Are these species native? If so, how far back do you go before they are no longer native? Another issue, especially prescient to the UK, is that animals/plants may have existed in an area the past but either due to lack of colonising after the most recent ice age or human induced extinction are no longer present in the wild. So are they American, Asian or African? To complicate this further, the only place in the world where they are truly wild is Australia! So the concept of native is not an easy to define one. Camels first evolved in North America, but have since spread to South America, Asia and North Africa. Thompson eloquently demonstrates this in two ways, first by using the books title character the camel. The first question that the book asks is what is native? When should an animal or plant be considered native to an area. These foreign harbingers of doom come into our countries, displace our native species and reek untold environmental and economic damage.However, an interesting book Where Do Camels Belong? by Ken Thompson challenges these traditional ways of thinking. News reports and even lectures at university speak of the detrimental impact of alien species on native ecosystems. Species are plants and animals that we are frequently told are a huge threat to nature.
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