Some creatures have always been happy living synanthropically alongside man and have long been residents of the city. Rats, pigeons, and cockroaches are three very obvious examples, drawn from three very different classes of animal. We may think of them as pests to be exterminated, but they think of us much more generously and not only survive but thrive in the urban environments we've constructed and gradually extended over the entire globe.
Indeed, as our cities grow ever greater in size and areas of natural wilderness continue to shrink and disappear, more and more species are faced with the stark choice of either adapting to life within the concrete jungle, or face extinction. Some, obviously, aren't going to make it. But a surprising number of animals - large and small - are at least giving it a go and competing for food, space, and shelter alongside the more familiar magpies, foxes, squirrels, and stray cats.
Unbelievably - but wonderfully - we can today find wild boar in the suburbs of Berlin, boa constrictors in Miami, baboons in Cape Town, big cats in Mumbai, and birds of prey in NYC. Even the Hollywood Hills are home to their very own mountain lion.
What's amazing is the speed with which some creatures are getting the hang of things; learning to navigate the traffic or exploit the subway system; learning to communicate in new ways, thereby overcoming the problem of constant noise; learning to hunt by electric light; learning to exploit human waste as well as human kindness. It seems that, in some cases, we're not just witnessing radical adaptability and the acquirement of new transferable skills, but accelerated evolution; the creation of bolder, brighter, brand new urban species.
All of which makes me happy and just a tiny bit hopeful for the future. I think everything that can be done to encourage and further this should be done; that we should welcome as many of our animal brethren in out of the cold as possible and allow them to enjoy the benefits of big city living.
Unbelievably - but wonderfully - we can today find wild boar in the suburbs of Berlin, boa constrictors in Miami, baboons in Cape Town, big cats in Mumbai, and birds of prey in NYC. Even the Hollywood Hills are home to their very own mountain lion.
What's amazing is the speed with which some creatures are getting the hang of things; learning to navigate the traffic or exploit the subway system; learning to communicate in new ways, thereby overcoming the problem of constant noise; learning to hunt by electric light; learning to exploit human waste as well as human kindness. It seems that, in some cases, we're not just witnessing radical adaptability and the acquirement of new transferable skills, but accelerated evolution; the creation of bolder, brighter, brand new urban species.
All of which makes me happy and just a tiny bit hopeful for the future. I think everything that can be done to encourage and further this should be done; that we should welcome as many of our animal brethren in out of the cold as possible and allow them to enjoy the benefits of big city living.
This kind of distorted vision of reality can only come from a poor disconnected city-dweller brought up in a Walt Disney fantasy world!
ReplyDeleteSure, there is the miracle of the odd pair of Peregrine Falcons perching, even nesting, on the ledge of a city centre building.
Robins may sing at midnight under artificial street lights.
But man's inhospitable concrete jungles spell doom for our disappearing hedgehogs, which are unable to wander and feed freely due to garden fences and are poisoned through use of slug pellets and insecticides. They haven't been able to adapt.
Some victims of the massive lucrative slave trade in exotic creatures may escape captivity, or are most likely thrown away. . .
Escapee parakeets are multiplying to the extent they threaten other species.
Animals from blackbirds to badgers have failed to evolve road safety skills and are massacred by motor cars in many thousands.
Councils persecute and poison pigeons.
In Cairo, for instance, stray cats and kittens are rounded up each night and murdered en masse.
Cockroaches don't think of us "generously". Who out there has ever seen one in years?
Tacky shops sell Sticky Board Mouse Traps and Rat Glue Traps (which petitions now, thankfully, seek to ban!).
Poor air quality is making cities uninhabitable for humans. Even man can't really thrive in urban environments.
It's all a beastly mess!!!