Insignificant otherness: Manufacturing killability of native animals living in Florida's urban spaces

A coyote was rescued from the waters of Miami Bay, and crowds gathered at the scene and shared firefighters’ enthusiasm for rescuing the animal. By the end of the day, he was shot in the head, and outrage spread across Florida. Contributing to current debates in urban geography and conservation biology, this paper builds upon established acceptance of nonnative animal killability to demonstrate how killability is manufactured and extended to “native” urban animals. Uneven applications of lethal implementation of policies are central to this investigation. The Miami Bay coyote helps us visualize the overlapping and contradictory policies humans have created for animals classified as “native” when they live in “wild” spaces, but classified as “nuisance” when living in urban spaces—environments constructed by and for humans, both physically and epistemologically. The coyote highlights the ephemeral impact one animal can have on urban humans who are often unaware of the lethal consequences of “nuisance” policy. Whereas discourses about nonnative and invasive killability have received significant attention, narratives that render native animals killable remain underexplored. Native urban animals are subject to destruction when they encounter a human that deems them a “nuisance” throughout the United States. This paper traces the systems of power that keep native urban animals killable and invisible. I argue for the need to consider urban animals through a reflexive lens to overcome inherent anthropocentrisms and reckon with our (re)production of narratives that manufacture urban animals’ killability and designation as insignificant others.