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Archive 1

fancy word "resources"

feral resources: must use fancy word "resources"?

I changed the subtitle from Feral Animals in Australia to Feral Animals, because many of the examples weren't from Australia.

The list of feral animals in Britain includes many animals that are just invasive species, but aren't feral. Feral animals have to have been domesticated at one time, not just a wild animal from a different area. I'm deleting the whole list, because I don't believe any of the creatures on it have ever been domesticated, and I'm certain most have never been. Baiter 01:06, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Some have been domesticated : rock dove, goat, and cat, but that's right, they might be too definition of feral animals, either only domesticated species, or all introduced species. I gess it would be more accute to tell only about domesticated ones. About "resources", is their an other word ?Astirmays 18:33, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Harmful effects and interests of the feralization

I guess nobody did correct this part that I did include from the french page. It probably isn't perfect english, since it is a google translation that I just corrected few. Astirmays 21:57, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Other language reference to escaped slaves?

The German link leads to "Cimarrón" - a Spanish term for escaped slaves. Though I see the connection, this seems inappropriate in this context.

That's right, it must be removed. Yes it's the same term for feral and Maroon (people) in spanish and french, but 2 articles : es:Cimarrón and es:Esclavo cimarrón in spanish, and fr:Marronnage (animaux) and fr:Marronnage in french.
In German, I found the article de:Dedomestikation, which is not exactly on the same topic since it links back to Breeding back Astirmays 17:27, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Other Edits

I've removed a weird use of the word evolved, since biologists don't speak of environments evolving. Speciate 06:05, 6 January 2007 (UTC)speciate

Heavy use of the word "escaped"

It's misleading. It suggests captivity, or even that the species has a CHOICE in the matter. If domestication is a genetic change, and ultimately, a dependence upon humans for survival, then escaping domestication makes about as much sense as saying someone escaped from their supply of food and water. You see, you can escape captivity, but not domestication. 97.113.110.19 (talk) 19:02, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Inaccurate or Unhelpful

I've stumbled across this page. Your definition of a feral is preposterous: A "feral" person is someone who has unique, interesting, or different traits or characteristics which make them stand out. These traits may indeed be found in some ferals, but they fail to distinguish ferals from all the other people who may also be 'interesting' and 'different'. Ferals, in Italy {Punca bestia} are a sub-culture, whose members resemble animals in some superficial way (although obviously they are still human), untethered hair (impromptu dreadlocks), the keeping of animals (usually dogs), unwashed. Their social system is based upon the following practices and philosophies: environmentalism (usu. radical), refusal of most property systems founded on tenure or ownership (usually resulting in nomadism and/or squatting), pot-smoking, dog husbandry, suspicion (usu. justified) of non-ferals. The origins probably lie in enviromentalism, hippydom, and post-psychedelia.

If no one objects I will post the above defintion in place of the previous one.

Marabunta 15:06, 22 December 2006 (UTC) Italic text

To consider any population of humans as being feral, will require that they be considered domesticated, previously. Whether humans are generally, sometimes or never domesticated is an unresolved, contentious matter. To those who are interested in the question, I recommend a study of Jared Diamond's book, "Guns, Germs and Steel", a key point of which is the scarcity of properties/traits that enable/facilitate the process of domestication, in mid-sized to large mammals. Reading Diamond's arguments, it seems like an uphill effort to define humans as domesticated.

If humans have not been domesticated, then they don't become feral, since they would thus have been biologically wild, all along. Ted Clayton (talk) 16:45, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Feral

Now here's a question: Is a Furry Lifestyler [[1]] feral in any way? I'm talking the EXTREME lifestylers, not the guys in fursuits.


To answer the question, "no"; or at least, "not necessarily". Feral is a condition that relies on having previously been domesticated. If the populations in consideration were formerly under domestication, and are now not, then perhaps they are feral.

However, whether any humans are or ever were domesticated has long been controversial. Jared Diamond, in his book "Guns, Germs and Steel", makes a major effort to isolate the prerequisites of domestication, and his conclusions are that most animals cannot be domesticated.

If we accept Diamond's contribution to the topic, it serves to weaken the case that humans are a domesticated species: if they've never been domesticated, then they don't become feral. Ted Clayton (talk) 17:42, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Contentious content

I have to question the following paragraph:

Populations of feral parrots descended from escaped pets/zoo specimens have established themselves in various areas of Europe, North America and Australia. Rose-ringed Parakeets and Monk Parakeets have been particularly successful in this regard.

I accept the facts, but not the label "feral".

Unless the domesticated ancestors of the "feral" parrots are genetically different from their wild ancestors, surely they were captive rather than domesticated. In this case, the parrots should not be referred to as "feral", but rather as "escaped" (first generation) or "naturalized" (subsequent generations, if the population is considered self-sustaining. Anyone agree?—GRM (talk) 17:11, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't have strong feelings on the issue, but my only horse in this race (pardon the pun) is the equidae section. I'd say if you can find an outside source per WP:V that either places parrots as captured OR feral, that would be the best approach. Sources settle many a dispute. Montanabw(talk) 00:23, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Christopher Lever, 1996. Naturalised birds: feral, exotic, introduced or alien? British Birds 89(8):367–368.
Now, I admit that this is only a letter and not the source I was looking for; however, Lever defines "feral" as "An animal that has reverted to the wild from domestication. 'Feral' should never be used to describe the naturalisation of a wild (i.e. non-domesticated) species." He goes on to say "I agree that mere keeping in captivity does not constitute domestication, and that the 'Feral Pigeon' [Rock Dove] Columba livia and perhaps the Muscovy Duck Cairina moschata are the only British feral birds." Is this sufficient evidence (or precedent) to use the narrower definition of the word, especially in the context of British birds?—GRM (talk) 17:53, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
I should, perhaps, have noted that this Christopher Lever is the author of at least four books on "Naturalized" animals—GRM (talk) 17:55, 24 May 2008 (UTC)


The objections raised, and the response made here are good & valid. It may be, though, that since these are cases that do cause some confusion, they may merit inclusion as an opportunity to clarify what is & isn't under discussion.

Also, birds generally pose complications: there are domesticated Mallards, alongside the wild kind (and the 2 look indentical). Wild ducks come into & breed in domesticated settings ... and domesticated Mallards heed the call of the wild and fly off to join the never-domesticated population.

Birds will probably continue to present various 'loose ends', and it may be in our interest to be 'pro-active' or 'preemtive' about it. Ted Clayton (talk) 18:01, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Ecological Impact

I objected to the sentence: "Rarely will a local environment perfectly integrate the feral organism into its established ecology." I think the text under the "ecological impact" heading is quite accurate, but the first sentence is problematic because...well...how do you even define "perfectly integrate"? That's an inherently subjective judgment call that can only be done by humans...I am changing this to something that I think is more balanced.


My inclination is to go another step further: ecological impact is a secondary or derivative consideration within the topic of Feral. The point being made by the contributor of this observation belongs in a sub-heading, not at the top of the introduction to the Feral topic ... where it almost appears to be an effort to 'rebrand' the Feral article.

There are entries in Wikipedia that provide a better forum for the treatment of ecology or environmentalism. There is a subheading under Feral that would include the factors mentioned in this statement. My call is that this language should be moved from where it is, to a sub-section, rather than devote the first words on the topic to an 'environmental message'. Ted Clayton (talk) 19:08, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Are dingoes feral or not?

From the Animals subheading of the Definitions section:

Australian dingoes (Canis Lupus Dingo), for example, although now known to have been descended from dogs which abandoned their human ‘owners’ some 3500 years ago, are not regarded as feral animals.

With the following citation: MacDonald D W (editor): The Encyclopedia of Mammals, page 619. ISBN 0-19-920608-2

Later, the first paragraph of the Examples of feral animals section states that they are but lacks a citation. The Dingo article says that they certainly are feral. Someone needs to clear this up. I have removed the above sentence from the article. EnviroboyTalkCs 08:12, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I vote for feral. Whatever has to happen to make it go, I'm OK with it. Maybe keep the other cite with a caveat like, "but some sources dispute this classification because the dingo diverged from the dog several millennia ago... Weaseling may have its place? (LOL!) Montanabw(talk) 00:02, 11 February 2009 (UTC)


It would be good to have a 'scientific' definition of 'feral'. The problem is that the term has aquired political overtones (people who want to eradicate a species from an area find it convenient to call them 'feral' to justify shooting them!). From a biological point of view, a species which has adapted to a given environment and can survive there without human support (and frequently, in spite of predation/harm from humans!) would seem to be for all practical purposes a bona fide wild animal. At some point, surely, such a species should be regarded as indigenous. The question is; what is that point?. Dingoes in Australia and Pigeons [Rock Dove] Columba livia in England are completely adapted to their environment, and have demonstrated a capability to survive and breed there sucessfully for both many centuries and for many generations. I would suggest that any species which survives and expands it's population in a new location, and survives there for both 1000 years and 100 generations, should be regarded as 'genuinely wild' rather than 'feral', whether or not at some point in the past some or all of it's ancestors cohabited with humans. Any thoughts?! Gliderman (talk) 20:52, 4 July 2009 (UTC)—Preceding unsigned comment added by Gliderman (talk • contribs) 20:44, 4 July 2009 (UTC)


Separately, could any discussion of 'feral people' be located elsewhere, this use of the word, if not simply an insult, is different to the biological term. Gliderman (talk) 20:52, 4 July 2009 (UTC)—Preceding unsigned comment added by Gliderman (talk • contribs) 20:47, 4 July 2009 (UTC)


The Dingo is a fascinating & valuable case. It raises the question, 'Is a species to be forever viewed as 'tainted', if it once was domesticated?'. It seems reasonable, as Gliderman says, that after some tenure back in the wild, a feral population ought to be regarded as wild again. Unfortunately, this is not merely a technical matter: there is political & social baggage that gets drawn into any effort to declare that a (bad) feral population should now be reclassified as a (good) wild species.

Worse, the time or number of generations needed for the changes to occur may be less than the figures Gliderman offers. Mustangs (often on their own less than 100 years) were viewed by traditional horsemen as simply 'wild animals' ... not that a wild horse couldn't be put to use, but that if you aim for 'quality stock', you don't start with (or allow your breed-line to be degraded with) wild individuals. Similarly, but in the other direction, Malamute and German Shepard dog breeds were initiated with the deliberate injection of wolf-lineages: the time & effort to remove unwanted wild traits was within a manageable window for a single person or kennel. 18:52, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Technically, "any discussion of 'feral people'", as Gliderman mentions, relies on first making a determination on the domestication of people. Institutions, cultures & traditions all have a lot at stake over the question whether humans are indeed themselves domesticated; mostly in the affirmative, but without good objective support.

Jared Diamond, in his book "Guns, Germs and Steel" offers a set of criteria by which the potential of a species for successful domestication can be gauged. His main premise, however, is that the proper combination of qualities is rare. Ted Clayton (talk) 18:52, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

No one has ever proven that AU Dingoes evolved from feral ancestors. All that has been written is opinion. There is no way to know whether early treavelers transported wild caught dogs that they carried along for food or whether they raised them in a pen in their back yard 3,500 years ago. See my point. By saying here that AU Dingoes were once a feral dog is only perpetuating a myth that can never be proven. osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 06:04, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Basically, no one seems willing to present a citation in either direction. Until someone cares to do so, the entire article is at risk of deletion. I put on a refimprove tag in hopes that someone who has more time than I might care to do a bit of citation work here, and toned down the citation tag for every sentence thing (which could wind up being the whole article, it appears). I suspect that the Dingo question, like that of the Mustang, is one where wild versus feral status has as much to do with preservation efforts as science. My only stake in the Dingo question is that I think feral status should not relegate an animal species to that of varmit, as a feral animal may easily fill the identical ecological niche as their wild ancestors (which is true of the Mustang in the American West, anyway, I have no information on the ecological niche or conservation status of the Dingo, which presumably is also worth protection and not being shot as a varmit??) Montanabw(talk) 02:18, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Montanabw. Your way is much better than mine. osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 16:48, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

It's been seven months or so since a citation was asked for this paragraph. That seems long enough. The paragraph is pure opinion without any references given and should be deleted. If no references are cited within 10 days, I personally think it should be removed completely. osm2066.213.185.78 (talk) 16:03, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Incomplete definition

The definition given refers only to animals that have returned to the wild from the domesticated state. Meanwhile the OED's definition says, "Of an animal: Wild, untamed. Of a plant, also (rarely), of ground: Uncultivated." It does however acknowledge, "Now often applied to animals or plants that have lapsed into a wild from a domesticated condition." The first part of the definition should receive at least a mention. JKeck (talk) 18:09, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't it seem odd to be writing an article about an adjective? Shouldn't the article be about a noun such as "Feral Animals"? osm20Oldsingerman20 (talk) 07:37, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Feral Bees

I got to this page through noticing repeated references to "feral bees" in a number of bee-related articles. A bit disappointing that there appears to be no information on this feral critter here. 58.165.216.125 (talk) 08:49, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, feel free to add this information. That's the nature of Wikipedia.--Dmol (talk) 09:29, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Horses in America

"In both Australia and the Americas, modern "wild" horses descended from domesticated horses brought by European explorers and settlers that escaped, spread, and thrived." - does this make sense? It implies that the native American populations would have not me horses before the Europeans came, which seems to be in contradiction with their skill in handling horses. Not saying the statement is wrong, but source would be good. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.220.94.40 (talk) 21:51, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

They didn't. Horses were extinct on the American continents from the end of the last ice age until they were brought back by Europeans. I don't think they were ever found in Australia. It's so well-known that it really doesn't need a source, but no problem finding one. Anyone can do it. Montanabw(talk) 21:05, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Feral term used for subsequent generations.

I have removed the following,- "Nor should "feral" be used to describe a population of a species which although descended from a domesticated population has severed itself from dependence on humans and lived independently in the wild for a long period". -

This is widespread use of the term feral to describe a animals that are descendent of the animals that ran wild. I'm particularly thinking of the case in Australia where we have feral rabbits, foxes, cats, dogs, pig, horses, camels, etc. They all get referred to as feral, even though some, such as the camel, have been non-domesticated for well over 100 years, and rabbits for almost 200 years.--Dmol (talk) 21:45, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Made some other edits to the article. The question at the root of all this is if a feral population can ever actually become "undomesticated" or truly "wild" again, which needs, I suppose, to be better addressed in this article, but I've had too many other priorities to tackle the question. in horses, it's not the case, as feral animals are routinely rounded up and return fairly easily to domestication. Montanabw(talk) 20:29, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
This I think came up within scientific thinking on this subject in Australia. If you look at the situation from an Australian point of view, you've very clearly got feral dogs on one hand and wild dogs on the other. The Australian Dingo is distinguished from the continent's stray dogs and feral dogs so clearly by Australians, that the terms are not used interchangeably. I can't think of another situation anywhere else in the world where a domesticated animal has been living outside a commensal relationship with humans, for so long that the local populace looks at them as a true wild animal and fully integrated into the ecosystem, in the ecological niche of apex predator or any other ecological function. Chrisrus (talk) 04:50, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
The only example that springs to mind is feral pigs in some of the south Pacific islands, and maybe New Guinea. They seem to have a revered status in some places, but I can't find any references for this. --Dmol (talk) 05:05, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes, and on New Guinea there's the New Guinea singing dog, a very interesting case also considered obviously not an Australian Dingo but a "dingo" in the wider Canis lupus dingo sense of the term "dingo". With pigs, you're right, there is no equivalent of the term "dingo" even though in many places they are also not commensal. Chrisrus (talk) 05:38, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Readability

From the look and sound of the article, much of it appears to have been originally written in a language other than English and translated by bablefish ("Zealand New???"). I hope that people do not object to my attempts to render sections into more readable phrasing. I realize that some terms may have a correct technical meaning, but they are incomprehensible to the average reader and should be replaced with something more readable. (FYI, this is not "dumbing down" the article--just making it intelligible to the general public, who may not have a specialized scientific vocabulary.) Also, a more minor point, a couple places had a strong "animal rights" POV in the language, which I attempted to phrase in a more neutral manner. Montanabw 21:11, 27 August 2006 (UTC)


The "original" version of the Feral entry is at the bottom of the History page, and I recommend it to those interested in the topic 'for its own sake'. It was an original 'essay-draft' written by myself (a native English speaker), and was not translated to/from another language. The intent of my draft was to lay a durable foundation & famework for the exploration of the Feral phenomenon.

Perhaps the readability issues that were noticed, arose from assorted subsequent edits?

The original intent of the Feral entry was not that it serve as a forum for publicizing the ecological problems of invasive species, etc. There are other topical forums on Wikipedia for such efforts. Also, though an inventory of feral species is useful & germane, Feral was not intended as a 'list-article'.

There will be some articles on Wikipedia that may leave the "average reader" scratching her head (any good encyclopedia will 'challenge' some readers, in some places). I would not expect that the Feral entry will necessarily involve specialized technical treatment, or dense/arcane jargon, but there are concepts involved that do appear to be escaping some of the contributors (not to mention the readers). Feral may not always be 'easy' reading. Ted Clayton (talk) 17:18, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I was interested in the topic "for it's own sake" but read the article with waning interest because of the way it wandered into peripheral territory such as plants which, for me, diluted the topic. I feel there was a lot to learn that was fascinating if the article could be edited to perhaps keep its original focus.

I also found quite a number of typos the deeper I got into the article. I don't know what the procedure is for doing this kind of editing in an entire article. I've never edited anything on Wikipedia before, but I also have never seen this problem before. If someone else can fix these problems it would certainly lend more credibility to the article. Colleendaniel (talk) 00:10, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Feel free to start working on this article @Colleendaniel:. The easy thing to do is to begin by editing out the typos! You don't need to know markup syntax for that... WP can be a steep learning curve, but no worries here - If you mess up anything, one of us who have this article watchlisted can just undo your errors if you have trouble figuring out the "undo" command on your own. That said, I don't think that this article as it sits needs to be constrained to just the definition of "feral," as the previous editor (notice that was a comment from 2009) suggested, though I do agree with you that the plant bit perhaps could be isolated into its own section and eventually spun off or merged into another article, but I'd like to see if there IS a plant-related article out there first. You can post questions here or go over to my talk page and ask for help there, too. Montanabw(talk) 18:58, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Feral doesn't require prior domestication. At least not according to dictionaries.

Look online at various dictionaries. The ones I find (MW, etc.), allow for simply wild being the defining characteristic. They **include** previous domestication, but don't require it.Tgm1024 (talk) 12:49, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 2 October 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved to Feral animal - the community is free to sort out the feral plant issue in other articles Mike Cline (talk) 21:55, 11 October 2015 (UTC)


Feral organism → Feral animal – by definition it is really only about animals. 203.173.186.163 (talk) 04:50, 2 October 2015 (UTC) 203.173.186.163 (talk) 04:50, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Could there be feral plants? Chrisrus (talk) 04:59, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
They are termed invasive species. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.173.186.163 (talk) 05:07, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
I just did a Google Scholar search for "feral plant" and got 194 results. Look at the title page of this first one, for example: modelling of feral plant populations with seed immigration and road verge management Chrisrus (talk) 07:03, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
Absolute numbers of usage of the phrase is meaningless without knowing the number of documents were searched. o me 194 seems like a low number give the huge number of scholerly papers Google indexes. 203.173.186.163 (talk) 00:07, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
It's rare but it does happen. These 194 papers exist prove experts sometimes call plants "feral". But you are right, 194 seems very few compared to how widespread calling animals that is. Chrisrus (talk) 00:40, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Support: There is certainly such a thing as an invasive plant species, but that is a different concept than the idea of a domesticated animal that has reverted to living in the wild. The phrase "feral organism" seems like an awkward neologism. It does not appear to be used in the cited sources, is rather rare as an exact phrase in search results, and does not appear at all in a Google Ngram book search. Even for animals, there is a distinction between an invasive species (such as Burmese pythons in Florida, brown tree snakes in Guam, Earthworms as invasive species, zebra mussels, various bugs and birds and fish, etc.) and the feral state of a domesticated animal. As the article says, "Zoologists generally exclude from the 'feral' category animals that were genuinely wild before they escaped from captivity". —BarrelProof (talk) 22:46, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
A Google Scholar search for "Feral Organism" got 16 results for "feral organism" in 0.02 seconds --> https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22Feral+Organism%22&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33 Chrisrus (talk) 07:03, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
A couple of comments: Firstly, 16 is a pretty small number. Perhaps the phrase exists in the wild, but it does not seem common. "Feral animal" gets more than three thousand hits in Google Scholar (and "feral plant" only gets 194). Second, even if the concept exists, it isn't really what this article is about. The current article does mention plants, but the first sentence of that discussion is an explanation saying that plants "are usually referred to as [other terms] rather than feral". No examples of plants are actually given and no sources about plants are cited. The concept seems forced, not within the natural scope of the article. —BarrelProof(talk) 22:50, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
You're right, it looks like the term is rarely used for plants, the term "feral" is usually use for animals but sometimes or rarely for plants.
As long as this article includes feral plants, even in passing, "feral organism" is the referent. Chrisrus (talk) 23:54, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
Not necessarily. A mention could be made, although it is probably best in the See also section of weeds/noxious plants/ invasive plants. 203.173.186.163 (talk) 00:07, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
As it stands now, it's not just in the "See Also" section or something else like that. As written, the referent mostly but not merely feral animals, but also a little bit feral plants, too. Chrisrus (talk) 00:40, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
"Feral plant" just sounds wrong, possible because it not in the literature. The plants section can be removed to make it an article about animals only. Note that the plant section is not referenced. 203.173.186.163 (talk) 01:51, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
But it is in the literature. Do a Google Scholar search for the term "feral plant". You're right, it's not usual and a bit strange, but it is there.
What about moving this to merely "feral"? It'd solve this problem without us not being able to tell the readers that it is sometimes used for plants as well. If we do that, we could share that with the readers who might benefit from learning that instead of deleting this information from the article. It'd be sad to have to delete good information unless there's no other way. Chrisrus (talk) 05:36, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
That would violate WP:NOUN. —BarrelProof (talk) 05:43, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
No. Not true. SOME organisms are feral animals. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.173.186.163 (talk) 03:40, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
Do a Google Scholar search for "feral plant". Chrisrus (talk) 07:03, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
We have many sources here about feral plants. Chrisrus (talk) 08:20, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
  • OpposeWhat those other guys said but not vehemently so. Article does have a plant section, albeit brief. I was trying to recall past discussions of this issue, but details escape me. Looks to me like Feral animal was redirected to "Feral" in 2010 and "Feral" redirected to this title in 2013. I think that way back, "feral" was the original title. They spun out other uses of the term and I think that the plants are still in because both invasive species and Pest (organism) are articles that include some animals in some situations. So, until we get to such a point that we can create stand-alone articles just for plants, I oppose a move. Montanabw(talk) 23:16, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
Should it have been moved away from simply "Feral" in the first place? Moving it back would solve this problem. Chrisrus (talk) 23:54, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
There are already weed and Invasive species articles that deal with plants. THe plant section of this article can be removed. 203.173.186.163 (talk) 00:07, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
Except not, because "weed" and "invasive species" are not synonymous with "feral plant".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:18, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
I am having difficulty finding a definition for feral plant. Do you have a source? 203.173.182.226 (talk) 17:25, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
"Feral" = "previously domesticated". "Weed" = "unwanted plant". "Invasive species" = "not native + problematic".
Just because an organism is feral doesn't necessarily mean that it's not native or necessarily unwanted/problematic.
The earthworm is not native to North America and considered beneficial.
Many (most?) weeds are native.
Most weeds and not descended from domesticated plants.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrisrus (talk • contribs) 00:41, 4 October 2015

Oppose split since it would give a result that would be in contravention to the majority of common and academic usage. 203.173.186.163 (talk) 23:51, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

  • Support. Was open to the page including all kingdoms, but "feral" is not used for the others. Cut Feral_organism#Plants, and instead include a link to Noxious weed in the lede. There is no unique information on plants or microbes to raise the notion of "splitting" the article. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:13, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
    • Please clarify whether you are referring to the section Feral_organism#Plants as updated, or to the section as it stood when this discussion began. I would suggest that converting the current content into a link to Noxious weed is not appropriate. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:51, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
      • Plant stuff does not belong in under this title. You additions are making the encylopedia worse by worsening content forking. I reader may think that plant stuff is covered here, when more is in better context elsewhere. There are multiple other places, including: Invasive species, Pest (organism), Weed & Noxious weed. Oppose "feral" including anything that is not an animal because "feral" implies an animal, occasional odd uses notwithstanding. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:39, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
        • I completely agree. Feral animal is a notable topic. Occasionally feral is used occasionally in conjunction with plant or yeast or organism but that does not make it a basis for articles. Articles are for notable topics, not for every linkage of every combination of words.
        • As I have already said all that is needed on this page is a See also link to weed, invasive species, and noxious plant. I would go so far as to say that if this page were to be moved to feral animal then the feral organism redirect should be deleted. 203.173.182.226 (talk) 00:44, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

Sminthopsis84 has the right idea. Feral organism or simply Feral should be a WP:CONCEPTDAB that briefly addresses the interrelated but not identical meanings and implications of the term in different contexts (in an encyclopedic manner, not like a dictionary), with the bulk of the material, which is all about animals, moved to Feral animal. This would get at both Chrisrus's and Montanabw's points, I believe, and better serve the readers. This article (and no article here) is really going to be about the word "feral" (which is frequently misused, and such misuses will account for some Ghits, for material on wild "weeds", escaped tamed-but-not-domesticated captive animals, invasive animal and plant species that are not domesticates, etc.). It's our "job" to cover the concept as defined encyclopedically, which is a domesticate (animal, plant, yeast,[**] whatever) that has escaped out into the wild and is not subject to human-steered reproduction.
[**I think they're still classifying yeasts as plants, but the taxonomy of microorganisms has been subject to a lot of radical changes over the last few decades, and it really doesn't matter in this context.]

Thus, as Montanabw, Chrisrus, and Sminthopsis point out, we need to cover things like feral crops and feral brewers' yeast strains (not to be confused with the wild yeasts used in traditional open-vat Belgian brewing), along with feral animals. But because these concepts are otherwise distinct, there is no reason to maintain all of the material on feral animals in the same place as the rest of it, when we have enough to support a separate article, to which we can point from the CONCEPTDAB page. This approach would be best, I think, because the nature of feral animals is completely different from that of feral crop plants (see, e.g., "Crop ferality" in Dictionary of Plant Breeding [4]). We could pretty easily develop a separate article at Feral crop, and cover in detail how tied those plant populations are to human farmland ("anthropogenically disturbed ruderal environments" in nerdspeak), a restriction many feral animal populations are not subject to (which is why they can be such natural-environmental threat when they are also acting in the capacity of an invasive species; e.g. feral cat colonies are such an extinction threat for birds on some human-abandoned islands that efforts have been sometimes undertaken to literally hunt the cats into total local annihilation). Feral crops, by contrast, are principally a risk to agricultural productivity, by reintroducing "weedy" traits into controlled crop populations.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:18, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Ok, so the idea is that maybe we have a "broad-concept article" sitting at feral.

Broad-concept Feral would include a summary of and/or link to Feral animal, where we will move the bulk of this article except the bit about feral plants.

Once broad-concept article feral contains enough mention of feral plants, then Feral plant can become a redirect to it.

This tiny bit we have about feral plants should be enough to make that possible.

If we move at least this much to broad-concept feral we can make feral plant into a redirect there.

If and when we have enough about feral plants to make an article about them, feral plants the redirect can then be made into feral plant the a new article about them.

The same would go for Feral yeast (and also any others that might turn up, such as, maybe, who knows, feral fungus or whatever).

If we have at least a bit on broad-concept feral on feral yeast or feral fungi, they can be made into redirects to feral.

Until there are articles about feral yeast or feral fungus, if the article feral contains even a bit about them, they can be made into redirects to feral.

Here, at Feral organism, there should be just a redirect to the article feral described above.

Is that what we want to do? Is that all? Chrisrus (talk) 03:57, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

  • I think so. Short version:
  1. Move this to Feral animal.
  2. Move all the plant stuff to Feral as well as a brief summary of the feral animal article, with a link.
  3. Put in tidbits about yeast, fungi and whatever else at Feral.
  4. Redirect Feral organism to feral.

Right? I will say that I'm dubious about the need to create a bunch of redirects off of red links, though perhaps those who are concerned could watchlist the titles in case someone else does create the articles. Montanabw(talk) 05:12, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Agree with User:Montanabw and User: Chrisrus and  User:SMcCandlish, all good. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 21:40, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
There are too many uses of the word Feral to have any of this material in it. It is now the disambiguation page. It did redirect here and there was a Feral (disambiguation) page with all its uses. 203.173.182.226 (talk) 21:01, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Note, this move was done as a copy/paste move, and was reverted by User:Niceguyedc. Natg 19 (talk) 21:46, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
I didn't see the discussion here, so it's possible that an RFD for Feral would be superfluous to this discussion, but copy/paste moves are not the way to move pages. Additionally, this discussion is open, and I think that any change of the situation at Feral should initially come out of the result of this discussion. -Niceguyedc Go Huskies! 21:51, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Feral shouldn't be a redirect to here. Because of all the uses it should be the disambiguation page. 203.173.182.226 (talk) 00:09, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
This move discussion is discussing what to do with Feral in addition to Feral organism. Please leave the status quo until this move discussion has been closed. Additionally, base titles don't get redirected to their corresponding disambiguation page per WP:MALPLACED. I have reverted the change to the redirect so that this discussion can determine what the consensus is. -Niceguyedc Go Huskies! 00:54, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Not wholly correct

The very first sentence states: A feral animal (from Latin fera, "a wild beast") is an animal living in the wild but descended from domesticated individuals.

This is not really completely correct. A feral animal is any animal living in the wild -- it need not be descended from "domesticated individuals".

feral 1 : of, relating to, or suggestive of a wild beast <feral teeth> <feral instincts> 2 : not domesticated or cultivated : wild 3 : having escaped from domestication and become wild <feral cats>

-- A. Merriam-Webster, 11th Collegiate Dictionary

freal 1. existing in a natural state, as animals or plants; not domesticated or cultivated; wild. 2. having reverted to the wild state, as from domestication: a pack of feral dogs roaming the woods. 3. of or characteristic of wild animals; ferocious; brutal. -- Random House Dictionary

feral 1. : (of animals and plants) existing in a wild or uncultivated state, esp. after being domestic or cultivated 2. : savage; brutal -- Collins Dictionary


Note that in each case the first definition is some variation of "wild" or "existing in a natural state". The meaning "reversion from domestication" only appears second, or sometimes even third.

The introductory sentence needs to be tweaked. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.249 (talk) 23:06, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Fictional ferals

There's also feral-reversion in fictional animals, and I know three kinds of media that have animal characters getting possessed.

  • The Penguins of Madagascar, victim(s): Marlene (succumbed after leaving the zoo boundaries, cured after crossing back in, she was cured fully in the episode "Littlefoot")
  • We Bare Bears, victim(s): Panda and Ice Bear (succumbed from starvation and insanity, cured when Grizz got them fast-food)
  • Zootopia, victim(s): Emmitt Otterton, Renato Manchas, Barry DiCaprio and Terry, among others (succumbed after consumption/injection of a flower called "Night howlers", of which a feral-epidemic known as "Night Howler Sickness" was spawned, though only mammals were affected, cured by unknown means) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.186.6.124 (talk) 03:59, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Russian Interwiki linked article is mostly about Strays rather than Feral.

is for only one aspect of this English article, Strays.

The page linked to is really only about the impacts/issues of Stray Animals in Society, particularly pets in a more urban environment. Not really what one has in mind, necessarily on the top of the head, for "Feral". 82.30.84.177 (talk) 14:13, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing:: I think this is a wikidata problem? Montanabw(talk) 20:20, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

I've raised the issue at d:Wikidata:Project_chat#Stray vs. feral animals. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:15, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
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