The Accidental Ecosystem: People and Wildlife in American Cities

The book was in great condition and exactly as described: yes, library sticker BUT "who cares" because the book otherwise has no creases or writing on the pages. It was delivered in a bubble wrapped envelope with no damage. Excellent job.

I was recommended this book by my beloved Geography teacher from San Francisco State. Fully trusting this teacher, I bought this book with barely reading more than the title. To no surprise, I absolutely loved the book and it provided me great entertainment as I sat in silence at my partner's parent's house for Thanksgiving as I devoured the pages almost as fast as a mountain lion eating a koala. I think this greatly book captures how human involvement on our planet has created an unfortunate situation for wildlife and the ways animals have adapted to human society. I do wish that every person would be required to learn about urban ecology as perhaps people could learn to be more compassionate to the world we have created. I am so grateful I gave it a shot and will continue to recommend it! Thanks so much!

This is a fun and informative look at wild animals in cities, from the commotion caused by an unusual sighting of a grey squirrel in Manhattan in 1856, to the deer, bear, coyotes and other animals seen in urban areas today. I didn't know that when Disney released the movie "Bambi" in the 40's, white-tail deer were so hard to find, they had to be imported from Maine to California to serve as models. The author describes city greenspace and suburban sprawl as an ecosystem encouraging wildlife's return to urban areas, and urges us to find better ways to coexist with animals, whether we see them as pests, magical signs, or dangerous predators. The bald eagle nests of Pittsburgh make an appearance, as well as the Hollywood puma and the West Coast sea lions. Fascinating, although the occasional typos and even missing words interrupted the flow of the prose.

This book is a short overview about how wild animals have moved into American cities, why American cities developed into places where animals can thrive, how humans are reacting to these and how we should in the future. The tone is generally optimistic but realistic—that cities can serve as oases of biodiversity during climate change and extinction events, but a world with only rats, crows and sparrows would be a depauperate one. Most of the book is organized around an incident of some charismatic megafauna making the news (like Pedals the bipedal bear of New Jersey, or a nesting pair of bald eagles blithely feeding their chicks fresh kitten), and then talking about that species in greater context. I’ve read several other books recently about human/animal interactions, and this one did the best job at being inclusive, talking about how parks can and have been used as agents of gentrification, the impact of economic decisions on the fate of cities and animals alike, and existing biases within ecology and evolutionary studies. Highly recommended.

Ever spied a red fox or a bald eagle on the way to the nearest convenience store and wondered why it often seems like we see more wildlife in our cities than most anywhere else? This book has answers. The Accidental Ecosystem helps explain why some species have thrived in cities large and small and what lessons that offers as we think about how to strike a sustainable balance between humans and the natural world.In it, you’ll learn about Bambi and the rise of the suburbs, just how smart coyotes are, the sad story of Peddles the walking bear, what urban eagles really eat, just how close to the Hollywood mountain lions roam, and why bats may be key to the future of public health.Alagona is a gifted story teller, but he goes further, wrapping each of these anecdotes with just the right amount of back story to help us reimagine the essential place of urban wildlife in cities and the place of cities in the work of conservation. This is the most interesting book I've read about the environment this year! You won't look at a house finch or squirrel in quite the same way again!

I highly recommend this book. Living in suburbs all of my life I now have a better understanding of wildlifes relationships with their human suburbanite neighbors. I would have given him 5 stars but for the fact that he let his politics(which I'm in mostly agreement with) out of the bag where it should have been kept to keep this an objective work. Side note: When will white America(liberal/conservative) quit telling us minorities how things are and dictating the relationship between minorities and white America? Ask us how we want to be interacted with and listen for once.

Overall a good read on human behavior towards animals and changes in ecology across America.My biggest complaint is that the author tends to focus a lot on human conservation rather than how animal behavior changes in urban environments. The bear chapter had a great mix of animal adaptation and human adaptations, but chapters like on white tail deers on focuses too little on the actual animals.

I liked this book and found it very well written on a very interesting and relevant topic to our modern lives. As someone who was trained and now works in the environmental field it always surprised me how topics like this got mostly skipped or ignored in this field. My main reason for giving this book 4 stars is I personally though the author's previous book "After the Grizzly" was better.