6 Territoriality

Hippo Ranchers

In 1910, the United States had reached something of a crisis point. The population of the United States had exploded.  Large-scale immigration – from both Europe and China – brought large numbers of people into the country. In addition, improvements in medical health and sanitation which were leading to vastly lower infant and child mortality as well as allowing older people to live longer, more industrious lives. The crisis was occurring because westward expansion had largely ended. Primarily white settlers had established settlements from coast to coast, established railroad networks across the country, and started moving into even more inhospitable environments such as Alaska. To policy makers in Washington, D.C., everything was starting to follow Thomas Malthus’s predictions about increasing populations not being able to grow enough food to feed themselves. When a meat shortage began to impact the country, lawmakers started looking for solutions.

One man with a solution was Robert Broussard, a Congressman from Louisiana. He, along with two individuals – Frederick Russell Burnham and Fritz Duquesne – brought along as “experts” approached Congress with a radical solution to the meat shortage problem. Broussard reasoned that since the United States could not easily obtain more cropland, the solution was instead to raise more food on the land we had. He looked around and found a reasonable large section of land that was not being used to mass produce much food at all: the Mississippi River delta in Louisiana. For all intents and purposes, this land is a swamp. The ground is too wet to raise any grain crops other than rice and too soft and spongy to effectively raise large livestock – their hooved feet tend to sink into the ground causing broken legs. Broussard approached Congress with his radical idea. He would import a large species that could survive in a semi-aquatic environment and ranch them in Louisiana for meat. Specifically, he proposed ranching hippopotamus.

While this idea may sound ridiculous to our ears today, this proposal was taken seriously by a congressional committee tasked with studying the meat shortage problem. This proposal had two things going for it. First was the simple fact that hippopotamus are large creatures with a great deal of meat on them. Average adult hippos can weigh around 4,000 pounds with the largest individuals weighing in at more than 6,000 pounds. That’s a lot of meat that can go a long way toward solving a meat shortage. The second issue in favor of importing hippos was that the Louisiana delta was already experiencing problems with another invasive species from South America, the water hyacinth. Water hyacinth are aquatic plants that grow in lakes and rivers. They have long, fibrous stems that extend down to the river bottom. Then, above the water they have large, waxy leaves that form something of a green carpet that can become so thick that birds are able to land and walk on it. And while that may have been fine for birds, the plant stems would become entangled with ship propellers and cause problems for the shipping industry around New Orleans. To Broussard the solution as simple. Introduce a large herbivore to the area, have it eat all the invasive hyacinths, slaughter it, and feed the meat to a nation of people desperate for a protein-rich diet.

Ultimately, the congressional committee rejected the hippo ranching plan. It is probably lucky for us that it did. Because hippos, despite their reputation as very cute and charismatic megafauna, are incredibly dangerous creatures. On a continent that contains lions, leopards, hyenas, and jackals, it is the hippopotamus that kills more humans than any other African mammal every year. This is because hippopotamus are aggressively territorial animals. If you are in the wild and can see a hippo, it is very likely that the hippo believes you are too close and will use its large size and surprising speed (up to 30 mph under water) to push you away from the area. The problem is that it is a 4,000 pound hippo with sharp tusks and you are a 175 pound human with pierceable skin and squishy insides.

Hippos tend to be territorial for fairly simple reasons. Their natural habitat tends to undergo extreme shifts in rainfall. There will be extensive rains followed by long periods of drought. For a species that needs water to survive, drought is particularly deadly. In fact, drought is the only effective method of reducing the population of hippos in their native habitat. Therefore, hippos tend to aggressively defend any patch of water they choose to call their own. But now imagine an invasive population of territorial hippos – which would remain territorial in their new environments – running around the delta in Louisiana. It never gets dry in that environment. There would be nothing that would check the population of hippos, there are no predators big enough to eat them, the environmental conditions wouldn’t stop them, even hunting them is difficult with their very thick hides. A very dangerous situation could result if any hippo were to take up residence in a recreational lake or river. Damage to both people and property would be very likely.

Territoriality in Animals

Territoriality in hippos, and in many other animals, is often about protecting resources that are needed for survival. This may mean different things for different animals. Some animals defend areas where they can easily access their preferred foods, some – like the hippo – defend areas of water, and some species – like the stickleback fish – only defend territory from objects with the general shape and color of another male stickleback fish because they want to defend the access to reproduction that the place provides. But the general theme is usually the same. Defending a place because of access to something important that the animal feels it needs for survival.

Territoriality in Humans

Humans, of course, add additional complications to this issue. Our ability to think and reason abstractly allow us to be perfectly fine with certain humans entering our territories for reasons we understand due to context. For example, I don’t get upset with the worker who casually walks into my back yard to read my electrical meter. My dog has a massive problem with it, but I don’t. However, this ability to understand context also generates additional complications.

When we consider humans, we can generally think of three different types of territory. Each type allows different interactions, has different feelings of “ownership” attached, and is protected or defended differently.

Primary Territory. Primary territory is a territory that is considered very important to someone. It may be used as a primary residence or sleeping place. The most critical parts of this type of territory are that 1) the person intends to return to this territory repeatedly over the course of at least several days (if not weeks, months, or years) and 2) even when the person is not currently occupying the territory there is an expectation that no one except those with prior approval will be in the territory.

Primary territory also brings out the most feelings of “ownership”. In some cases, the people occupying the primary territory have gone through the legal system to obtain legitimacy for occupying that territory. They have signed an hours’ worth of paperwork to buy a house. Or they have signed a contract with a landlord to rent a space for a prolonged period. However, not all primary territory is granted the legitimacy of the legal system, but it can still be defended in extreme ways. Some individuals utilize cars, storage sheds, or even spaces in the grass as primary territories. And even though they know that their continued existence in that territory would not have the backing of the legal system, they are still likely to defend that territory in whatever way they can. The primary territory is a critical piece to the way they are living their life. A change or loss of that territory would be highly disruptive to their lives.

Primary territory is the most defended type of territory. Large parts of human psychology and the legal system are centered around the security of primary territory. If someone were to enter your home, apartment, or dorm room without your knowledge or permission, this would likely be very upsetting to you. In the most extreme cases we call this the crime of home invasion and experiencing it is highly correlated with being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Therefore, protecting primary territory with locks, passcodes, security key cards, fences, gates, or other means of defense is incredibly common. Some states in the United States have even passed laws saying that property owners are within their rights to use deadly force if they feel threatened by someone invading their primary territory.

Primary territory is critical to someone’s current way of living. And therefore, it is the most thought about type of territory and the most defended. Primary territory is the closest that modern humans get to a hippo’s feelings about its water source. But primary territory is not the only kind of territory we think about or want to defend.

Secondary Territory. Many college students have “their seat” in a class. Usually that seat is the seat they sat in on the first or second day of class and then continued to return to day after day. Studies have shown that approximately 70% of college students will sit in the same seat for an entire semester. But most college students have also experienced walking into class – often on an exam day – to find someone they’ve never seen before sitting in their seat. If you have experienced this, you have experienced an invasion of your secondary territory.  Secondary territory has some elements in common with primary territory, but it is less critical to our survival and continued daily routines. We define secondary territories as territories that someone expects to return to and engage in repeated use of, but that are not critical to survival like primary territories. You likely do not have a key for any secondary territories that you have and once you leave that territory, someone else is free to take over that territory – as long as they know you have left for a long time and don’t plan on coming back. We might always expect to find that particular seat in the classroom open at 11:00 A.M. on a Wednesday, but once the class is over we are perfectly fine letting others use that same seat for different classes. In fact, I have observed some college students having back-to-back classes in the same room but moving seats for the second class.

Unlike primary territory, secondary territory has fewer options of response to invasion. Note that we are using the word “invasion” entirely from the perspective of the person that was expecting to use this territory at this particular time. The person currently occupying the territory may have no idea they are being thought of as “invading” the space by someone else. They may just be thinking they need a place to sit down to take the exam. You did not sign a contract to be given exclusive access to that seat during your class, or your favorite study spot in the student union, or the most comfortable chair in the coffee shop. Because of that, feelings of ownership over the space tend to be reduced. We tend to feel less comfortable personalizing a secondary territory, especially with markings that cannot be removed. And while we may feel frustrated or upset when we find someone sitting in “our spot”, that person being there does not typically trigger a psychological reaction that could require years of therapy sessions like an invasion of primary territory can.

Similarly, the options for defending a secondary territory are also reduced. The most common method of defending a primary territory is by marking. This means placing objects or other indicators that the place is currently being used. Perhaps you want to make sure that your classroom seat will not be taken on exam day, so you arrive earlier than usual to make sure you get it. But then, you also need to use the restroom. You could mark your place by leave something of yours at the chair; perhaps a coat, a backpack, or a laptop if you are particularly trusting of your fellow classmates. Markings in territories are almost always respected. In fact, field studies have shown that leaving a single sweater in a booth at a busy sit-yourself restaurant can defend that booth for up to an hour.

Another common method of defending secondary territories involves the spreading of norms within the community of users. Say there is one computer at your workplace that you like using over all the other ones. We’ll imagine you like using it because it has a fun desktop background that the other computers just can’t compete with. You could let your co-workers know that you really like the fun-background computer and would really appreciate using it when you are working. If your co-workers accept this, you have just established a norm within your community and likely established a level of control over this secondary territory at your workplace.

Tertiary Territory. Finally, we have tertiary territory, which is a concept that is a bit difficult to pin down. Most territory theorists agree that there is a level of territory below secondary territory that people treat differently than secondary territories. However, the line between secondary and tertiary territory is much more muddled compared to the line between primary and secondary territories.

Tertiary territories are often thought of as the territory of “right now”. You don’t intend to return to this space, nor do you have any beliefs that if you lose this territory that you will be able to get it back. But for the moment, right here, right now, this space is the space I’m using, and you can’t move me from it. Imagine setting up a picnic spot in a public park. You spread out your blanket, maybe set up a sun umbrella, and for the time that you are there, that is your picnic spot. Nobody is going to come along saying that this is their usual picnic spot and you need to move 20 feet away (well, somebody might say that, but you aren’t going to feel obligated to listen to them).

Tertiary territories therefore lack both critical elements of primary territories. The person occupying the territory is likely not expecting to return repeatedly to this spot over any reasonable length of time and once they leave, they are expecting that others may come in and immediately use that space.

Defending a tertiary territory can also be difficult. Anyone that has tried to save seats at a general admission event knows this. You may place a coat or other marker down, but those markers can be quickly ignored, especially if a person isn’t there to let people know about the “saved seats”. However, some defense is possible with a combination of markers and physical presence by a person.

Qualified Users

What tends to keep most people out of secondary and tertiary territories is actually a sense of community norms. People that frequently use a space can come to believe that only a certain kind of person uses this space. That sort of person is termed a qualified user and will typically be allowed into the space without notice. However, if someone enters the space and is not deemed a qualified user, the community within that space can quickly turn hostile towards the person entering. I have been at target shooting ranges where a woman walking in to participate is viewed as so strange and out of the ordinary that the woman is repeatedly asked inane questions and stared at until she leaves. I have also been to Country Clubs where anyone wearing t-shirts and jean shorts rather than a polo shirt and khakis are viewed as lesser people that should not be using the golf course. Similarly, I have never set foot in the biker bar in my home time. Those people would immediately clock that my suit jacket with the leather elbow patches had no business being in that place and would likely make it very clear to me that I am not welcome there.

Perceptions of qualified users tend to be established by visual cues that are easily distinguished. This also means that people tend to use frequently stereotyped characteristics – gender, race, ethnicity, social class signals – to determine who “belongs” in the space and who does not. This can be expressed in phrases like “X while Black”, where X is any normal, innocuous activity like driving, shoveling snow, or walking that a black person engages in and gets hassled by either community members or the police.  White individuals would not be looked at twice for doing the activity, but black individuals are looked at several times over. This phrase is expressing frustration about not being viewed as a qualified user of a space because of race. There are many other spaces where someone must be of a specific gender, or wear a certain attire, or signal a certain amount of wealth to be deemed a qualified user. I should note that by pointing this out, I am not saying that any of this is good, ideal, or something that should be accepted. Perceptions of qualified users are norms, not laws. We all have the power to change our ideas about who belongs in the spaces we inhabit. We simply must acknowledge the reality that some community norms are hostile towards certain people and those people must react to the norms they experience rather than what is just.

Summary

Humans are somewhat territorial creatures that have different ideas about territory depending on how often they expect to return and whether they believe someone else will be using a territory while they are gone. Primary territories are the most central territories to people’s lives, followed by secondary territories, and finally tertiary territories. Entry into secondary and tertiary territories tends to be governed by norms around Qualified Users that exist within a community.