Wildlife In Citygarden
Not sure why I’m surprised to see wildlife in the city, but I always am. Citygarden has the large white rabbit sculptures but the other night we saw a little bunny.
What wildlife have you seen in your city yard or city park that surprised you?
— Steve Patterson
There are foxes and deer in city parks. Huge hawks soar high in neighborhood skies and perch on church steeples.
Our neighbor had a bunch of turtles in her yard that would emerge from hibernation very spring. She painted numbers of their shells with nail polish so she could keep track of which ones came back each year. She also fed wild birds by hand out her kitchen window. Our landscaping is teeming with little mammals. Look down into the vegetation and you see hordes of field mice running wild. Always a yard full of squirrels and rabbits and sometimes possum.
This spring, our dog brought a possum pup into our house. We found it sitting on the floor between the kitchen and the dining room. We wondered why it looked like there was a little poop in the dog’s water dish. After some commotion, we caught it in the jaws of a five-foot antique confectionary claw grabber and returned it to the outdoors without further incident. Good thing we have a dog.
we live in marine villa. we of course have lots of squirrels and occasional rabbits. We have opossums from time to time, one got in the house one time, and a week ago one took up resident inside my bbq grill. we had a raccoon once; i had put some shrimp shells in my compost bin that I think he was interested in. I’ve seen an entire family of racoons scurry into the basement of the little cottage on lemp (the one possibly associated with the underground railroad). along the riverfront when riding my bike behind the flood wall i’ve seen wild turkey. I see hawks frequently in carondelet park, and had one hang out in my back yard eating a mouse one time. And i haven’t seen it, but i’ve heard there are deer and foxes in carondelet park as well.
I just love wildlife in the City. I hear tell there are deer in Forest Park and a Coyote. By Tower Grove Park, there are the usual squirrels and rabbits and we’ve been visited by chickens, frogs, opossum, raccoon, mice, rats (rare thank god), red tail hawk, peregrine falcon, white egret, red tail fox, snakes. The deer and foxes follow the rail tracks up from the river.
We have some friends that live out by Fenton that complain about the coons and deer eating their plants. It’s like, Seriously? they were there first before you built your home!
It’s a shame that some people don’t appreciate beauty of the natural world around them.
I saw a beautiful very large butterfly today in City Garden. I know City Garden purposely plants to attract butterflies, and it works.
I’m not sure a rabbit qualifies as wildlife, but the idea that wildlife should be part of the urban environment is right on. Ultimately we are an agricultural society, like it or not. I have always felt when we begin to find snakes on a regular basis then we will have begun to reclaim the city for wildlife. Of course the whole other aspect of this is to reclaim the city for human beings, we are just about as far from that goal as the we are making the city wildlife friendly.
If it doesn’t live in the house, it’s wildlife!
I agree….when we have deer visible on a regular basis in Forest, Tower, and Corandolet Parks as well as coyotes and snakes…then we’ve made progress.
Moe of course you are right, an animal that doesn’t live in a house equals wildlife, I think I was just trying to saying that rabbits are so prevalent that they hardly qualify as wildlife. That being said I have to agree about the coyotes and snakes are real progress,but still my focus is making the city people friendly, we’ve covered he snakes and coyotes, but don’t you agree the animal most out of the loop are humans?
Yes GM I do….it’s amazing that one can see the squirrels and hawks living in harmony yet humans somehow have the need to cause violence upon one another.
(yes, I know a hawk will eat a squirrel, but it does that out of hunger and not because it’s angry at the squirrel for drinking that last beer)
But at least we’re still better than the County…things are getting so bad in Town and Country and Oakville that they don’t even want seniors around!
Not true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_killing
Wiki is not a true source of information. Many in academia will not allow it’s use. But since you want to argue, from your article:
“In surplus killing predators eat only the most-preferred animals and animal parts. Bears engaging in surplus killing of salmon are likelier to eat unspawned fish because of their higher muscle quality, and high-energy parts such as brains and eggs.[3]
Surplus killing can deplete the overall food supply, waste predator energy and risk them being injured. Nonetheless, researchers say animals surplus kill whenever they can, in order to procure food for offspring and others, to gain valuable killing experience, and to create the opportunity to eat the carcass later when they are hungry again”
So this isn’t killing someone over a beer, this actually is useful.
Academia has embraced Wikipedia, including editing entries. See the National Communication Association blog post on Wikipedia: http://ncablog.org/2013/04/29/embracing-wikipedia-2/
Not to split hairs, but no they don’t. The reference you site is a communications association. and the first words are : Professors hate it.
Here is a source: http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/education/2010/march/The-Top-10-Reasons-Students-Cannot-Cite-or-Rely-on-Wikipedia.html
The professional association for communications professors! It was written by a PhD, a former tenured professor now working for the association. I know because we’ve been friends for about 25 years now.
Who wants to bet neither San Francisco nor New York City can claim these sorts of urban wildlife habitats?
Of course they have wildlife as well.
A most interesting book: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92286063
Also, I believe a few years ago coyotes and foxes were spotted as well.
Do rats, feral cats, roaming packs of dogs and cockroaches qualify as wildlife?
I have lived in TGE for 15 years. this past year I have seen so many rabbits. we even had some in our yard and we have 2 dogs. I attribute the increase to the success of removing stray dogs and cats. I rarely see stray dogs anymore and the kitty population is way down. hats off to stray rescue and tenth life kitty rescue among others. we have hawks and bats from Tower Grove Park also.
You could always spot hawks flying around our neighborhood. Once, I walked out to my backyard and spooked a hawk that was using our garden box to pick apart a pigeon. Feathers everywhere, but I was thrilled to see it in the city.
We were also able to attract Monarch butterflies and humming birds by planting native wildflower gardens in our city yard.
At night, we could see bats flying around our block.