, I worked on British Rail for a while. In those days some of the night running coal trains were late due to water-buffalo on the track. They used to escape from a now long gone zoo. They lived here and bred. Could they be classed as indigenous?

[Paul mabbott]

I suspect that you're looking at this from the wrong angle. An indigenous species in ecological terms is one that is only found in a certain area, particularly on a particular island. The term could be applied to an organism only found in one country but since countries boundaries tend to wander this is a bit dubious (e.g. indigenous fauna of Hungary or Poland would have varied a lot over the years. )

I wonder if your definition is confusing 'indigenous' with 'native'? For sure wallabies in Derbyshire would not be 'indigenous' until and if they became extinct everywhere else ... not very likely methinks!

For interest, the British Isles have very few indigenous species - no vertebrates and, for instance, one species of ground beetle ....

Originally Posted by Interpreter

What would you accept as being indigenous?
My dictionary states:- originating, growing or living naturally in a particular region or environment. This would mean that those wallabies in the Peak District are indigenous, or should they be discounted because they were introduced by man - and escaped? What about wolves which are going to be (re-)introduced into Scotland? Possibly bears too. Will they be accepted as indigenous?
Foreign plants have been introduced are are living quite happily in this country. Read other threads to see the complaints about them choking up waterways.
When I left the RAF, I worked on British Rail for a while. In those days some of the night running coal trains were late due to water-buffalo on the track. They used to escape from a now long gone zoo. They lived here and bred. Could they be classed as indigenous?

[Jez]

I always think of indigenous as in peoples like Aboriginees for example since the west invaded such countries and did treat the natives as good people. So if it hasn't invaded this may validate it. The Grey Squirrel never chose to come here but has the red fighting for survival. Same goes for Me my ancestors could be roman norman saxon and possibly migrating Celts but i see my self as British. We know that Wolves Bears Beavers were wiped out (which i'd like to know more on how this came to be) which we know were Native and bringing them back here to me holds more validation than bringing in Gibbons to our shores but wallabies as you say have settled locally as Camels have in Australia. Monbretia is a classic Garden Escape and holds esteem to us folk. I have two Wild Turkeys (North American) which were released and doing quite well but wouldn't go as far as to say there Indigenous. In- Dig- Enous Possibly means Indweller? So i'd go back and say it's probably more poinant name relating to Humans.

[RobSutton]

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

I suspect that you're looking at this from the wrong angle. An indigenous species in ecological terms is one that is only found in a certain area, particularly on a particular island. The term could be applied to an organism only found in one country but since countries boundaries tend to wander this is a bit dubious (e.g. indigenous fauna of Hungary or Poland would have varied a lot over the years. )

I wonder if your definition is confusing 'indigenous' with 'native'? For sure wallabies in Derbyshire would not be 'indigenous' until and if they became extinct everywhere else ... not very likely methinks!

For interest, the British Isles have very few indigenous species - no vertebrates and, for instance, one species of ground beetle ....

Hi Paul - are you confusing indigenous with endemic? I think indigenous means "native" whereas endemic means "restricted to one particular place". I think the UK has lots of indigenous species but very few endemic species. In the bird world the example they always use is Scottish Crossbill.

all the best

[pressld2]

For me "naturally" is the key word in the dictionary definition given above. Sure there are lots of introduced plants and animals that are "growing" or living" here, but they are doing so only because they were brought here by people and therefore not "naturally". On that basis I would say that an introduced species is not an indigenous one.

Of course, you could argue that since Homo sapiens is just another species of animal which evolved from the earliest life forms on the planet just like every other species, then we and everything we do - from whittling wood to dropping H-bombs - are "natural".

So where does that leave my first argument? I dunno! Nurse! The screens!

Dave P.

[RobSutton]

Originally Posted by pressld2

On that basis I would say that an introduced species is not an indigenous one.

Dave P.

I think this is the only sensible interpretation.

[Paul mabbott]

Yes it's late .... but then again, the two things are related! At what stage does something become indigenous? ... and how helpful is the definition? Clearly there was no life at all on our islands during the recent Ice Age therefore indigenes are relatively recent compared to those of Africa or South America.

Some people, botanists especially, have definitions of 'natives' or 'indigenes' that focus on the collapse of the link to continental Europe. I find this trivial ... lots of animals and plants would be 'British' without the isolation and therefore species found in NW Europe but not in the British Isles would not be "exotic" in the way that migrants (commonly transmitted by human activity) from the Americas or Australasia would.

Cheers, Paul

Originally Posted by RobSutton

Hi Paul - are you confusing indigenous with endemic? I think indigenous means "native" whereas endemic means "restricted to one particular place". I think the UK has lots of indigenous species but very few endemic species. In the bird world the example they always use is Scottish Crossbill.

all the best

[Jez]

Originally Posted by pressld2

For me "naturally" is the key word in the dictionary definition given above. Sure there are lots of introduced plants and animals that are "growing" or living" here, but they are doing so only because they were brought here by people and therefore not "naturally". On that basis I would say that an introduced species is not an indigenous one.

Of course, you could argue that since Homo sapiens is just another species of animal which evolved from the earliest life forms on the planet just like every other species, then we and everything we do - from whittling wood to dropping H-bombs - are "natural".

So where does that leave my first argument? I dunno! Nurse! The screens!

Dave P.

I admire your point LOL! If some plants can be found on all four Corners of the Globe then i'm on the wrong thread (idioms and Phrases)

[RobSutton]

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

Yes it's late .... but then again, the two things are related! At what stage does something become indigenous? ... and how helpful is the definition? Clearly there was no life at all on our islands during the recent Ice Age therefore indigenes are relatively recent compared to those of Africa or South America.

Some people, botanists especially, have definitions of 'natives' or 'indigenes' that focus on the collapse of the link to continental Europe. I find this trivial ... lots of animals and plants would be 'British' without the isolation and therefore species found in NW Europe but not in the British Isles would not be "exotic" in the way that migrants (commonly transmitted by human activity) from the Americas or Australasia would.

Cheers, Paul

I agree with you totally on this - I think we've taken the same side before on the Sycamore question for example. And in our part of the world post glaciation Scots Pine was indigenous and now its not??

[Interpreter]

I, of course, was quoting the definition of indigenous contained in my dictionary, The Longman Dictionary of the English Language. If your opinion is that the item must be able to live and breed naturally, what exactly does this mean? Does it mean without the intervention of man? In which case would cattle, goats and pigs etc., be classed as indigenous? Could they survive, in this country, without the intervention of the farmer/breeder. In an overpopulated country such as ours would they be able to compete for food, or are they too big to survive in the wild?
If stone age man was brought back to this time, would he recognise some of the animals which are here today? The pig has been bred to have a longer back, because man prefers a different kind of bacon. The Rabbit has been introduced and lives and breeds very successfully.
New islands appear out of the sea due to uplift or vulcanism and are soon invaded by plant life. Is this plant life then classed as indigenous? It may have occured naturally, but, it could be a plant which was introduced to the area by man and then invaded the new island.
The Galapagos Islands were virgin terratory originally, but birds and reptiles arrived there by accident and they are now classed as indigenous to those islands and have evolved to be species which only occur on those islands and nowhere else.
Really, no species is indigenous to any area. All were invaders, so I think that time must be taken into consideration. But how much?

[Adam Cheeseman]

Most people I know use the last Ice Age as the cut-off point. Everything after that, that made its own way here (not introduced deliberately or accidentally by man) should therefore be native to these islands.

It's a bit late or early depending on what time you went to bed, so I won't expand for now.

Night night,

Adam