Urban Jungle on the Streets of New York

From coyotes in the Bronx, raccoons in Manhattan, owls in Brooklyn, and deer on Staten Island – the urban jungle of New York is also teeming with wildlife. However, the coexistence of millions of wild animals and 8.5 million people in a city known for its record-high skyscrapers, neon lights, and fast-paced life 24 hours a day is not always easy.

Although New Yorkers love animals, their affection can be tested when a coyote eats a pet, a deer ravages tomato crops, or a raccoon scatters garbage across the street.

The population of wild animals in New York has been growing for nearly 30 years, and there are now over 600 species present.

New York has 11,735 acres of parks where hunting is prohibited and there are few natural predators, said Jason Munshi-South, an assistant professor of biology at Fordham University. He has studied primates in Borneo and elephants in Gabon, and is now a wildlife expert in the American financial capital, the most populated city in North America.

He estimates that thousands of raccoons live in New York, along with several thousand deer and 50 coyotes, mostly in the Bronx, although they can sometimes be found elsewhere. When it comes to marine animals, seals are known to sunbathe on the rocks of Pelham Bay in the Bronx, and an occasional whale may surface in the waters near Queens.

Every spring, the endangered piping plover, considered a threatened species in New York and several other U.S. states, begins to arrive at Rockaway Beach to nest.

Animals are rarely to blame for problems

“Even if you haven’t seen a coyote, the coyote has seen you!” said ranger Kayla Mackey (25) to a group of workshop participants on “living with urban coyotes” in a Bronx park.

Mackey says there is no need to fear coyotes, which are hard to spot because they move quietly and at night. It is best not to approach or feed them.

“We need to teach people to coexist better with wildlife. If you don’t know that there are 2,000 deer on Staten Island and you are driving quite fast, you are likely to encounter one of them,” explains Richard Simon, director of the city’s wildlife department.

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New York established this department at the end of 2016, and since then it has implemented a sterilization program for 95 percent of the male deer population on Staten Island. Or about 1,100 animals, according to Simon’s estimate.

“When something happens, it is usually people who are to blame, not animals,” said Munshi-South. “They should mostly be left alone.”

And animals are New Yorkers too

Simon insists that “the city is big enough for both people and animals.” Sometimes, he says, people call and ask for animals to be “returned to nature.” “But we have nowhere to return them. They live here now,” he said.

If someone gets scared when they see a coyote and calls 911, the police must respond. They will try to catch it. Some have already been killed.

As part of a recent city campaign on the mass transit of animals, photographs of wildlife were released under the title “New Yorker” and people were told not to feed them.

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“There is no reason to feed a squirrel a hot dog or a pretzel,” said Simon.

Feeding can lead to animals losing their fear of people. It can also lead to bites. Some raccoons in Central Park can even become aggressive and try to steal food from passersby.

“Some people are surprised, they tell me ‘Oh, I thought we only had rats here,'” said Munshi-South.

“When we work in the parks in the summer and it gets really hot and there are a lot of mosquitoes, there isn’t really much difference compared to Borneo,” he joked.