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caped_crusader8 t1_j9jp9kp wrote

How do animals cope with urbanisation?

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nationalgeographic t1_j9lj50q wrote

Great question, and as with anything related to wildlife and conservation- nuanced answer..! Mainly, the answer is "it depends". It depends on the species' adaptive capacity and behavioral flexibility, their diet needs, and their space/habitat needs, as well as human-determined factors such as green space availability and habitat, attitudes and actions toward certain species, etc. Behaviorally flexible species such as coyotes, raccoons, and spotted hyenas (to name a few) can survive in urban and peri-urban areas because of their flexibility not just of behavior but of diet. A great article just came out in The Atlantic talk about diet flexibility in relation to anthropogenic food sources: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/02/wild-animals-eating-human-food-health-issues/673138/.

That being said, as you can imagine cities are not amenable to every species. And just because some animals are able to make it work in an urbanized area doesn't necessarily mean that they're thriving. For instance many scientists are asking questions about the stress hormones and disease susceptibility of urban wildlife (within cities and across different cities), to try and understand exactly what they're experiencing and how they're coping.

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