{"id":4612,"date":"2026-07-13T01:01:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T20:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=4612"},"modified":"2026-07-13T01:01:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T20:01:10","slug":"wild-animals-are-adapting-to-our-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=4612","title":{"rendered":"Wild animals are adapting to our cities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2026%2F07%2Fbook.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>On July 9, 2015, a dead raccoon appeared on a Toronto sidewalk and, for reasons no one fully understood, four men from a nearby office <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2015\/07\/10\/canada-mourns-the-death-of-a-raccoon-named-conrad\/\">decided to hold a funeral<\/a>. They bought a cellophane-wrapped rose, signed a card, and placed it on the corpse, whom they named Conrad.<\/p>\n<p>In \u201c<a data-aps-asc-tag=\"nypost-20\" data-aps-asin=\"0593799631\" data-wrapped-template=\"https:\/\/r.nypostlink.com?btn_ref=org-19984c113c692001&amp;btn_url\" href=\"https:\/\/r.nypostlink.com?btn_ref=org-19984c113c692001&amp;btn_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FOur-Wild-Familiars-Adapting-Reshaping%2Fdp%2F0593799631%3Ftag%3Dnypost-20%26asc_refurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fnypost.com%2F2026%2F07%2F12%2Flifestyle%2Fwild-animals-are-adapting-to-our-cities%2F%26asc_source%3Dweb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Our Wild Familiars<\/a>\u201d (Crown, out Tuesday), Dan Werb uses Conrad\u2019s wake as the doorway into an exploration of synanthropes \u2014 a term derived from\u00a0Greek\u00a0that means \u201ctogether with\u00a0man\u201d and is used to\u00a0describe\u00a0wild creatures who have found niches in human-built cities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI love the story of Conrad, because it\u2019s so unlikely and revealing,\u201d Werb told The Post. \u201cThere are hundreds of thousands of raccoons living in Toronto, and many die every day. Everyone\u2019s first instinct is to ignore them \u2026 [but Conrad] revealed that we actually love the animals around us, precisely because they are funny, and elegant, and make us think differently about what makes a city special.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>In 2015, four men constructed a memorial for a raccoon who died on a busy Toronto sidewalk.  <span class=\"credit\">Jason Wagar\/X<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cOur Wild Familiars\u201d looks at other examples of synanthropes, including the creatures living in our garbage cans, roofs, alleys, sewers, parks, train stations, courthouse hallways, and polluted seafloors. Cities have become active natural systems, places where animals are adapting to human architecture, food waste, noise, heat, traffic, and danger.<\/p>\n<p>Toronto spent millions on \u201craccoon-proof\u201d garbage bins that require turning a circular lock, a task raccoons shouldn\u2019t be able to manage without opposable thumbs. One raccoon figured it out anyway. Within a year, raccoons across the city had learned the trick too.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Werb calls this \u201creversal learning,\u201d the cognitive ability to unlearn old strategies when circumstances change. Biologists studying the phenomenon say raccoon intelligence is evolving faster than usual in cities, where raccoons are constantly forced to learn new rules. \u201cWhere this is all eventually going to lead is anyone\u2019s guess,\u201d Werb said, \u201cwhich is very exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Shortly after moving to Buffalo, NY, architect Joyce Hwang attended a party, and the conversation turned to local survival tips. Someone told her she needed a tennis racket because, as Werb writes, \u201cWe have a ton of bats here,\u201d and \u201cyou can only kill them with a racket.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>The raccoon, nicknamed Conrad, became a sensation on social media and a symbol of urban living and wildlife convergence. <span class=\"credit\">Wikipedia\/ CC<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Toronto spent millions on \u201craccoon-proof\u201d garbage bins that require turning a circular lock, a task raccoons shouldn\u2019t be able to manage without opposable thumbs. <span class=\"credit\">Christopher Sadowski<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Hwang responded by designing structures\u00a0that function as both public art and animal habitat, including Bat Cloud, a set of tunnel-like roosts installed in trees, and Bat Tower, a wooden sculpture with a hollow interior, landing pads, and plants meant to attract insects for bats to eat.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As Werb puts it, her sculptures reveal that \u201cthe opposite of fear is intimacy,\u201d and that cities can be made more beautiful and more biodiverse at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>In Seattle, marine ecologist Eliza Heery took Werb into a strange urban frontier, the polluted water around the city. The seafloor near her research sites contains\u00a0rotting boat hulls,\u00a0broken concrete, garden gnomes,\u00a0handguns, old refrigerators,\u00a0and even a rusting van, along with\u00a0arsenic, mercury, PCBs, lead, and other contamination from nearby Superfund sites.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>In \u201cOur Wild Familiars\u201d (Crown; July 14), Dan Werb uses Conrad\u2019s wake as the doorway into an exploration of synanthropes, a term derived from\u00a0Greek\u00a0that means \u201ctogether with\u00a0man\u201d and is used to\u00a0describe\u00a0wild creatures who have found niches in human-built cities.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>And somehow, it\u2019s teeming with marine life. \u201cAmidst this grim world, Giant Pacific Octopus, one of the world\u2019s most beautiful, enigmatic, and intelligent creatures, aren\u2019t just surviving, but thriving, in greater numbers than pristine areas further out to sea,\u201d Werb said.<\/p>\n<p>For him, the discovery shows how stubborn ecosystems can find a foothold, even in places humans have treated like underwater junk drawers. \u201cNo matter how bad things appear, there is almost always a pathway for ecosystems to proliferate,\u201d Werb said.<\/p>\n<p>That lesson becomes more dangerous when the animal at the center of the story is a leopard. In February 2023, a leopard entered a courthouse in Ghaziabad, India, and spent four hours tearing through the hallways, injuring at least five people. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>In February 2023, a leopard entered a courthouse in Ghaziabad, India, <span class=\"credit\">Lokesh Rai \/ X<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The scene was terrifying because the humans suddenly became prey. Ghaziabad sits near wilderness where leopards have long prowled, and as cities push deeper into their habitat, encounters like this become less freakish and more predictable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInterspecies coexistence is complicated,\u201d Werb said. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot easier to coexist with hundreds of thousands of urban raccoons than one or two urban leopards.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The practical answer, he argues, begins with changing human behavior rather than animal behavior. New York has waged war on rats since the 1970s, and Werb said the result has been rats that are \u201cinvulnerable to rodenticides and far better adapted to living in the city.\u201d <\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>The leopard terrified people and left several injured. <span class=\"credit\">Ankita Sharma\/ X<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But the city\u2019s new bin mandate, which began June 1st and requires New Yorkers to containerize trash instead of leaving it in bags on the sidewalk, reduced rat sightings\u00a0by\u00a060%\u00a0during its West Harlem pilot phase.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat basic lesson, changing human behavior to create harmony with urban animals, is pretty foolproof,\u201d Werb said. \u201cBut when the animal is an apex predator on the brink of extinction, like a leopard or tiger, you can\u2019t wait decades to figure out a solution, because by then the species will be lost, and some humans might be, too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In Werb\u2019s telling, the city is a living habitat with more species, stranger neighbors, and deeper animal dramas than most people notice. \u201cCities are nature,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On July 9, 2015, a dead raccoon appeared on a Toronto sidewalk and, for reasons no one fully understood, four men from a nearby office decided to hold a funeral. They bought a cellophane-wrapped rose, signed a card, and placed it on the corpse, whom they named Conrad. In \u201cOur Wild Familiars\u201d (Crown, out Tuesday),&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/book.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}