Coyotes, feral dogs, raccoons, foxes and other critters - it's wild out there

A perspective on how we pushed out the wilderness, built cities and then invited all the critters back without knowing it.

We often think of our urban or suburban neighborhoods as places that have pretty much been without wildlife since we built and subdivided these areas 50 to 100 years ago. Once open space and farmland it's now organized rows of homes, streets, landscaping and pavement. Few in our communities have noticed the changes we brought with us unknowingly. We often think of our world and surroundings as the way "it should be" since we developed it and tailored this world to our human needs, even if we are the newcomers. Little did we notice we invited a few new friends.

We aren't really in charge of how nature shows up

Unintentionally we've been shaping the ecology around our neighborhoods and cities all the time.

Cities in the 19th century frequently had feral dogs and cats roaming the back alley's and streets as a byproduct of our our food waste and general density of resources for critters to survive on. The evolution of the dog catcher really came about because of the fear of rabies and other dog born diseases at this time. Pets were a luxury and many dogs and cats were just by products of too much reproduction and not enough owners.

Raccoons only became an urban phenomenon beginning in the late twentieth century. Up until that time there were still some feral dog populations in most cities. As the theory goes, feral dogs took up a niche in the urban ecosystem. That is, there was always a group of stray dogs that literally lived on the streets and alleys or behind houses. These dogs and the feral cats controlled the rat populations, ate garbage and did just about everything the raccoons now do. We finally removed or adopted most of these animals from our streets so the vast majority of feral dogs were gone by the 1980’s. This is when raccoons gradually started migrating into our cities through storm drains, side streets in the dark of night. They also brought along their pals possums and skunks and now grey foxes which you also may notice in your neighborhood.

Where did the coyotes come in? Already coyotes where expanding their turf throughout the twentieth century in North America in spite of eradication programs in the West through the 19th and early 20th century. They filled in where other predators such as wolves and bears where eradicated. This opened up opportunities for small numbers of coyotes to expand all the way to the East Coast and the suburbs of New York City and now Central Park. Originally mostly in the West and Southwest of the United States and northern Mexico now coyotes are in every state in the US accept Hawaii and every major city including New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Miami.

Wild animals live within our "ecosystem" because we invited them

Coyotes where expanding their turf throughout the twentieth century in spite of eradication programs because of how we've managed the landscape and habitat for our own interests...

So what happens is these critters just kind of fill in where they can, a kind of natural ecology of opportunity and survival.

In this category of "wild urban life" very latest arrivals include the California Grey Fox, at least in the urban areas of the Bay Area and yes, turkeys, which are not native and were brought here in the 1930's for hunting believe it or not. With the increase in urban chicken farming our foxy friends and their avionic buddies, chicken hawks also known as Coopers Hawks are flourishing in the East Bay. I've seen several nesting pairs of hawks in the tall redwoods in North Berkeley and Albany. They usually can bee seen and heard in the late spring during their nesting cycles. They are again, totally opportunists looking for tasty foods like your neighbors chickens, a squire or that rat.

Even though most of us think of ourselves as environmentalists, we tend not to understand how we shape our world through our behavior and patterns. Along with all the other critters around us we are part of the same systems and what we do just keeps shaping the landscape for us and wild animals in opportunistic ways and the wild critters find their place (whether we like it or not). Our understanding of what's around us really needs to grow.

We need a new way of thinking about ecological systems– we're not separate from all the other critters– we're part of their system

We often think of our world and surroundings as the way "it should be" even if we are the newcomers.

What’s next? bobcats? They have made a remarkable come back in Tilden Park in the hills above Berkeley. Only 20 years ago there were virtually no sitings of bobcats.I don’t know if they will in the more densely populated areas. They need a lot of room to define their territories and really good hiding places so I'm not sure they will be spreading through urban landscape.

Now one thing I've not mentioned is our grey squirrels. Believe it or not they are not native to our cities and were introduced by someone in the nineteenth century to our urban parks. There's an awesome story and I highly recommend listing to Roman Mars and his podcast 99% Invisible to hear this one.