"All flourishing is mutual" - Robin Wall Kimmerer
We often speak about human-dominated landscapes when it comes to cities. But wildlife is part of these landscapes too. I am fascinated by what happens when people and wildlife share the same spaces on a daily basis. Wildlife responds to the environments we create, including light, noise, fragmentation or even the transformation of landscapes, but also to our behaviours, how we manage our backyards and waste or simply behave when we see wildlife. At the same time, there is “something” that happens to us when we see and experience wildlife and we respond with fascination and joy or fear and disgust, which influences our behaviours towards wildlife. Emotions, as well as other underlying drivers of human behaviour towards wildlife, such as values, attitudes or social norms, shape how well we might be able to share these human-dominated spaces and tolerate, accept or maybe even celebrate certain wildlife around us. Clearly, human-wildlife-nature relationships are complex social-ecological systems with feedback loops that require inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to understand them.
When it comes to living with wildlife, the focus is often on conflicts. While this focus is understandable, there are fascinating examples worldwide where humans and wildlife live together without conflicts or maybe even to the benefits of both. One inspiring example is the colony of estimated 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) that can be found at the Congress Avenue bridge in Austin, Texas. It feels even like a celebration of bats (please turn on your sound)!
(Photo: M. Tuttle)
Ressources: There are of course, numerous ressources available, but here is my top three of those that have most significantly influenced my own thought processes:
Frank, B., Glikman, J. A., & Marchini, S. (Eds.). (2019). Human–wildlife interactions: turning conflict into coexistence (Vol. 23). Cambridge University Press.