NATS 1510 Lecture 8 – The Commodification of Nature – Alligators and Snowmobiles
Alligator – hundreds of pounds, heavily armored, powerful jaws, value for hunting
Alligator hunting ancient and pancultural
Alligator skin products(e.g. cow leather), advantages and disadvantages
Alligator hunting regulated and restricted by state, conservation: o Restrictions on size and sex of animals hunted o Closed seasons o country wide hunting bans o creation of protected areas
criminalizingpreviously legal activities
Hunters subverted law, economic options
Conservationist resource management, rural hunters portrayed as lawless, unfit to manage local environments
Commodification of the Alligator
Meat and skin, skeletons, teeth, fat also commodified
Impacted economies in Louisiana, Georgia, the Carolinas and Florida
1700’s references to alligator boots, saddlebags and shoes
Shortages (civil war blockades) increased demand, impact of rifle on hunting
Hunting estimates difficult, alligator hunting in Florida from 1881 to 1891 - 2.5 million alligators
Demand outstripped supply by 1900’s
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1902 east coast US tanneries were producing about 280,000 skins annually
Hunting changed due to demand for products: “hornbacking” – leaving the head, skin and feet of alligator on, rather than just taking off the soft underbelly skin, which is used for most products
Buyers purchased hides and resold
Prices rose from late 19 th century to early 20 th , great depression, hunting
Hunters did other things, hunted other animals, fished and farmed

Legal Restrictions
Hunting labeled “poaching”, regulated access to nature
Ogden: state views alligator as both a natural object and a commodity
Alligator conservation by state, of scientific management of natural resources, sustainability and profit
Enforcing Commodification
Game wardens manifestation of the law for hunters
Few arrests and prosecutions of hunting laws, criminalization, transformation ofhunter’s self-image, relation to community, creating “subversive landscape”
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Practices, law, violence, evasion, new territorial practices
Hunting a secret practice, hunters stopped talking about their work
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No state interest
Alligator trade benefitted rural poor, lack of state interest in preserving alligators to support rural poor
Conservation popular in 1930’s, tourism
Conservation not linked to hide economy, alligator’s health, instead to tourist industry
Population increase and everglades, reducing environment, declines in number
Various strategies were used to hide hunting: o Being dropped off in remote areas at night o Covering their traces as they travelled o Working at night o Using camouflaged boats
Everglades covered over 8 million acres, flat

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Game wardens often from community, sympathetic to hunters, community not sympathetic to law
Alligator skins portable and easy to conceal, rarely in the possession of hunter, stashed for later retrieval
Before criminalization, territory allocated by family, historical, use of camps
After hunting criminalized, motivation to move around
Differences in legislation, opportunistic use, uncertain boundaries and “poaching”
Hunting restrictions, regulating sale of hides, alligator extinction
Alligator populations rebounded thanks to classification as endangered
Alligators as Property
Alligators as common property, resource that belongs to everyone
Poaching is a form of trespass against common property, poaching laws tend to support the interests of the powerful classes
Hunters saw alligators as common property for hunting, the state saw them as common property to be preserved for tourism
State encouraged reclamation projects, alligator populations
Small Bore Engines
Automobile industry slow to innovate
Considerable innovation in IC engine applications, development of small-bore IC engine
Small-bore IC engines used in snowmobiles, motorcycles, ATV’s, motorboats, leaf blowers, lawnmowers
Two varieties: two-stroke and four-stroke, former pollutes more as it mixes oil with its gasoline supply and expels its unburnt fuel
“Some ATV, snowmobile, and jet engines can expel up to 30 percent of their oil and gasoline unburned into air and water, producing as much as 4,000 times as much carbon monoxide and 118 times as many smog-forming pollutants as modern automobiles on a per-mile basis.. Ninety percent of the 34 tons of smog precursors currently emitted each day by offroad motorcycles and ATV’s comes from two-stroke engines… they continue to expel significant quantities of known carcinogens like benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, and xylene in the unburnt fuel, as well as carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides, particulates, hydrocarbons, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and the additive MBTE in the exhaust.”
Recreational machines produce noise levels from 85-100 dB, hearing loss in operators without protection
ATV’s, jetskis, yard equipment and snowmobiles

Early versions of snowmobile, power sleds, late nineteenth century
Air sleds, tracked sleds 1940’s, recognizable tracked wheel, ski-steering snowmobile design
increased in popularity during 1970’s, several million owned
Bombardier’s Ski-Doo early success, speed and maneuverability
Bombardier increased share of market in 1940’s
Mandatory road clearing lowered demand, diversification: ATV’s and all track vehicles
1959 he was mass producing Ski-Doos
Snowmobiles: emergency, commercial and law-enforcement uses
Primary use: recreation, small-bore engine technologies start as utility vehicles and transform into recreational vehicles
150,000 and 260,000 snowmobiles sold per year today, four primary snowmobile manufacturing interests, 2.6 million registered snowmobile users worldwide
Average American user rides 990 miles per year, spends $4000 yearly on snowmobile recreation, and has access to 230,000 miles of groomed and marked trails
Impact on northern native communities, disrupting economies based on communal goods, leading to overhunting and environmental damage, and creating dependencies on technology
Ongoing tension, new recreational areas, pollution and noise, sensitive environments
Environmental impacts: noise, pollution, late thawing of compacted snow, reduction of moisture and oxygen in soil, lower yields of foraging plants, damage to tree saplings, disturbance of animal movement patterns, high mortality rates in smaller animals, and damage to agricultural crops
Snowmobilesgo off road and impact more environmentally pristine areas
Yellowstone National Park had 76,000 snowmobile visits in 1999-2000
Emergency services, accessibility in remote areas, sense of freedom
Snowmobile clubs (2000 across the US) in 1970’s, responsible use, races and derby’s
Snowmobiling related spending contributed $875 million to economy in 2002-2003 in New York
State, local business support
Snowmobiles fast (90 mph top speeds), move over varying terrain (not roads), and are sometimes driven by children (12 years old is a minimum age in Wisconsin), prone to accidents
Estimated 110 deaths and 13,400 emergency room visits per year due to snowmobile accidents
Industry resisted environmental regulations, manufacturing jobs, recreation user groups resisted in favor of self-regulation and responsible use (number of users)
Lobby groups from industry (and consumers) influenced regulation and policy
Environmental damage created by a technology that operates in pristine areas versus right to personal freedom of movement facilitated by IC engines and smaller vehicles