Single Species Obsessives

From Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comeback Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds by Jim Sterba:

   
American communities are full of what writer Paul Theroux calls “single species obsessives.” I call them species partisans — people who choose a particular group or flock, or even individual animals, to defend. Each species has a constituency, be they geese, deer, bears, turkeys, beavers, coyotes, cats, or

endangered plovers. Many people, of course, want to save all species. But often, advocates for one creature square off against the saviors of another. Feral cat defenders, for example, belittle arguments of bird defenders who assert that cats are an alien scourge on the landscape killing native songbirds just to exercise their killing skills. Strange alliances form. Bird lovers side with hunters and trappers on the need for lethal control of cats, foxes, and other bird predators. Deer lovers and bow hunters join hands to keep out sharpshooters. Trappers align with local governments and lobby statehouses to reinstate outlawed traps to limit mounting damage by beavers.