The Accidental Ecosystem: behind the rise of urban wildlife in US cities

In a new book, Peter Alagona examines how wild animals returned to urban habitats, and why coexistence is critical"Animals that do well in cities do things that, in a lot of ways, resemble what people do." Peter Alagona, author of The Accidental Ecosystem - a new book about how wildlife make habitats out of cities - is talking about one of his favorite creatures: bears. He's explaining how, in part, they thrive in our cities because they resemble us so well. "I love bears - they're intelligent, they rear their young, they learn, they have culture. They're a lot like us."As The Accidental Ecosystem explains, bears have made a comeback from the verge of extinction in no small part because they've thrived in urban areas - a tract of land in an urban area can support 40 times as many bears as the same amount of space in the wilderness. Figuring out what to do with these bears hasn't been simple, as they've freaked out urbanites and wreaked havoc. Alagona recounts the LAPD's record of shooting them dead, and he also discusses how desperate southern Californians turned to a low-grade celebrity named Steve Searls, a so-called bear whisperer. (While Searls managed to leverage his notoriety for taming bears into his own reality TV show, he has a disappointing record on actually getting the bears to listen to him.) Alagona reports that nowhere have people done particularly well at figuring out how to address to the bear issue. Continue reading...