Seminoles see their own health decline as mirroring the endangered panther’s

Evidence

It’s like our own people. There are certain things that they need in their diet that keeps them in good health,” says Bobby. “And their body functions in the right balance. But once that food or whatever is in their own diet is taken away, they start deteriorating inside. They say that the male panther can’t reproduce with the females because they are not eating the things that they need. It’s no different with our people. Our natural world is disappearing. Our habitat, our foods.” Danny interjects: “Our elders talk about wanting to eat turtle soup or garfish. They haven’t tasted those kinds of things in years. But nowadays, you know, everything is contaminated and polluted.” — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations, 230

Categorization

• XREF: Diet-loss-driven decline parallels ch3’s account of Mohawk PCB exposure forcing abandonment of traditional fishing — the loss of traditional foods as a shared eco-justice mechanism across tribes. — connects to: Traditional Seminole land sustains life where industrial farms are dead — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for…, 223
• DEEPTHINKING: The explicit homology between a people and an endangered predator as structural kindred — both deteriorate when their habitat and food web collapse — is a dense, reframing idea about conservation and sovereignty.