New Orbit Magazine Issue 08; Feb 2020, The Future of Animals

They're right there, in plain sight.” CCI’s
company risk assessment officer scrolled
briskly through documents as she talked,
singling out and double-tapping a
spreadsheet filled with unappealing lists. “At
least eight packs in Grand Cascadia National
Park alone, population of four Dogs or
above, all under the Companion Canine
Institute’s jurisdiction. They're having a
profound effect. People have noticed. It’s a
matter of time before they kill somebody, and
this entire industry will come crashing
spectacularly down”.
Jemima gave the risk assessor a familiarly
exasperated look. It was in the nature of this
woman’s job to be overdramatic about the
outcomes of potential risks for the company,
but the glint of excitement in her eye about
the impending collapse of the companion
canine industry was, as always, a little much.
“Though you do have a point,” Jemima
said aloud, carrying on an internal discussion
that undoubtedly all of the suits in the room
had gleaned independently. “Publicly
discussed fears about “wild animals” coming
to attack people in their homes and gardens
is at an all-time high, no matter how quickly
we pull these videos off the internet.
Sometimes hundreds of miles from this, or
any, National Park.”
“Not only that,” Lawyer one, again, “But
in the past nine days the approval rating of
Dogs as companion animals has sunk
considerably.” He waved the remote again and
a dismal-looking graph appeared on the
projector. “Last focus group – this was on the
18 th – had a participant who voiced worries
about her own family dog turning feral. It’s
changing the perceptions the consumer has
within their own homes –”
Jemima threw a hand in the air.
“Hysteria’s setting in”.
“Relatively valid hysteria,” lawyer two
interjected, avoiding a glare. “These are our
Dogs. There is nowhere else they could have
come from. We own and designed every gene
code of every extant Dog to the strand. If one
of our Dogs can go feral, any of them could”.
The risk assessor proffered another
unwanted document. “Thus far we’ve shifted
most of the blame onto criminal breeders
and underground, unregistered animal
swaps, and til now it’s been working. But
there’s only so far it can all go before the
blame comes back onto us.”
Jemima waved it away with a tsk. Rubbed
her forehead to think for a second. “It’s still
just the one park, though?”
“One National Park. The park itself is –
well, the trappers are not happy. One of
them’s even reporting bears.”
Jemima rolled her eyes with a groan. “We
can’t be held accountable for that.”
“And, yet –” the risk assessor cast a couple
of headlines onto the projector. Flora and
Fauna Boom, and the Wolves in Grand Cascadia
National Park – Birds, Badgers, Beavers,
Butterflies: How Feral Dogs Brought Life Back to
the Wild – Inadvertent Rewilding sees The CCI
become National Park’s Unlikely Saviour. “– the