Urban Wildlife

In this paper I will discuss the important key points about urban wildlife and the ways that residents of Boston can be able to learn more about animals and even try to create strategies to encourage others to protect our urban wildlife before it’s too late and we lose it all.

When it comes to the topic of nature, most of us will quickly agree that nature is made up of open and wide green spaces. However, some of us wonder if nature is a safe environment for humans due to its wildlife or urban wildlife issues. Whereas others are convinced that nature is more than a shelter or an environment. It’s about recognizing the past and understanding that wildlife was once part of nature while it still continues to be. Nature and wildlife are different but related in a way because it involves plants and animals. Moreover, an article called, “What Is Nature”, states, “Closer to home, we grow nature in our gardens, place it in pots that adorn our homes, cherish it as pets, and hug stuffed versions of it to our sleeping bodies”. This explains that nature is anything that involves greenery such as in gardens it becomes something that is more vibrant. On the other hand, wildlife and urban wildlife can involve animal species surrounded by their habitats where it’s restricted to go towards. The reason why we need urban wildlife is that it can allow residents to connect with nature without going to places where it’s restricted. An organization called, “U.S Forest Service (Research & Development)” pointed out that, “Urban wildlife helps to make our cities more vibrant and desirable places to live”. This emphasizes the idea that urban wildlife is included in our daily life to create more existence of nature for us and the rest of the residents. 

Others, especially Emma Marris, an environmental writer, who explained in her Ted Talk, “Nature Is Everywhere”, that we need to stop continuing to define nature as being “untouched”, more like we have to encourage people in our community to touch nature because it’s the only way children or adults will connect to nature. Studies have shown that it gives people more energy and allows it to improve their mental health by reducing stress or anxiety. If we want to consider every resident to help support nature then it can lead to a benefit of nature supporting us.

Most of us question whether or not nature is a benefit to our health or if it’s just a stereotype that people seem to believe. The reason that explains in-depth why we need nature is because it improves our mental health as stated in a podcast called, “Hidden Brain- Our Better Nature” with Shankar Vedantam and Ming Kuo. They mentioned that when we have less access to nature we begin to be more mentally fatigued due to not having enough time being outdoors. This causes people to be less efficient at handling difficult social situations. An experience where this can be accurate is when I went to the Arnold Arboretum on February 8th, 2022 at 1:42 PM I was feeling annoyed and stressed before going to this location because of being inside the school building for the majority of the day. After taking the time to walk there I instantly felt a positive change in my mood. Once I began seeing my surroundings I felt more calmer and started describing my five senses. This helped me understand that nature has benefits for our health both mentally and physically and it allows us to develop our five senses more often. This is mainly the reason why we want to encourage people to explore nature more often leading to a risk of them losing connection with nature.

Some people aren’t aware of the negative effects of not having a human-nature relationship which causes those people to not have any connection to nature. This causes those groups to not gain information on what it means to not have a piece of knowledge about nature. This can lead to a nature deficit disorder if they don’t have a human-nature relationship. Although it's not proven to be a medical disorder, Richard Louv, an acclaimed author, and advocate for healthy connections to nature, claims it should turn into one. It’s a disorder that is caused by not having connections or experiences with nature for a very long time. Some symptoms of this disorder he mentions are diminished use of senses, higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses, and attention difficulties.

Louv stated that recent studies have shown that people are beginning to have a lack of nature, even children have less access to nature. He recommends that teachers should bring their students to field trips outside more often to become more involved with nature. Children and adults are being affected because if they don’t connect to nature then they won’t be informed about the urban wildlife. 

Some students don’t have access to nature during school because students want to be on their computers or phones for the majority of the time. This creates another problem because students are starting to rely on technology instead of becoming outdoor people. Alan Lightman, an American physicist, writer, and social entrepreneur, said in his article, “This Is No Way to Be Human”, “that technology has diminished our direct experience with nature”. Sometimes we can access nature through technology but it’s not the same because we see it’s perfect but if we go in person to the same location it will look different. 

My plan is to create a new organization where every resident from Boston can become part of it and learn more about urban wildlife. They will even go at least every day to explore and find an injured animal to help support. In this organization, they will incorporate people to these wildlife animals with kindness while gaining more information on what we can do to continue protecting them and showing less fear towards them.

This plan will bring more awareness to the urban wildlife and will allow people to be more involved in joining these organizations to help maintain animals safe in their natural habitats. By including more people into these organizations it allows the urban wildlife to stand out and become more important to everyone else in the community.

A similar organization called, “Association of Fish & wildlife agencies” in North America is focused on protecting fish and wildlife animals. It's their major responsibility to continue saving them and making sure they have a safe habitat to live in. In their short bio on what they provide they said, “For nearly 80 years, hunters and anglers have provided critical funding for state-based fish and wildlife conservation and in partnership with state wildlife managers have enjoyed many species recovery successes on the ground. A lot is at stake if we don’t act soon. Every American benefits when we have healthy and accessible fish and wildlife”. This is one of the ways where we can allow more humans to gain connections in order for them to want to preserve our urban wildlife. Although this agency's wildlife is different to the urban wildlife in Boston they both are similar because they protect animals before they become endangered. 

In the interview with Dr. Short, where she specifically stated, “What residents could give money to wildlife organizations, they could lobby different policy makers to have good policies, they could plant garden plants in their yards and they’re good for butterflies, a small wildlife”. This can overcome the issue of people not becoming connected to nature because after they view the people who will give money to organizations they won’t have to focus on that specific group of people. They will become more focused on the people who aren't giving money to help support, in other words we can start by providing information if they feel like it’s not important to give money. 

Lastly, there’s another organization called the U.S. The Forest Service said, “it’s working across boundaries to deliver science that supports native wildlife habitat and healthy wildlife populations in urban areas”. This demonstrates that urban wildlife is important and encourages people to want to find ways to take care of them. They also stated, “Urban wildlife helps to make our cities more vibrant and desirable places to live”. This affirms that without our urban wildlife then our world would be less desirable to live in. It will just become a world with no life of urban wildlife.

In this map, you can observe that once you zoom in/out to explore more neighborhoods of Boston the symbols (circles with a variety of colors) begin to show up more. This indicates that as you zoom out the map there are more reports of coyotes near their neighborhood. In the legend, it shows that when there's blue it means that there's a high amount of coyote reports and if there's yellow it's because there are fewer reports. The green areas will appear when you zoom into the map this means that Boston is filled with urban areas. This helps to develop my plan more because it can allow my organization to focus on those areas of Boston to allow humans and coyotes or any urban animals to have a better bond. Usually, some people tend to react differently because they encounter a coyote, although fear will only make the situation worse it is best to walk away and not near it. This is important because it can help support those areas to make sure people and the animals are safe so they can live in a peaceful place.

One day as a group we went to explore the Arnold Arboretum located in Jamaica Plain, Boston MA. In our fieldnotes we had to write the date, location, our mood, time with the temperature. We had to describe our five senses: smell, hear, touch, taste, and see while drawing a picture to represent what we saw at this specific location.

Since it was during the winter we saw a picture on the internet and it looked very beautiful due to the photo editing it had and the filter made the picture made it look unreal. When we compared the results we noticed it wasn't the same as the picture this implies that when we view nature through technology it won't feel the same. We experience more nature without technology. Before going to this location I felt very tired and annoyed but after spending time looking around I felt more calm and energized. This means that nature is a benefit to everyone and can help spread more awareness to protect it. There was also birds around that are part of urban wildlife, many people can think about the ways where we can keep every animal safe in our community.

My next experience was when I went to Storrow Pond I felt a big difference when I was inside the classroom at Hale reservation and when I went for a walk to the pond since being in the classroom made me tired with low energy. Once we stepped outside to gather more information or observations for our field notes then I felt more amused to go, after feeling the cold breeze of the wind I felt my energy increase.

Although it was winter and the water flowing fast made it colder I felt the connection to nature. When I was taking notes I started to wonder if there were any wildlife animals around the pond or if there was why couldn't we see them. We talked about the beaver dam that was nearby but they wouldn't be around the time we went over there. Many animals adapt to their own habitat and enjoy it when it's peaceful and not interrupted by human interactions.

Jocelyn Hernandez Vasquez is currently a High School Senior at Margarita Muniz Academy. She was born and raised in Boston, MA and is currently 18 years old. She's part of a program called Upward Bound at Boston University, she started it when she was in 9th grade. It influenced her in many ways such as expanding her creativity.

Jocelyn Hernandez Vasquez es actualmente un estudiante de último año de secundaria en la Academia Margarita Muniz. Ella nacio y creció en Boston, MA. Actualmente tiene 18 años. Y es parte de un programa llamado Upward Bound en la universidad Boston University, ella estaba en este programa desde el noveno grado. Le influenció de muchas maneras como expandir su creatividad.