Category talk:Cygnus atratus (feral)

Feral = domesticated species, gone wild. A wild species introduced into a new area as a game bird etc is not feral.

Very commonly used for wild species introduced into a new area where it is not native. The purpose of these categories is to give a home to images that are not of the taxon in its native area, so they don't clutter the latter up. - MPF (talk) 07:32, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

You're right many people start calling possums, stoats, weasels introduced to New Zealand and released for sport or some utility (eg killing rabbits) "feral" when they just mean "wild" but not native. There is a very specific meaning to the word feral, the use you describe is simply a misunderstandings of the word, see [1][2]. But we shouldn't perpetuate that misunderstanding, after all the wiki projects are about education :-). So just as I would not misapply the term in a wikipedia article, I wouldn't misapply it here either. "Introduced" would better describe populations that are introduced to new areas.

But specifically in the case of Black Swans, they are native to New Zealand[3], just wiped out by hunting, and were re-introduced for sport etc. So the category can't be described as "introduced" really either. We could rename the category to something like "Cygnus atratus in New Zealand" but I'm not sure we have a category tree for "species in place". --Tony Wills (talk) 09:51, 28 April 2015 (UTC)