Cimarron

Ten-month-old midwife walking through the snow.

Cimarrón is any domestic animal that escapes from its masters and goes wild. In some areas, wild animals with domestic relatives are also called maroons. In Mexico, for example, it is usually called "bighorn sheep" to the mouflon of the Rockies.

The wild animals may have arrived unintentionally or may have been deliberately introduced by humans. Over time, a few of these animals can generate entire populations and are often a problem for wildlife in the area. However, sometimes wild animals can be used to counteract certain "problematic" such as rodents, harmful insects or aggressive plants. Likewise, returning lost species to their respective environments can have beneficial effects on them by recovering a certain balance in their ecosystems.

Animals

Utah mustang pack.

Horses

Feral horses during the Spanish conquest of America form the herds of mustangs (from Spanish Mesteño) that can be seen today in the prairies of the United States and those of wild horses or baguales in some places in Argentina and Chile (during the Pleistocene there were horses in America that later became extinct). Mustangs are even a protected species in the US.

Riding hills in Scotland.

Goats

During the 17th and 18th centuries especially (although older cases are known in the Mediterranean) goats were deliberately released on islands frequented by sailors in order to serve as a living pantry when ships returned to call there. Because of this, these animals are found on many islands around the globe. Currently, the Ecuadorian government has launched a plan to eliminate them from the Galapagos Islands, where they compete with the famous giant tortoises of the archipelago for food. Something similar happens on Juan Fernández Island (which is a national park in Chile), where the Juan Fernández goat has been feral since it was introduced by the discoverer of the island (Juan Fernández Sotomayor) in the 16th century, causing considerable impact on the island. the fragile island ecosystem.

Rabbits

Rabbits are a particularly damaging pest in Australia, where they have bred to number in the hundreds of thousands and are still increasing. Incredible as it may seem, these wild rabbits are descended from a few pairs that someone released at the end of the 19th century on the southeast coast of the continent. Australian authorities no longer know what to do with them to avoid competition from marsupials such as bandicoots and wallabies, some of whose species are already close to extinction. The introduction of the red fox became a new problem because this animal has been inclined to hunt the slower marsupials instead of rabbits, and the artificial development of myxomatosis has become a catastrophe for the rabbit populations of other places where they are not a pest, especially in Europe, which has affected the food chain. In Australia, it has even been suggested to import the Tasmanian devil, now extinct outside its island, to combat them. For now, the raids continue. European rabbits have also become feral in Argentina, Chile, the US state of Washington, New Zealand, and a few other small islands where they have been extirpated.

Dromedaries

Dromedaries originate from Arabia, but already in ancient times they were introduced to North Africa, where there are populations in the wild or semi-wild. During the exploration of Australia, the British brought dromedaries and Bactrian camels that now form herds in the deserts and inland steppes. They are one of the few introduced species in Australia that are not considered especially harmful.

Cats

In Europe, feral cats have been increasing in recent years due to abandonment during the holiday period. As a consequence, many of these feral cats compete with or interbreed with the European wild cat, reducing their genetic purity. On oceanic islands and Australia they are the main alien pest after rats and mice, their main victims being nesting seabirds. In New Zealand, Ascension Island and the Galapagos Islands, feral cats have been hunted in order to eradicate them and protect local birds, many of them endangered due to the abandonment of these animals.

Australian Dingo.

Dogs

Dogs are the first animals to be domesticated, so it's no wonder they are found as ferals almost anywhere humans are. In Europe and North America they are most certainly the main raider of farms and chicken coops (they are not afraid of humans, in fact), although the peasants tend to blame foxes and wolves more frequently. In these places, moreover, they can interbreed with wolves and coyotes (in the United States), generating even more dangerous fertile hybrids that often also displace their wild ancestors. Its impact is even greater on islands such as New Zealand, where there have been cases where a single large dog (sheepdog German, Doberman, etc.) has exterminated a large part of entire populations of kiwis.

After millions of years of evolution on an island without predators, the animals become defenseless, conspicuous and so easy to kill that dogs hunt them by the hundreds, most of the time without eating them. It has been suggested that the Australian dingo may have originated from primitive feral dogs.

From the canids brought to America by the first European settlers, variants particularly resistant to hostile environments have been generated, such is the case of the gozque or sato, a canine variant arising from multiple interracial crosses of canids that can be located throughout the continental extension of Central and South America, and that are not exclusive to any country.

Vaccines

At the beginning of the XVII century, a large number of cattle were released on both banks of the Río de la Plata by order of the viceroy from Peru, Hernando Arias de Saavedra, known as Hernandarias; with the full intention that they reproduced freely. He left Buenos Aires in 1604 in search of the mythical Ciudad de los Césares with 600 head of cattle and the same number of equine cattle, part of which he would decide to abandon, anticipating that the area was suitable for its proliferation. In 1618, showing off the recently created title of Governor of the Río de la Plata, led an expedition to Patagonia that culminated in his apprehension and fortuitous escape from the hands of the Tehuelches, again leaving behind cattle; this time on the banks of the Río Negro. These cattle gradually disappeared as the ranches multiplied and the fields were fenced off. The same origin is attributed to the Pampean equine wild cattle.

Other uses of the word

Human

The term was used in colonial America to describe slaves who escaped from captivity. In Cuba, Jamaica, Panama and some South American countries (Colombia, Venezuela, etc.) the term cimarrón is associated with runaway black slaves who led a life of freedom in remote corners of urban centers, or created small cabins in the middle of the jungle avoiding discovery at all costs.

Plants

In the case of feral plants, they are often simply called "escapes" or introduced, and for the most part come from garden plants. There are also plants that were introduced to certain places for their nutritional value, such as the American prickly pear in the Mediterranean and Australia (where they also became a pest, before their natural parasites were also imported). In other cases it is difficult to discern whether a plant is the product of an early introduction or is truly native to the place it now inhabits. This is the case of trees such as chestnut and hazelnut in large areas of Western Europe, which could have come from the hands of the Romans. Other plant invaders have arrived accidentally, such as the common poppy, whose origin is in the Middle East and Anatolia. In these areas, the poppy is a natural companion to wild cereals; After the development of agriculture in the Neolithic, the poppy was accidentally harvested along with wheat, rye and barley, and its seeds were deposited in their crop areas, expanding at the same speed as they did. the tilled fields.

In Argentina, the bitter mate is also called cimarrón.