Abstract
Colette Méchin. The stork and the hamster, or the misappropriation of wildlife For around 50 years, with the help of the media, certain species of wildlife have repeatedly been used in the controversy around their “extinction”, the reasons for this situation and the means employed to restore their populations. In this social debate where symbolic stakes and ideological passions play a dominant role, the fabricated, adapted notion of “wild” is at stake in our postmodern society. This article examines the case of two highly symbolic animals (one positive, one negative) which, for reasons of irrefutable nativeness, call this conception of wild fauna into question in an outlying urban environment which redefines both the landscapes and the ecological priorities in Alsace. The approach put forward here for the stork (Ciconia ciconia) and the common hamster (Cricetus cricetus) is placed within a context of analysing the two species whose declining population and/or extinction have been foreseen (feared) due to the anthropic expropriation of their reciprocal habitats (wetlands for the stork, loessial environment for the hamster) and for which survival is (has been) dependent at one time or another on projects for manipulating their actual physiological characteristics.
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