“Not that anyone cares what I say, but the restaurant is at the other end of the Universe.” – Marvin, the Manically Depressed Robot

Eating Aliens

Eating Aliens

I read and review a lot of science fiction and fantasy books. One popular subject for the authors of such works is the end of civilization, and what happens then. While this makes for morbidly fascinating entertainment, the reality of the end of the world would be painful, deadly, and mind searingly horrifying. Or, perhaps not. Our planet and our culture is being eroded right around us, and very few people seemed to care, or worse, even notice. Shockingly, a great many of us, ordinary folk like me, or even you, contribute to the hastening of the end without giving it much thought. The good, overwhelmingly great news is this: there is something to be done! I can reverse the demise of my home-world with just a few easy actions and some schema alteration.

I haven’t meant to mislead anyone (well, maybe a little) but Jackson Landers‘ book Eating Aliens isn’t really about how to serve up a slice of ET, fry a little xenomorph, or even how to sautee space slug. The subtitle reveals the full earth bound reality: One Man’s Adventures Hunting Invasive Animal Species. His title was perfectly chosen. I saw this book in my local library, and read the title out of the corner of my eye while I was sauntering past the New Non-fiction shelf on my way to the Science Fiction section. “Eating Aliens” I read and kept walking. A second later I stopped, and turned on my heel. “Wait. What?” I thought. I picked up the book and skimmed the back cover. “This I’ve got to read! I can even fool the Nerd Span readers with the title…” I may have thought. What I mean to say is, Landers caught my attention, and then alerted me to a home grown problem that I can actually help to solve.

[Author’s note: What follows is a discussion about killing and eating animals. If you are vegan, vegetarian, or have other reasons why killing animals bothers you, you might want to take a deep breath. By all means, keep reading, and if at the end you have a solution to the problem presented that preserves life, please, suggest it.]

I had a vague notion that, over time, European colonists brought native (to Europe) plants and animals with them to the so-called “New World” of America, and that some species had lived and thrived on this continent. What I didn’t realize is that a similar thing has been happening in the woodlands, prairies, skies, and water systems, and not just in history, but every day. Jackson Landers was born into a vegetarian household, but today he is a hunter, and eater, of all sorts of animals that most people consider to be unusual cuisine. Why? He wants to curb the rising populations of invasive animal species. My fellow carnivores will no doubt have enjoyed some nice crispy bacon, or a flank of ham, but how many know that wild hogs, descendants of domestic pigs, are a menace to the environment, and a danger to human populations in Georgia, Louisiana, and many other states.

Many people fish, for relaxation and for food, but what kind of fish you fish for makes a difference. There are a great many species of ichthyoids that have been introduced into ponds and rivers for one reason or another that destroy native fish populations and pollute the water. You might not consider iguanas to be good eatin’, but I can tell you from personal experience that lizards are under represented in the meat section of the grocery store. I’ve personally eaten rattlesnake and crocodile (much preferring the latter) and on Lander’s recommendation would be up to trying some other lizard types, especially if in the process I could help save plants and animals, like the endangered Miami blue butterfly, native to the Florida Keys in the process. You might have heard that the lionfish is an extremely poisonous fish. What you might not know is that they are (according to Landers) very delicious.

Lionfish, in particular, were introduced to non-native habitats quite accidentally, actually. A hurricane destroyed a fish tank that held a few specimens and washed them out to see. Lionfish are native to the Indian Ocean, and there have natural predators. Unfortunately this fish tank was in the Caribbean, and there are no aquatic animals in the Caribbean Sea that are evolutionarily equipped to combat the lionfish. For this reason, many of the coral reefs around the most beautiful Caribbean islands are empty of anything but lionfish, and inexperienced swimmers are at risk. While the venom of the lionfish is survivable if stung on land, a swimmer in the water who gets stung risks a drowning death as a result of the symptoms. But, once caught by expert fishermen, and properly prepared, Jackson Landers says that he prefers the lionfish to almost every other food fish currently available. Man is the most dangerous hunter there is, and once an animal lands on the menu, overpopulation tends to become a problem of the past. Landers personally undertook a trip to the Bahamas to hunt lionfish and then eat them to raise awareness to the problem that lionfish pose and propose a very reasonable solution. And that is just one of the invasive animal species that Landers tracked, hunted, killed, and then cooked.

I’ll admit a personal conflict. I love a chargrilled hamburger, a juicy steak, and chicken wings. But, I also don’t like the idea of wholesale slaughter of animals. Cows, pigs, and chickens are domesticated. For the most part, they are contained and not damaging the environment unchecked. Invasive, non native species wreak havoc wherever they live and forage. All of this in turn causes widespread upset in the balance of  the oceanic environment, waterways, and the life cycles of insects and hundreds of ancillary animals. Have you heard the saying that if the honeybee disappeared, the world would end? While the sentiment is exaggerated and much simplified, the underlying science is sound. Disrupt one small part of the environment and, like dominoes, other parts of the climate, habitat, and eventually, landscape and continent are affected. Global warming, erosion, and acid rain don’t happen overnight. They are caused by slow, gradual, and unchecked disruptions in the natural equilibrium of the planet. Those iguanas in Florida I’ve mentioned? They descend from a pair of pets someone released because they were unwanted. What we can do right now is not release any more, but when tens of thousands of iguanas already roam free and are destroying at will, what else can we do? Just killing every single iguana is wasteful. But killing them, grilling them, and adding them to tacos makes their death meaningful.

Eating Aliens is divided into sections, each one about a particular animal and Jackson Lander’s adventures in hunting them. Hilarious, intriguing, and alarming – his stories not only entertain, but educate. Because of his adventures, I am aware of a problem that I did not know existed, and while I am not at all likely to go swimming the Caribbean or treking through Louisiana underbrush after a boar, I am very curious about adding some of the animals he talks about to my buffet. I won’t hunt, but I do love to eat. I can help to create a demand and a market for these animals, and that will give someone the job of hunting them for me, which will not only reduce the population of an invasive specie, but will stimulate the economy. Everyone wins, except the armadillos and the Canadian geese, I guess.

While riding around Florida hunting lizards, Landers worked with a local hunter named George Cera. Cera said this: “I wish I never had to kill another living thing. There’s nothing good about having to do any of this. But I know that for every [iguana] I shoot, I’m saving hundreds of other native animals. The only thing worse than having to kill sixteen thousand iguanas would be watching all of these other animals go extinct.” We humans created this problem. We should do something about it. Jackson Landers tell us how by giving us a look into his wacky world in which he practices every bit of what he preaches.

It may be more glamorous to punch an alien in the face with a “Welcome to Urff!” like Will Smith in Independence Day, but it is no less heroic to chose wild hog, iguana, or lionfish from your local grocer or off the menu of a good restaurant. Both help save the planet from alien invasion, and one doesn’t require special effects or questionable plot developments.

You can read Jackson Landers’ blog here, in which he gives more details about his daily life as a hunter and activist for the environment. It’s like the book, but includes what he killed, cooked, and crunched today.

 

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