Feral Cities: Adventures with Animals in the Urban Jungle

Feral Cities: Adventures with Animals in the Urban Jungle

We tend to think of cities as a realm apart, somehow separate from nature, but nothing could be further from the truth. In Feral Cities , Tristan Donovan digs below the urban gloss to uncover the wild creatures that we share our streets and homes with, and profiles the brave and fascinating people who try to manage them. Along the way readers will meet the wall-eating snails that are invading Miami, the boars that roam Berlin, and the monkey gangs of Cape Town. From feral chickens and carpet-roaming bugs to coyotes hanging out in sandwich shops and birds crashing into skyscrapers, Feral Cities takes readers on a journey through streets and neighborhoods that are far more alive than we often realize, shows how animals are adjusting to urban living, and asks what messages the wildlife in our metropolises have for us. “An entertaining jaunt through city wildlife.” — Kirkus Reviews “Donovan not only shows readers how territorial boundaries between humans and wild animals constantly shift, but also how such encounters with birds, coyotes, and snakes should come as no great surprise.” — Publishers Weekly “Surprising, entertaining, sometimes frightening, Donovan's worldwide exploration of urban wildlife will be enjoyed by all types of readers including young adults, animal lovers, and those interested in ecology.” — Library Journal “In  Feral Cities , journalist Tristan Donovan explores the conflict zone of cities and wild animals, and he seems to have a good time doing it.” — Science News “Donovan entertainingly exposes ecological experiments gone hopelessly awry and offers thoughtful input on how such tipping points can be avoided in the future.” — Booklist “Even those of us who have intensely studied urban wildlife for decades can learn a bit from some of Donovan’s many sources, and Donovan can be praised for drawing out nuggets of information and perspective from sources who by reputation tend to be reticent.” —Animals 24-7 “ This interdisciplinary understanding of the issue is certainly apparent in the excellent  Feral Cities . Although not an analytical, scientific text, the book provides a unique look into the lives of both urban wildlife and its human counterpart. For anyone interested in any of the many aspects of urban wildlife,  Feral Cities  will be a vastly entertaining read.” —The Nature of Cities "Wild creatures are having a people problem these days, and Donovan takes us on a global frolic to find all sorts of untamed critters and de-natured people cohabiting badly." —Jim Sterba, author of Nature Wars and Frankie's Place  Tristan Donovan is the author of two widely praised books, Replay: The History of Video Games and Fizz: How Soda Shook Up the World . His journalism has appeared in many major newspapers, magazines, and websites. He has a degree in ecology. Feral Cities Adventures with Animals in the Urban Jungle By Tristan Donovan, Tom Homewood Chicago Review Press Copyright © 2015 Tristan Donovan All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-56976-067-3 Contents 1 Hot Tub Snakes On the Trail of Rattlesnakes in Phoenix, XX, 2 Voodoo Chickens Miami's Chicken, Snail, and Snake Invasions, XX, 3 The Great Sparrow Mystery Fighting Starlings in Indianapolis and Saving Sparrows, XX, 4 Street Hunters Living with Boars and Raccoons in Berlin, XXX, 5 Romancing Coyotes Looking for Coyotes in Chicago and Los Angeles, XXX, 6 Thieves in the Temple Monkey Trouble in Cape Town and Delhi, XXX, 7 The Lion of Hollywood Tracking Leopards in Mumbai and L.A.'s Cougar, XXX, 8 Singing a Different Song Hanging Out with the Parrots of Brooklyn, XXX, 9 The Chicago Bird Massacre Saving Migratory Birds in Downtown Chicago, XXX, 10 Suburbia Crawling Bug Hunting in Raleigh Homes, XXX, 11 Tunnels of the Bloodsuckers The Rats and Mosquitoes Lurking Under London, XXX, 12 West Side Roaches NYC Cockroach Investigations and Bakersfield Kit Foxes, XXX, Acknowledgments, XXX, References, XXX, Index, XXX, CHAPTER 1 HOT TUB SNAKES On the Trail of Rattlesnakes in Phoenix Bryan Hughes lives a double life. Much of the time he is a mild-mannered web designer, tinkering with computer code and honing the look and feel of websites. But there's another Bryan, one his IT colleagues are only dimly aware of: Bryan, the rattlesnake catcher of Phoenix, Arizona. "I don't tell anybody in my tech life what I do with the snakes, really," Bryan tells me as we drive down Piestewa Freeway. "I'd rather not have people think I'm weird or something. There was a snake in the parking lot at work one day, so I went and caught it. All my coworkers' jaws were wide open. They had no idea. They thought I was going to die." We've been driving the highways of Phoenix for a few hours now, circling the fast-growing city's patchwork of sprawling new developments and oven-hot Sonoran Desert, where columns of tall saguaro cacti reach into the sky like spindly fingers. From the back of Bryan's truck comes the sound o