Urban wildlife
Urban wildlife is
Some urban wildlife, such as
Urban wildlife can be found at any latitude that supports human dwellings - the list of animals that will venture into
.Different types of urban areas support different kinds of wildlife. One general feature of
Evolution
Urban environments can exert novel
Animals that inhabit urban environments have differences in morphology, physiology and behavior when compared to animals that inhabit less urbanized areas.[8] Hormone-mediated maternal effects are capable mechanisms of offspring phenotypic developmental modification.[8] For instance, when female birds deposit androgens into their eggs, this affects many diverse aspects of offspring development and phenotype.[8] Environmental factors that can influence the concentration of androgens in avian eggs include nest predation risk, breeding density, food abundance and parasite prevalence, all factors of which differ between urban and natural habitats.[8] In a study that compared antibody and maternal hormone concentrations in eggs between an urban population and a forest population of European blackbirds, there were found to be clear differences in yolk androgen concentrations between the two populations. Although these differences cannot be attributed definitively (more studies have to be performed), they might result from different environments causing females to plastically adjust yolk androgens.[8] Different yolk androgen levels are likely to program offspring phenotype.[8]
Wildlife species that inhabit urban areas often experience shifts in food and resource availability.[10] Some species, at times, must resort to human handouts or even human refuse as a source of food.[10] One animal notorious for relying on such means for nutritional intake is the American white ibis.[10] In a study that tested physiological challenge, the innate and adaptive immunity of two groups of white ibis (both consisting of 10 white ibis nurtured in captivity), one group being fed a simulated anthropogenic diet and the other being fed a natural ibis diet, it was determined that the wildlife consumption of a diet with anthropogenic components (such as white bread) may be detrimental to a species’ ability to battle bacterial pathogens.[10]
Human–wildlife conflict
While urban areas tend to decrease the overall
Benefits of human–wildlife interactions
While negative human-wildlife conflicts can be damaging to the physical health of humans or property, human-wildlife interactions can be extremely beneficial in terms ecosystem health and cultural experiences.The presence of native species allows systems and food chains to function in a healthy way, providing ecosystem services to the humans living around these areas. These services include the provisioning of food and water, flood control, cultural services, and nutrient cycling.[11] Due to those perceived benefits urban rewilding is now an active movement.[15]
Costs of conflict
The most direct impacts of human-wildlife conflict include loss of livelihood due to property damage, loss of possessions due to property damage, injury, or transmission of disease from wildlife to humans.[11] After the direct impacts of conflict, however, the people facing human-wildlife conflict are left with long-term issues including opportunity costs and long-term fear of wildlife.[13]
Conflicts between human and wildlife are most likely to occur in areas intermediate between rural and entirely urban landscapes, and these interactions are most likely to involve species with broad diets able to live in areas with high populations. Some areas are subject to more extreme conflicts between humans and wildlife, such as in Mozambique and Namibia, where more than 100 people are killed each year by crocodiles. In Asia and Africa, many communities are also subject to 10-15% loss of agricultural output to elephants.[16] Disease transmission is also significant in cases of human-wildlife conflict, where sprawling cities can expand into environments that increase exposure to hosts of vector-borne diseases, causing large outbreaks in cities with greater density of people.[11] Modern examples of disease outbreaks from wildlife include the H5N1 virus (originating from and spread via birds) and SARS-CoV-2 (likely originated as a bat virome before jumping species).[17][18] With the latter causing the COVID-19 pandemic that wrought significant global economic, political, and sociological turmoil within one year from its outbreak.
Conflict management
At the center of human-wildlife conflicts in urban areas are social attitudes towards wildlife encounters.[13][16] A certain community's perception of risk of wildlife encounter greatly impacts their attitude towards wildlife, particularly in situations where livelihoods or safety are at risk.[13] Many cutting-edge wildlife conflict management proposals include education programs to inform the public of both the risks and benefits of interacting with urban wildlife, and how to prevent hysteria and future negative encounters.[11][19] Furthermore, conflict management includes addressing the hidden impacts of wildlife conflict, such as the disruption psychosocial wellbeing, disruption of livelihood and food sources, and food insecurity.[16]
Broadly distributed
Some urban species have a cosmopolitan (i.e. nonselective) distribution, in some cases almost global. They include
Africa
As Africa becomes increasingly urbanized, native animals are exposed to this new environment with the potential of uniquely African urban ecologies developing. In the Cape Town urban area in South Africa, there is increasing conflict between human development and nearby populations of Chacma baboons due to baboons growing dependence on tourists and the urban environment as sources of food.[27] Elsewhere in Africa, vervet monkeys as well as baboons adapt to urbanization, and similarly enter houses and gardens for food. African penguins are also known to invade urban areas, searching for food and a safe place to breed, even nesting inside storm drains. Simon's Town, next to the popular Boulders Beach had to take action to restrict penguin movement due to the noise and damage they caused.[28] There are reports of leopards roaming suburban areas in cities such as Nairobi, Kenya and Windhoek, Namibia.[citation needed] Reptiles like the house gecko (Hemidactylus) can be found in houses. Artificial wetness brought about by swimming pools and watered lawns alongside supplementary feeding has made urban areas conducive for waterbirds such as African woolly-necked storks and hadeda ibis in South Africa.[29][30]
Australia and New Guinea
Urban areas in Australia are a particularly fruitful habitat type for many wildlife species. Australian cities are hotspots for threatened species diversity and have been shown to support more threatened animal and plant species on a per unit-area basis than all other non-urban habitat types.[31] An analysis of urban sensitive bird species (birds that are easily disturbed and displaced) found that revegetation was effective at encouraging birds back into urban greenspaces, but also found that weed control was not. Invasive plant species such as Lantana (L. camara) actually provides refuge for some bird species such as the superb fairywren (Malurus cyaneus) and silvereye (Zosterops lateralis), in the absence of native plant equivalents.[32]
Some species of native animals on Australia, such as various bird species including the
Japan
Although culled aggressively in most of Japan for being a pest, the
Hawaii
The urban birdlife of Hawaii is dominated by introduced species, with native species largely remaining only in preserved areas.[42]
New Zealand
The birdlife in the most urban parts of New Zealand is dominated by introduced species, with bush fragments in the less urbanized areas allowing native species to cohabit.[43][44]
India
In parts of
Persisting green patches have helped retain over 100 bird species in the mega-city Delhi, which is the capital city of India.[47] Also in Delhi, ponds (wetlands < 5 ha) have been invaluable to support a very diverse bird community helped partly by management interventions that included islands and greening around the wetlands to make the wetlands attractive for people.[48] Ponds constituted 0.5% of the land area of Delhi but supported 37% of all bird species ever documented in the city suggesting that even highly populated cities like Delhi can be important bird refugia if small habitat patches are retained.
A large number of waterbirds nest on trees in Indian cities benefitting from people's positive attitudes towards the birds despite the noise and smell around such breeding sites. The Painted Storks Mycteria leucocephala breeding colonies in the Delhi zoo have been studied for over three decades.[49] Small cities in India frequently retain substantial green cover enabling nesting of large numbers of waterbirds especially the common, widespread species of egrets like the Cattle Egrets Bubulcus ibis and Little Egrets Egretta garzetta.[50] Small cities with artificial wetlands can support substantial numbers of a diverse community of roosting and nesting waterbirds, like in Udaipur city, Rajasthan where kinds constructed large lakes to help cool the city during summers.[51] Waterbird species nesting in Udaipur city include several herons (Indian Pond Heron Ardeola grayii, Cattle Egret), storks (Asian Openbill Anastomus oscitans) and ibises (Red-naped Ibis Pseudibis papillosa). In Pune city, bird diversity is being negatively impacted by the spread of the exotic invasive tree Prosopis juliflora.[52]
Europe
Many towns in the United Kingdom have Urban Wildlife Groups that work to preserve and encourage urban wildlife. One example is Oxford.[53]
Outside
Urban areas range from fully urban – areas having little green space and mostly covered by paving, tarmac, or buildings – to suburban areas with gardens and parks.
In the United Kingdom, improvements in water quality in urban areas have coincided with reintroduction and conservation projects for the Eurasian otter, resulting in frequent sightings of these animals in urban and suburban environments. Otters have been recorded in settlements of a variety of sizes, ranging from large towns and small cities such as Andover, Inverness and Exeter, to major cities such as London, Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh.[55]
From a study conducted on
The advent of these animals has also drawn a predator, as
In some cases even large animals have been found living in cities.
Inside houses
Numerous animals can also live within buildings. Insects that sometimes inhabit buildings include various species of small
North America
Many North American species have successfully adapted to urban and
Red-tailed hawks are a common sight in urban areas, with individuals such as Pale Male being documented nesting and raising chicks in New York City since at least the 1990s.
The American alligator, a once-threatened species that was saved from extinction through farming and conservation, can frequently be found in the southern United States living in open areas with access to water, such as golf courses and parks, in its native range.[65][66]
These animals living in urban areas usually come into conflict with humans, as some of them will open garbage bags in search of food, eat food left out for pets, prey on unattended pets, feed on prized garden plants, dig up lawns or become traffic hazards when they run out into the road. There are media accounts of alligators being found in sewer pipes and storm drains, but so-called "
In 2009, a large blobby mass made of colonies of
Animals known to dwell within human habitations in the US include house centipedes (Scutigera coleoptrata), and firebrats.[69]
South America
Marmosets can be found living wild in city parks in Brazil.[70] Urban-dwelling marmosets tend to return more often to the same sleeping sites than jungle-dwelling marmosets. Urban-dwelling marmosets tend to prefer to sleep in tall trees with high first branches and smooth bark. It has been suggested they do this to avoid cats.[70] Human-wildlife conflicts in urban areas are increasing in several South American countries, with species that include jaguar, puma, capybara, and wild boars.[71] Urban expansion has led to a novel and underreported challenge to wildlife - increase in the demand for wild meat that includes several taxa such as birds, turtles, small mammals, and caimans.[72]
See also
References
- PMID 24523278.
- ^ Davies, Ella (2011-04-27). "Adaptable urban birds have bigger brains". BBC News. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
- ^ "Evolution in the urban jungle". The Oyster's Garter. 2008-03-12. Archived from the original on 2010-12-03. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
- PMID 18316722.
- ^ "The urban evolution lab". New Scientist. April 19, 2006. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
- S2CID 4348883.
- ^ Zukerman, Wendy (2011-01-07). "Hipster bird species evolving to tune out urban sounds". New Scientist. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
- ^ PMID 32128150.
- ^ PMID 33072278.
- ^ PMID 32788990.
- ^ S2CID 143017362.
- ISSN 0169-2046.
- ^ S2CID 83361010.
- ^ Howell, Robert G. (1982-02-23). "THE URBAN COYOTE PROBLEM IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY". Proceedings of the Tenth Vertebrate Pest Conference (1982).
- ^ Song, Faye. "Rewilding Cities: Why it's needed and how you can help". Mossy Earth. Retrieved 4 December 2022.
- ^ ISSN 0006-3207.
- ^ International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (2002). "46.0.1. Influenzavirus A". Archived from the original on 2004-12-07. Retrieved 2006-04-17.
- PMID 33116300.
- ISSN 0964-8305.
- ISBN 978-0-412-16140-7.
- University of Hawaii. Retrieved 2009-11-27.
- ^ Ballenger, L (1999). "Mus musculus". Animal Diversity Web. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
- S2CID 67790305.
- . Retrieved 16 March 2022.
- . Retrieved 19 February 2022.
- ^ "Species profile: Felis catus". Global Invasive Species Database. 15 September 2010. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
- ^ Cruise, Adam (22 April 2016). "Is This the End For South Africa's Famed Urban Baboons?". National Geographic. Archived from the original on April 23, 2016. Retrieved 25 November 2016.
- ^ "The African Penguin". simonstown.com. Retrieved 2008-11-19.
- ISSN 1573-1642.
- ISSN 1573-1642.
- S2CID 85803852.
- PMID 28649333.
- ^ "Birds in Backyards: Top 30 Urban Birds". Australian Museum. 30 October 2015. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
- ISSN 1035-3712.
- S2CID 257705788.
- ^ Dennis, Andrew J. (2023). "National Recovery Plan for the Southern Cassowary Casuarius casuarius johnsonii" (PDF). Canberra: Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water: 19.
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires|journal=
(help) - .
- S2CID 18709635.
- Wired. Retrieved 27 November 2016.
- ^ Higuchi, Hiroyoshi (2014). Natural History of Japanese Birds (PDF). Tokyo: Heibonsha.
- PMID 32406975.
- ^ "Wildlife". Department of Land and Natural Resources, Hawai‘i. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
- .
- ^ "Identifying New Zealand Birds". New Zealand Backyard Birds. Retrieved 27 November 2016.
- ^ Sears, Stephanie. "Mumbai Leopards: Killers or Victims?". Wildlife Extra News. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
- .
- .
- .
- Springer Link.
- .
- doi:10.1007/s11252-023-01454-5.)
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: bibcode (link - .
- ^ "OUWG". Oxford Urban Wildlife Group. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
- ^ Kelbie, Paul (2003-05-20). "Gulls adapt to urban life in search for top pickings". The Independent. London. Retrieved 2010-05-27.
- ^ "Otters are making themselves at home in UK cities". www.nhm.ac.uk. Retrieved 2022-07-26.
- ^ Connor, Steve (2006-12-05). "How city birds adapt to life in the fast lane". The Independent. London. Retrieved 2010-05-27.
- ^ Cutraro, Jennifer (4 December 2006). "City Bird, Country Bird". Science. Retrieved 2022-12-16.
- ^ Unwin, Brian (2008-02-06). "Peregrine falcon adapting to urban lifestyle". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on February 8, 2008. Retrieved 2010-05-27.
- ^ Foxes Archived February 24, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Fox lived in the Shard skyscraper at London Bridge". BBC News. 2011-02-24.
- ^ "Berlin suffers wild boar invasion". BBC News. 2011-05-01.
- ^ Williams, Huw (2011-07-12). "My heart's in the High Street a'chasing the deer". BBC News. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
- ^ "Thames Marine Mammal Conservation". Zoological Society of London (ZSL). Retrieved 2022-10-17.
- ^ "10 of the bugs and insects that will be living in your house this winter". Irish Examiner. 20 November 2015. Retrieved 27 November 2016.
- ^ AR Woodward & DN David. "Alligators". The Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management. Retrieved 27 November 2016.
- ^ "American Alligator". The National Wildlife Federation. National Wildlife Federation. Retrieved 27 November 2016.
- Minot. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
- ^ "Sewer creature mystery solved". Wired. July 2009.
- ^ [1] Archived March 10, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b Davies, Ella (2010-12-28). "Urban marmosets avoid pet threat". BBC News.
- ISSN 1087-1209.
- ISSN 1755-263X.
External links
- Wild in the City, a National Film Board of Canada documentary on urban wildlife in Vancouver
- Luniak, Maciej (2004). Synurbization—adaptation of animal wildlife to urban development (PDF). The 4th International Symposium On Urban Wildlife Conservation. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.122.3057.