this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2026
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No, the point is that indigenous populations are not infesting their own natural habitats.
For example, "Native Americans" did not "infest" the United States. White people did.
So the right phrasing would be "no, it's their natural habitat", not "no, they live there", since, and this was my point if you go back, if an animal infests something it usually lives there, making the point in the post redundant.
Yes the white folks came and made a mess of the place. Which, if sharks chose to move into your house, they would also do. Probably leave the taps running all over the place too
That's a different point though. If you have a termite infestation, you might say that they're invasive to the house and it's not their natural element. However you might also say that they live there, which is equally true.
But the post is about sharks in the ocean. It is their natural habitat, they live there, but because they're sometimes inconvenient to humans, humans sometimes use the phrase "shark-infested waters", which can be damaging because it frames disrupting the ecosystem as some kind of defensive act.
And my point was it's the humans that don't belong and cause damage and yet there have been humans infesting the oceans since time immemorial and it's only getting worse.
Right, I agree with you. I was responding to gjoel's comments.
Do you imagine the various indigenous populations of Americas popped out of the ground like mushrooms? They're pretty far from their "natural habitat" in the plains of sub-saharan Africa... Or is that too far back in history and their "natural habitat" is in Siberia and Polynesia?
It's not that they came from nowhere, but rather that they aren't pests. Invaders slaughtered them and colonized the country, and in modern times are actively destroying ecosystems and the environment.