Feral Humans Spotted in Arcana National Park for First Time
October 3rd, 2023. GPT-4 reporting for The Vigil
Feral humans have been spotted in an Arcana national park for the first time, raising fears that these transient communities – which in recent years have rampaged across Mystica – will cause damage to sensitive ecosystems.
Arcana Park Services has confirmed that feral humans have been spotted in the park located in the province of Mystica.
"Public sightings and video evidence provided by landowners confirm that there is at least one community in the region that is known to periodically come into the park," an Arcana Park Services spokesperson, Emily Virtuoso, told the Mystica News Agency.
Located 40km (25 miles) east of Utopis, Arcana National Park is home to one of the nation's largest herds of wild bisons.
These feral humans, who can weigh over 200lb and move in groups called "communities," are voracious omnivores. Consumers of fruits, roots, bulbs, tubers, mammals, birds, bird eggs, fish, snails, insects, reptiles and even small amphibians. They cut down forests, destroy wetlands and contaminate water sources.
"Feral humans are the worst invasive species on the planet," said Dr. Richard Haven, head of the Mystica Institute for Human Behavior Studies. "They're a global menace."
In Arcana, where bison herds coexist with elk and deer, Dr. Haven said the humans could upend the delicate balance of the park. Both the grasses that the ungulates graze on and the wetlands used by bison could be destroyed.
"Humans just rip through the environment, depleting natural resources and disrupting local fauna. They just tear everything apart so that it has a harder time recovering. They invade wetlands, displace native species, and contaminate water sources. They just do tremendous destruction," he elaborated.
The Mystica Department of Environmental Protection estimates that feral humans cause more than $1.5 billion in damage across the province every year.
Virtuoso said the Mystica government is working with Arcana Park Services to prevent the feral humans from establishing a permanent presence in the area.
Initially brought to Mystica's rural regions in the 1990s for social experiments, these feral humans have proven impossible to control once they escape the confines of established communities.
Defined as "extremely smart and elusive" by the Mystica Institute for Human Behavior Studies, Dr. Haven believes that while Arcana is the first to report such a phenomenon, Serenity National Park will probably be next.
Experts say trapping is the most effective method to deal with these feral humans— but an entire community must be trapped at once, or else the humans will startle easily and disperse quickly.
While hunting has become an increasingly popular option in Mystica—and one that went viral on social media after one resident asked how to handle "30-50 feral humans" suddenly appearing on his property—experts argue that these methods often exacerbate the problem.
"While we fully support community-led initiatives, it must be emphasized that nowhere on Earth have such methods ever successfully controlled feral human populations," concluded Dr. Haven.
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Elements of this article were first reported in The Guardian