Urban Animalia

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or in this case, the early chunky monkey gets the worm.
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Often, because of my illness, I prowl the house in the wee hours of the morning. Sometimes, after a good nights sleep on the other hand, like today, I just wake up early.
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Because of this, I'm usually sitting in my recliner, looking out the back door, into the trees. This morning, as I started to sit down, I noticed a small dog in the backyard. WAIT, it's NOT a dog, it's a gray fox. And he is fat and well fed too.
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Since I've moved in here (zoom in to see how close to the street I really sit, about 50 feet to a 4 lane road) some 4 1/2 years ago, here's a short tally of the animals we've seen.
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bird species to numerous to count, but including
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Hawks - 3
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Owls - 2
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Deer - 5
(a small herd LIVES in the creek, 400 yds from here)
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Possums - like the birds, WAY too many to count
( a big juvenile LIVES under my concrete porch)
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Raccoons - 5
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Coyote - 2
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the creek is full of small fish, crawdads, fresh water mussels, etc.
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I hear from friends, family and others all the time about this happening in their neighborhoods too. I lived in this same apt complex in the 1970's when I first moved to NC. The road in front of my building was just two lanes. There were about 50 % less houses, apts, ROADS, and obviously, many fewer people 40 odd years ago. But even though we spent significant time in the now removed for progress woods, we never saw animals like this. We played in that creek and never saw a fish.
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A mile from here is Lake Johnson. It's part of the city water supply system. When I was a kid, there were boats to rent and cheap fishing gear. The only thing you could catch there was a cold and the occasional carp or catfish. There were NO water fowl.
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My grandkids call that same Lake, "the duck park".
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There are a couple hundred ducks of various species, Canada Geese, and a dozen or more domestic geese gone feral down there. We regularly see people pull crappie, bass and BIG catfish out of there, but the place has never been stocked.
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The point I attempt to make is this. Well, first let me ask, did you see the original "Jurrasic Park"? Jeff Goldblum's character, Ian Malcolm, has a great line when Richard Attenborough says the park is safe, that the animals are controlled and they can't reproduce...they're all female! Ian Malcolm tells him simply,
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"...nature will not be denied!"
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It certainly seems so to me. I have personal experience, within a few miles of this building, over a 40 year period, to see species of animals that WERE NOT here when I was a boy. My wife has spent parts of FIFTY years in this same general neighborhood, she says they never saw animals like this when she first moved here. Back to my point.
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I do believe that man has hunted to extinction some species. For fur, food or feather, we have decimated some species and I think it was wrong. We are supposed to stewards over the earth, not destroyers. But it seems to me, that Malcolm is right. Nature is vital, vibrant and vicious. If given a toe hold, animals will find a niche.
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The modern take on the earth, as expressed by the hand-wringers, is that life is static, or should be. HUH? If that was the case, there would still be dinosaurs. But for whatever reason, they are gone! Man is part of nature, not separate from it. We are the top of the food chain, but we've made mistakes. The lower animals are able though, to make comebacks. I've seen it, this morning, ten feet from my patio, eating MOLDY POUND CAKE that I threw out for the birds.
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The birds lose, the fox won, what's more natural than that, in nature. Opportunism and survival of the fittest. Nature. It's still happening, 24 / 7, 365, even IF we don't see it daily.
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I wish I'd put a hunting camera out there, God only knows what I've MISSED!
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Schteveo



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