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Exotic animals, animals living outside their native areas, are increasing in number in the Great Plains. These additions to hunting, ranching, and farming operations, plus rare species in private preservation efforts, are mainly hoofed animals of wildlife species with antlers or horns. A few novel domestics, like llamas, join the mix. In the early 1990s, ostriches, emus, and rheas were also promoted, but markets for these large, flightless birds are more limited than for hoofed exotics.
Exotics are raised variously for meat, feathers,
hides, eggs, and, in the case of the emu, for
oil that is used in cosmetics. Within the Great
Plains, exotics activity varies with environment
and politics. Texas, with huge, private
ranches and varied environments, stresses all
types and has the most animals (15,735, representing
fifty-six varieties, in Great Plains
counties). Species on the Texas Plains include
aoudad (Ammotragus lervia) from North Africa,
axis deer (Axis axis) from India and Sri
Lanka, blackbuck antelope (Antilope cervicapra)
from India, fallow deer (Dama dama)
from Europe and Asia Minor, red deer (Cervus
elaphus) from Europe, and various forms
of ibex and wild goat (Capra spp.) from
Asia and Africa. In New Mexico, free-ranging
aoudad predominate. There, the state dominates
exotics activity, and public hunting is the
objective. Northward, the main species are
winter-hardy deer, such as fallow and red deer.
These are mainly found in the drier western
zones of the Northern Plains and in Canada
where agricultural alternatives are fewer. Canadian
exotics farming is an addition to more
prevalent experiments with farming, herding,
or culling native wildlife.
Increasing numbers of wildlife ranches, deer farms, and escaped exotics have prompted restrictions to prevent disease and interbreeding with native fauna. Wildlife departments often disapprove of exotics because of these negative possibilities or the added competition for space or forage. Thus, it is agricultural rather than wildlife interests that are promoting growth of exotic activity in the Great Plains.