Unicorns are native to the Alps, with a
historical range stretching from eastern Switzerland to the western
Carpathians, and some ancient isolated populations in the Apennines
and the Grampians.
Much reduced in their native territory, they are simultaneously
an invasive species in northeastern North America, being descended from
the escapes of an attempted captive breeding population in Vermont.
Facing none of their natural predators, which are primarily dragons,
unicorns in North America are unimpeded from going after their
natural prey, which is primarily deer.
Fortunately unicorns themselves are few, long to live and slow to
breed, so from Vermont they have not yet spread far to the north or
south, and have not yet crossed the Hudson River nor the Connecticut
River. But what they lack in numbers, they make up in ferocious
voracity, and deer populations in the area are significantly
threatened. There has been a great outcry from hunters over the
competition and calls for a mass cull, which the Vermont and
Massachusetts state governments are considering -- with a
corresponding outcry from schoolchildren.
There have also been proposals from the state governments of
Pennsylvania and New Jersey to introduce unicorns there, in order to
reduce their own overpopulations of deer. Conservationists in those
states are sorely divided on the matter, with many feeling the
presence of unicorns would be safer than introducing wolves, and
many others citing the disaster of Cane Toads as an example of how
such species introductions tend to go.
Summer camps and scouting programs in the affected area are
suffering more financial burdens under greater insurance
liabilities, and hope that the insurance companies can be persuaded
the unicorns are primarily a threat to deer, not to children, who
are naturally all virgins anyway. Many summer camps have been forced
to close.
As it stands, all trial efforts of either culling or capturing
have failed, as hunters who shoot at them report the bullets flying
back their way, anyone trying to capture one is invariably injured,
and no poison has been remotely effective.
In the midst of all of this, residents of the affected areas
report the highest water quality in living memory. Whatever happens to the unicorns going forward, they will have fierce defenders in the field of municipal water-treatment facilities.