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Sunday, October 7, 2012

Animals / City Cities Are for Animals

Posted by Brendan Kiley on Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 10:40 AM

First it was raccoons, opossums, and the occasional skunk. Then the coyotes came and started chewing up people's cats. Now, reports of bears, mountain lions, and other large mammals in urban areas are rising. As their rural habitat disappears, animals are learning to thrive in cities. LA Times:

"We used to think only little carnivores could live in cities, and even then we thought that they couldn't really achieve large numbers," said urban ecologist Stan Gehrt. "But we're finding that these animals are much more flexible than we gave them credit for and they're adjusting to our cities."

At a symposium Friday at Ohio State University in Columbus, Gehrt described his 12-year effort to track and study almost 700 coyotes living in and around urban areas, including Chicago.

By using radio transmitting collars, Gehrt and his colleagues were able to track the progress of the coyote communities and found that they were thriving amid plentiful food sources. The survival rate of coyote pups in urban areas is five times higher than those of rural pups, he said.

It makes perfect sense. Cities are all about concentrations—density of food and shelter to support larger populations in a smaller amount of space. Why shouldn't other animals get in on that action? As for catching and killing the beasts—it's not working.

"We have great data in areas where removal was done," he said. "You pull them out, and literally within just a few weeks, new coyotes moved in and set up new pack and began reproducing right away."

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I see Raccoons all over First Hill all the time at night

Posted by Gordon Werner on October 7, 2012 at 10:49 AM

Plenty of wildlife in Los Angeles, I've heard the howl of coyotes in Hollywood!

We had a possum living in the foliage over our dumpster in Santa Monica, CA.

When I lived in Venice, I found a possum crunching away at the cat food in my kitchen in the daytime when I'd left the back door open.

It hissed at me (what big fangs you have grandma!) and waddled off slowly to it's habitat, we believe, under the foliage on top of the garage.

And an owl hooting in the tree outside my window near Century City.

Posted by judybrowni on October 7, 2012 at 11:08 AM

When I lived on Mercer Island we had an abundance of eagles and owls. I'm thinking all the mice and rats that people attract make plump meals.

Posted by Pope Peabrain on October 7, 2012 at 11:23 AM

Time to work on domesticating mountain lions. Here kitty kitty!! Now kill that Pit Bull!!

Posted by Last of the Time Lords on October 7, 2012 at 11:57 AM

Over the next several million years (aka the Early Anthropocene), new species will evolve to best fit the biological niches available in cities, and whole new urban ecosystems will develop. Eventually, they will be as rich and bio-diverse as forests. Humans are the new trees.

Posted by I have always been... east coaster on October 7, 2012 at 1:02 PM

This line of thinking and accompanying anecdotes are often used as an excuse or justification of sprawl and over-consumptive expansion. We need to protect wild places and support conservation, not to embrace the "anthropocene" as just another mundane inevitability. Just because wild animals can "get in on that action," doesn't mean they should and doesn't mean we can just do what we want and assume that what @5 says will happen. Most likely it will not.

Posted by environmentalistkilljoy on October 7, 2012 at 1:27 PM

The belief that humans (or human civilization as we understand it) will continue to exist "for the next several million years" is an antrocentric fantasy. I would be astonished if we make it another hundred without massive population collapse. Ask pretty much any environmental biologist and you'll get the same answer: over-population, water scarcity, the collapse of monoculture food stocks, competition for rapidly diminishing resources. If for some reason intelligent life were to land on Earth "in several million years" the only evidence of our legacy will be our garbage - strange deposits of slowly decaying nuclear waste and plastics.

Posted by zivilisierter Wurm

on October 7, 2012 at 2:19 PM

If I wanted to observe urban animals, I'd pull a chair up across the street from Mudede's house.

Posted by Stranger'sWorstNightmare on October 7, 2012 at 3:48 PM

If I want to observe an idiot, I just read Stranger'sWorstNightmare's emails.

Posted by Patricia Kayden on October 7, 2012 at 6:09 PM

It's sad that SWNs self loathing manifests itself as trolling instead of suicide like it should.

Posted by mubhappy on October 7, 2012 at 8:07 PM

Friend of mine went for a balloon ride today and saw five moose just outside of our small Canadian city.

Then again, we live in a small Canadian city. Our moose sometimes run for political office.

Posted by Puty on October 7, 2012 at 9:31 PM

I was in Queen Anne a few weeks back and ran into a raccoon that I swear was the size of a border collie. The funny thing was that he was apparently so used to running across people that he didn't seem started when we spotted each other. His reaction seemed like an "Oops, wrong room" sort of about-face, and we both went on our way.

Posted by Knat on October 7, 2012 at 9:47 PM