Consider Pizza Rat.

“New York City rat taking pizza home on the subway (Pizza Rat),” the viral YouTube clip, follows the exploits of one resolute rat as it tumbles down subway steps while dragging along an entire slice of pizza.

The video’s appeal is as complicated as it is universal. Few New Yorkers — few humans — love rats. But this is one resourceful rodent, and who isn’t just a little beguiled by his determination?

Like Pizza Rat, the animals in these photographs are immediately recognizable as fellow New Yorkers — co-conspirators doing those things we’d perhaps all like to do but really shouldn’t. Who isn’t inspired to gluttony by seeing an English house sparrow surrounded by a gold mine’s worth of greasy fries? We know they’re not good for the bird, any more than they’d be good for us, but what great good fortune!

So we cheer for animals we might otherwise abhor. You might be repulsed by Rattus norwegicus, but you have to respect the hustle.

Naturalists often speak of nature persisting as cities expand. But what exactly are we calling “nature”? And what if some of this nature isn’t just persisting, but actually thriving?

Both cities and nature are ever-changing and adaptive. The nature we most often think of — the kind with tundra swans and cheetahs, sun-drenched grasslands and alpine lakes; the kind steeped in morning dew, lavish music and Sir David Attenborough’s mellifluous voice-over — belies an overlooked and equally valuable nature found in our backyards.

The photos here capture the feral cats, pigeons, and ants swarming in sidewalk cracks. But lying just beyond these urbanites, is what many find surprising: the bald eagles, red bats, fringed orchids, sensitive ferns, and coyotes that also make their homes among us. Falcons hunt over Broadway, deer cross the Bronx River, Luna moths orbit door lights, comb jellyfish fluoresce along our shorelines. Who knew?

Nature in New York City is still ecologically important. Scavengers scavenge, predators predate, decomposers decompose. Water still courses through streams and seeps into aquifers, bees still pollinate our tomato plants, and an inestimable number of raccoons and opossums thrive in perpetual gratitude for our uniquely human habit of throwing garbage into convenient dispensers lining the sidewalks.

This natural plenitude may be surprising to many city residents, nature was something you drove elsewhere to see. But until recently, it was largely ignored by naturalists as well.

Urban spaces had long been considered by researchers as environmental wastelands. At best the city was derided as a breeding ground for trouble — the port of entry for destructive insects, ground zero for an ever-increasing list of nonnative plants and animals. Its woodlands and shorelines besieged by unfamiliar new creatures establishing themselves among the remaining natives.

This slowly began to change over the past several decades, and now you could argue that humanity has never been more enthralled with the natural world. New York City bats, beetles, even whales, occupy entire Facebook pages, and tweets about rare bird sightings occupy the imaginations of thousands of New Yorkers.

Recently, a male painted bunting drew crowds in the thousands to Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Weekend whale watch excursions from the Rockaways are booked solid (dolphins and whales almost guaranteed!), and alewife herring restoration in the Bronx River has become a spectator sport.

Researchers are examining the genetics and behavior of the urban coyote, like the one spotted in Central Park last weekend. The role of whitetail deer in the ecology of urban woodlands has become an unexpected necessity, other researchers and citizen scientists study population dynamics of urban diamondback terrapins (one of the largest populations of these turtles on the entire East Coast).

Urban plant-life truly illustrates the truth behind one of the world’s oldest adages: Nature abhors a vacuum. The smallest sidewalk crack will support plants and, given enough time, animals.

Several of the animals in these photographs are captive or domesticated: a scarlet macaw jauntily riding his owner’s shoulder, a lizard visiting the beach on a leash, a lemon-yellow python slithering over asphalt. These pets are animals worth appreciating in the city, but they will hopefully never run wild.

The myth of alligators thriving in New York City’s sewers is just that, a myth. In actuality, life in the streets for lost or abandoned pets is generally short and brutal. Most will not live to see the end of their first winter. Feral cats are an exception in only one respect: Many remain effective predators, capable of killing native birds and small mammals. They become the bane of park managers and, often enough, of their human neighbors. The green-eyed cat behind the car tire, dangling its most recent catch, is testament.

Of course, our delight in these animal city dwellers doesn’t excuse foolishness. Note to New Yorkers: Do not offer your camera to passing raccoons, and don’t offer peanuts to squirrels unless you want to get bit.

As a park ranger, I cannot look at the photo of a young woman delighted by a baby armadillo without noticing how close its burrowing front claws are to her face — especially when you notice the scratches on the forearm of the man offering her the creature.

Do not, it goes without saying, step into the lion pit.

And if I can keep my park ranger hat on for a moment longer, let me say that feeding any wildlife — even wildlife on a Fifth Avenue sidewalk — is a bad idea. It does the animals no favors — not even humans have fully evolved to eat highly processed fast foods. And sooner or later, the squirrel you’ve encouraged to eat peanuts from your lap will find someone far less appreciative of this kind of rodent familiarity.

Without exception, it is best to keep sharp mammal teeth a safe distance from your fingertips. Raccoons are cute, but they do not like to be petted.

In the end, perhaps it is best to appreciate these photos as wordless parables.

A 21st-century Aesop might title a fable: “Why the Rat Dragged His Pizza Onto the 14th Street Station Platform.” The rat would offer his friend the pigeon sage advice, then dart off to find another opportunity as wonderful as the slice on the stairs.

What the moral might be remains unclear. You may have to draw your own conclusions.

Source: Read Full Article