Word: feral
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...another, ever since sheep arrived with the First Fleet and the dingo became an outlaw. Since then, the animal that figures in Aboriginal Dreaming stories has been hunted and reviled as a killer of stock and even children. But as baiting programs and hybridization with feral domestic dogs pull down pure dingo numbers, there are growing warnings that the breed risks extinction in the wild, perhaps in just a few decades...
...change or genetic purity, Brad Rushforth, wildlife district officer for the Department of Conservation & Land Man-agement in W.A.'s Kimberley region, believes national park populations there show no sign of mixing: "We're quite remote so the dingoes keep pure." There's no baiting in the parks, and feral cats and weeds are far more pressing problems. "We really don't worry about the dingo - we quite like them...
...Many who don't find them lovable still acknowledge their usefulness. About 4,000 years after arriving from Asia, dingoes have carved out an ecological role - research suggests that they keep down feral cat and fox numbers, and can also rein in kangaroo populations. And there's little dispute that they're preferable to hybrids, which tend to be bigger, more aggressive and breed twice a year, rather than the dingo's one annual litter. On his 5,700-sq.-km Napperby Station outside Alice Springs, in a bad year cattleman Roy Chisholm can lose 1% of his calves...
Just as a Shakespearean actor can make iambic pentameter sound natural, so McShane brings Milch's profane yet lofty dialogue to life. And he makes Swearengen the embodiment of the feral, vital greed that fueled a nation's growth. His character is loathsome but, McShane notes, also "the galvanizing force behind what the camp would become--a legitimate place for people to live." Civilization may be closing in on Al Swearengen's mining town, but his rich character offers Ian McShane plenty of gold yet to strike. --Reported by Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles
...spins a yarn about a man searching for the knife that killed Japanese writer Yukio Mishima. China Miéville--who, as a science-fiction writer, comes from the gangster side of the equation--chimes in with a gorgeously creepy, almost indescribable story about city streets that turn restless and feral and wrestle one another...