I am going to pursue my hypothesis on the local community and roadkill, specifically "the issue of dead animals in our community is one that has some serious ramifications on our very way of life".
The Who: why the people of Gainesville, of course!
The What: the question of what to do with these dead animals.
The Why: the presence of these critters is one that has many implications and problems with it.
Testing: The biggest concern for the who is essentially some, how you say, haters on my idea who feel that they are above the concerns of the rest of us. Living in gated off communities, taking helicopters everyone, etc. If I could reach them somehow and convert them (perhaps with a copy of Quotations by Mao Tse-Tung) then this project would be more successful. As for the what, well it is a very open-ended question. How many animals are killed daily here? Where do they usually go? Why? Who takes care of their corpses? What if they're domesticated pets and not wild? I must investigate further but for now my agency will be on all animal corpses to be treated equally. The why, too, is rather open ended. Some people simply do not care about this issue, and even if I were to go through the diseases carried and developed by corpses as well as the philosophical or moral implications of leaving animals on the road I feel they'd still go on about their day.
Interviews: I've interviewed 5 random people from the streets of Gainesville and the campus grounds of UF to varying degrees of success in gathering constructive information. First person I interviewed was a student around Library West, and to sum it up I asked them about my concerns of reaching a bigger audience and referencing how some people simply are so removed from the community that an issue like this they might not even notice and they agreed and went so far as to recommend radical tactics such as finding numbers of animals killed in one day by vehicles and posting those statistics online or around the neighborhood. I like this idea, but it seems rather aggressive. Then there was a certain individual, also on campus, who I could describe as incredibly passive towards the subject. They made the who of the question seem harder to reach, as they were a member of the "average" population here and yet completely showed no interest in the questions I raised on the issue. The third person was also a campus student but I knew them from previous acquaintance. They were similar to the first interview in that they were enthusiastic about the idea and answering my questions, They suggested I contact local garbage companies to see if there is a protocol on dead animals or not. When I left campus to talk to people around the downtown area I got much more mixed reactions. Someone said that the idea would never work at all; there would need to be a new individual service that would have to park in areas heavily populated by cars. It would need a big down payment, essentially. That was pretty scary information, and the next person did help quell my initial anxiety but advised I do look more into the why of the question. Why is this even important, they asked. I must dig deeper to answer their questions.
When I first came here 2 years ago, I felt shocked about the dead animals. Those animals were very rare in my country, but I always saw at least 3 to 4 animal carcasses on the street. Because their home has been destroyed, they need to go further to find new places to live or to find foods. This would cause them to accidentally walk to the highway or street. This is the biggest cause of animals death. Humans must pay close attention to this problem in order to reduce animal mortality.
ReplyDeleteI do think this is an issue that is over looked especially in your more rural areas. I have a deep love for all animals and think each and everyone of them deserve a proper burial. Besides being humane, I can agree with you that the corpse can leave behind diseases that can contaminate the ground, people, and other wild life. Unfortunately, I do not have any great solutions or tips on helping the matter. I think your hypothesis is great and I look forward to seeing more solutions to this issue.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how when you venture outside of your normal places how much your responses vary. I too had this happen. I think this is the key to gathering substantial answers from possible consumers. I think most people don't care about the issue because they don't have to, it is always taken care of in their residential areas and they must have never noticed before how much of an issue this really can be.
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