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Urban Wildlife WellBeing International WBI Studies Repository 2001 Urban Wildlife John Hadidian The Humane Society of the United States Sydney Smith The Humane Society of the United States Follow this and additional works at: https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/sota_2001 Part of the Animal Studies Commons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, and the Population Biology Commons Recommended Citation Hadidian, J., & Smith, S. (2001). Urban wildlife. In D.J. Salem & A.N. Rowan (Eds.), The state of the animals 2001 (pp. 165-182). Washington, DC: Humane Society Press. This material is brought to you for free and open access by WellBeing International. It has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the WBI Studies Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Urban Wildlife 11CHAPTER John Hadidian and Sydney Smith Introduction umans have been experiment- the population living in cities of a mil- urban ecosystems and habitats as ing with “urban living” for at lion residents or more. If projected “artificial” when compared with “nat- H least the last six millennia. trends hold true, the majority of all ural” ones found outside the human- The scope of this experiment has humans on Earth will be urbanites built environment. Of course, the been described as “massive” and “un- sometime early in the twenty-first cen- same ecological processes that affect planned” (McDonnell and Pickett tury (United Nations 1987). Urban the “natural” world “out there” affect 1990), an apt characterization of a ecosystems demand natural resources the “artificial” world of cities “in phenomenon that is also known by and raw materials far in excess of what here.” Undoubtedly, their form, rate, such terms as “sprawl” and “blight.” they can produce and thus have the and effects vary with the influence of Urbanization is both a biophysical potential to influence the global ecol- the built environment, but this may and a social phenomenon. Among its ogy. Rees (1996) defines the “ecologi- only make their study more relevant many measurable physical character- cal footprint” of the city as the area and interesting. istics are greater concentrations of required to supply raw materials, re- Indeed, urbanization may be better airborne dust, carbon dioxide, and sources, and other opportunities, understood from an ecological per- sulfur compounds and slightly higher such as recreation, for urbanites. spective than it is from a socioeco- precipitation, annual mean tempera- Direct and indirect ecosystem im- nomic one, as is much more com- ture, and ultraviolet radiation at pacts of cities, varying from air pollu- mon. That said, the consequences of ground level than is typical in sur- tion to nitrogen loading, have reached urbanization on natural communities rounding hinterlands (Trefil 1994). the point at which human influences of plants and animals remain largely Among its social consequences are now extend to the most remote and unknown and may be difficult to the inhabitants’ alienation and disas- previously pristine global reaches understand at all, given the rapidity sociation from natural environments, (Vitousek et al. 1997). with which cities and the areas they juxtaposed with attitude and value Despite the dominance of humans influence are changing. scales that indicate greater concern in the urban environment, other ani- Despite the potential for difficulty, for the protection and preservation of mals flourish there as well. It is al- there are several reasons why urban such environments and the wildlife most certain that when humans first wildlife should be valued and better that inhabit them than is the case began to aggregate in urban commu- understood. First is its scientific and among nonurbanites (Kellert 1996). nities, specific conditions were estab- heuristic value. Urban wildlife popula- While cities cover no more than 1 lished that favored certain plants and tions are essentially parts of ongoing or 2 percent of a typical habitable animals, which joined humanity in natural experiments in adaptation to land mass, they have an impact that colonizing what were, for them, pre- anthropogenic stress. How urban ani- far exceeds their physical presence. In ferred habitats. These synanthropes mals are affected by human activi- much of the world (and soon in all of have been far less studied than their ties—and how they cope with them— it), the urban populace outnumbers counterparts elsewhere, and it is can represent, on a highly accelerated the rural. Today, eight of every ten tempting to suggest that this is be- scale, a model of what is happening to Americans live in towns of fifty thou- cause those who pursue such knowl- species in other biomes. No other wild sand or more, with more than half of edge have been biased to regard animals live in such intimate contact 165 and under such constant constraint ly had not occurred (Thomas 1983). Sport Fisheries). “Man and Nature in from human activities as do synan- The subsequent heyday of natural his- the City,” held in Washington, D.C., in thropes. Second, urban animals are tory (Barber 1980) coincided with the 1968, marked the emergence of the exposed to many environmental haz- onset of the Darwinian revolution and field of urban wildlife from its previ- ards and should be considered sen- led to increasingly objective, scientific ous anonymity. It was followed in tinels on our behalf. Additionally, study of animals as well as to a height- 1974 by a symposium organized in wildlife in urban environments is ap- ened interest in and sympathy for Great Britain around the theme of parently quite important to people human impact on animals and their the place of nature in cities and (Adams 1994; Kellert 1996; Reiter et habitats. Representative of many gen- towns, and Laurie (1979) summa- al. 1999). It may be critical that these eral works arising from the increased rized the two events in a collection of coinhabitants maintain a connection interest in natural history is Ernest papers on the idea of urban green between people within the most Ingersoll’s Wild Neighbors (1899), a space. Over the next decades, a num- densely settled human developments combination of natural history, anec- ber of conferences were held (Noyes and the natural environment. Finally, dote, and scientific speculation about and Progulske 1974; Euler et al. we argue that there is an inherent common urban, as well as decidedly 1975; Stenberg and Shaw 1986; value and right for wildlife species to nonurban, species. Adams and Leedy 1987, 1991), each exist, in whatever type of environment In one of the first scientific publi- broadening the basis for the disci- they are found. Human beings have a cations on any aspect of urban wild- pline. Texts or collected works on moral obligation to recognize and ap- life, Shenstone (1912) described the urban wildlife were not so forthcom- preciate the diversity of life and cele- flora of building sites in London, ing, although Gill and Bonnett brate it by acknowledging the rights including the role of both wild and do- (1973) co-authored an early general of others. mestic animals in transporting seeds work on urban ecosystems that to various locations within the city. emphasized urban wildlife. Gilbert Probably the first comprehensive de- (1989) published a general work on Historical scription of an urban fauna is Richard the ecology of urban habitats that in- S. R. Fitter’s The Natural History of cluded much information on wildlife, Background London (1945). John Kieran’s A Nat- and Adams (1994) issued a general The formal study of urban wildlife is of ural History of New York City (1959), text on urban wildlife habitats that quite recent origin, although human is the American counterpart to Frit- went into almost immediate use in involvement with wild animals in ter’s work. The French geographer college courses in wildlife manage- cities and towns is deeply rooted in Jean Gottman (1961) devoted a ment. Platt et al. (1994) contributed history. The Roman historian Jose- chapter in his seminal description of a broad overview of the “ecological” phus, for example, in the first century the urban future, Megalopolis, to city to introduce and emphasize the A.D., mentioned the use of metal wildlife and forests, but restricted his preservation and conservation of spires on the rooftops of Jerusalem to discussion largely to the role of game urban biodiversity, thus continuing a deter birds (possibly storks) from species and the conflicts that were tradition of looking at wildlife as a nesting there. Wild animals were un- caused by the overabundance of ani- component of the larger urban doubtedly tolerated, controlled, or mals such as white-tailed deer. ecosystem. This tradition has been ignored in cities and towns for many More concerted and focused inter- even better observed in Europe, centuries without a Josephus to take est in urban wildlife arose in the late where studies of urban ecosystems note. Occasional records surface to 1960s. The first technical session (e.g., Marcuzzi 1979; Sukopp et al. detail events as well as afford us a among wildlife professionals that fo- 1995) have probably been more com- glimpse into changing social mores. cused specifically on urban wildlife prehensive, longstanding, and wide- In at least two cases, documented was organized in 1967 at the Thirty- spread than have those in the United from medieval times, efforts were second North American Fish and States, if less available. made to use the device of excommu- Wildlife Conference (Scheffey 1967). Works on urban wildlife intended nication to control unruly sparrows That session, “Farm and Urban Re- for the general public have long con- around places of worship, in the one sources,” included papers by Stuart stituted their own literary genre. In case for defecating on pews and in the Davey (1967) on the role of wildlife in the United States, these have ranged other for “scandalous unchastity” an urban environment, Forest Stearns from popular works and general nat- that occurred during the delivery of a (1967) on wildlife habitat, and Robert ural histories (Beebe 1953; Kieran sermon (Evans 1906; Ryder 1989).
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