The accidental ecosystem People and wildlife in American cities

The fields of urban ecology and urban wildlife have existed for many decades. Existing resources include a scientific journal, a book on urban wildlife management now in its third edition, another book on urban wildlife habitats that has been on the shelf for nearly 30 years, and a national institute for the study of urban wildlife that was established nearly 50 years ago. Despite this history, Alagona (Univ. of California, Santa Barbara) presents his book as if it were novel and groundbreaking. This is not a scholarly work; the target audience appears to be laypeople rather than academics. The book's later chapters--covering wildlife damage management, wildlife rehabilitation, and human-wildlife conflicts--are the best. Many of the earlier chapters, however, have significant flaws, including gross misrepresentations of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation and The Wildlife Society (TWS), which has an urban wildlife working group the author fails to mention. The author provides no references for the former, and the reference for the latter has little to do with TWS. Other major omissions--such as the loss of grasslands subsequent to the replacement of horses in cities with cars and the resulting impact on wildlife--are notable. This book would not be useful for university coursework. Summing Up: Not recommended. --John F. Organ, emeritus, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Historian Alagona (After the Grizzly) skillfully demonstrates how America's cities have become "weird wildlife refuges," in this hopeful account. He sets the stage by describing animal life in cities in times past: many metropolises were founded on sites of biological richness, but as cities grew, wildlife populations declined. But in the past few decades, that's changed, and cities have become places with rich ecosystems that have fostered an "explosion of wildlife": there's Pedals, New Jersey's suburban black bear, who captured townspeople's, and the internet's, hearts in 2014--2016; Los Angeles's P-22 puma, who made an unlikely trek through Santa Monica around 2011; and Chicago's coyote 748, who in 2014 began attacking neighborhood dogs after he became a father. Time and again, Alagona argues that people must learn to live with wildlife: "The truth is that coexisting with wildlife... is hard work," but such effort comes with extensive benefits: If humans take care of the "neediest and most vulnerable among us," he writes, "then someday we may all live in... more sustainable communities defined by diversity and coexistence." Fans of Mary Roach's Fuzz will want to give this a look. (Apr.)