The Rat Paths of New York
May 6, 2015 7:18 AM Subscribe
It's common to frame ecology as a science that gets practiced in wild, untraveled areas. But cities have an ecology all their own, and the design of a given city contributes to the diversity of animals that make their homes there. Rats are particularly good at navigating cities, but other species might have a tougher time getting around.
close to constant food, usually in the form of trash, which is more or less everywhere. (A few pockets of the Upper East Side are free of large permanent rat colonies, but that’s about it.)
Similarly, my wife's quondam apartment in Yorkville was unique in her building for being roach free. Why? Tupperware, well sealed refrigerator, and iron disciplined cookware and plate cleaning.
posted by BWA at 8:06 AM on May 6, 2015
Similarly, my wife's quondam apartment in Yorkville was unique in her building for being roach free. Why? Tupperware, well sealed refrigerator, and iron disciplined cookware and plate cleaning.
posted by BWA at 8:06 AM on May 6, 2015
One wonderful sentence :
Skunks have terrible eyesight and live their lives low to the ground, smelling, smelling and being startled.posted by Death and Gravity at 8:09 AM on May 6, 2015 [6 favorites]
Large, maze-like structure with some paths that lead nowhere and some that lead to food? Yep, rats will do okay there.
posted by Naberius at 8:13 AM on May 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Naberius at 8:13 AM on May 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
The classic book on New York City's rats, of course, is Robert Sullivan's Rats (2004).
posted by LeLiLo at 8:24 AM on May 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by LeLiLo at 8:24 AM on May 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yeah, wait till the real maze specialists break out from the labs. They'll be following the scientists home and gnawing their faces. Publish or perish, why not both.
posted by Rumple at 8:45 AM on May 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Rumple at 8:45 AM on May 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
I have a special grudging respect for rats, after all humans are basically rats with opposable thumbs. Think of how we out-competed all the other apes.
posted by xetere at 9:05 AM on May 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by xetere at 9:05 AM on May 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
Yay! I love urban ecology. Here in Atlanta, things are greener, and there are fewer places that are simply paved over. The rats are joined by possums and raccoons and skunks for sure, and so many very small rodents, especially chipmunks everywhere. Coyotes and foxes are common, and every few years someone in the burbs sees a bobcat or a black bear. My research haunt, Peachtree Creek, drains the city of Atlanta and is home to many many muskrats and beavers, and even a few river otters.
I love urban ecology, but I'll admit that my biggest excitement here is just seeing the word 'ecology' used correctly on the front page of MetaFilter. It's been a long semester in my ongoing war on incorrect use of the word 'ecology'.
posted by hydropsyche at 1:10 PM on May 6, 2015 [5 favorites]
I love urban ecology, but I'll admit that my biggest excitement here is just seeing the word 'ecology' used correctly on the front page of MetaFilter. It's been a long semester in my ongoing war on incorrect use of the word 'ecology'.
posted by hydropsyche at 1:10 PM on May 6, 2015 [5 favorites]
They'll be following the scientists home and gnawing their faces. Publish or perish, why not both.
There's literally an old episode of Doomwatch with this as the plot.
posted by maxsparber at 1:33 PM on May 6, 2015
There's literally an old episode of Doomwatch with this as the plot.
posted by maxsparber at 1:33 PM on May 6, 2015
I love urban ecology, but I'll admit that my biggest excitement here is just seeing the word 'ecology' used correctly on the front page of MetaFilter. It's been a long semester in my ongoing war on incorrect use of the word 'ecology'.
What is the incorrect use you have been fighting?
Cities are quite biodiverse (especially if you count all the strange plants we grow in and around our houses, and the unusual animals kept as pets), but of course a very different biodiversity than what was there before the city transformed the landscape. And cities themselves present varied landscapes -- coyotes might not do well in the center of New York, but they do great in lower density suburban sprawl, for example.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:25 PM on May 6, 2015
What is the incorrect use you have been fighting?
Cities are quite biodiverse (especially if you count all the strange plants we grow in and around our houses, and the unusual animals kept as pets), but of course a very different biodiversity than what was there before the city transformed the landscape. And cities themselves present varied landscapes -- coyotes might not do well in the center of New York, but they do great in lower density suburban sprawl, for example.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:25 PM on May 6, 2015
The use of the word 'ecology' to mean electric cars, recycling, etc. It's frustrating when the name of your sub-discipline has been stolen by Nissan, and it's confusing to students who see that their biology major requires them to take Ecology, and it turns out they don't know what that is.
posted by hydropsyche at 6:18 AM on May 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 6:18 AM on May 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
What is the incorrect use you have been fighting?
Doubtless, this:
Google says ecology means:
Upon preview, hello there, Hydropsyche!
This conflation of ecology (the science) and environmentalism (the pollitical movement) began almost immediately with the first Earth Day in 1970, if not before. I couldn't even get my teachers to stop doing it. By the way, Earth Day called, they want their flag back.
posted by Herodios at 6:33 AM on May 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
Doubtless, this:
Google says ecology means:
- The branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.
- The political movement that seeks to protect the environment, especially from pollution.
- The branch of science concerned with the interrelationship of organisms and their environments.
- The totality or pattern of those relationships.
- Nothing else.
Ecology (Greek: "house" + "study") is the scientific analysis and study of interactions among organisms and their environment, such as the interactions organisms have with each other and with their abiotic environment. . . .I am merely a word-man annoyed by people being so open-minded about usage that their brains fall out. I can only imagine what it'd be like to be an actual ecologist and have to field questions about eco-activitsm, eco-terrorism, eco-topianism, eco-diesels, etc. -- when you just want to study water bugs.
The word "ecology" ("Ökologie") was coined in 1866 by the German scientist Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919). . . . .
Ecology is not synonymous with environmentalism, environment, natural history, or environmental science. . . .
Upon preview, hello there, Hydropsyche!
This conflation of ecology (the science) and environmentalism (the pollitical movement) began almost immediately with the first Earth Day in 1970, if not before. I couldn't even get my teachers to stop doing it. By the way, Earth Day called, they want their flag back.
posted by Herodios at 6:33 AM on May 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
I can only imagine what it'd be like to be an actual ecologist and have to field questions about eco-activitsm, eco-terrorism, eco-topianism, eco-diesels, etc. -- when you just want to study water bugs.
I actually am a water bug, so it's especially annoying to me.
posted by hydropsyche at 6:49 AM on May 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
I actually am a water bug, so it's especially annoying to me.
posted by hydropsyche at 6:49 AM on May 7, 2015 [3 favorites]
I actually am a water bug, so it's especially annoying to me.
Yeah, I picked up on that.
Here in Atlanta, things are greener, and there are fewer places that are simply paved over. The rats are joined by possums . . . raccoons . . .skunks . . . Coyotes . . .foxes . . . every few years someone in the burbs sees a bobcat or a black bear. . . . muskrats . . . beavers . . . river otters.
When I read this FPP yesterday, I was inspired to make a little list of the wildlife we've spotted in our neighborhood. We are criss-crossed by a network of "green highways" used by wildlife to move through Cleveland and environs, made up of active and abandoned rail right-of-way, parklands, cemeteries, and a few still-exposed surface streams that empty into Lake Erie.
In addition to the usual assortment of mice, rats, voles, moles, shrews, and bats, we have seen
Fox Squirrel
White-tailed Deer
Eastern Chipmunk
Striped Skunk
White-tailed Deer
Eastern Cottontail Rabbit
Groundchuck
Virginia Opossum
Muskrat
White-tailed Deer
White-tailed Deer
Red Fox
White-tailed Deer
Raccoon
and Coyote
We also get the odd deer in our yard. I saw an eight-pointer just sauntering down the sidewalk once morning last year.
There are black bear, beaver, otters, and various mustelidae nearby, but not in our neighborhood. I have seen bobcats in Ohio, but not nearby nor recently.
That's not even getting to the birds, where we've seen four species of hawk, two species of owl, a bald eagle last year (Come back! Bring a date! Free koi!), occasional osprey (ditto), four species of heron, peregrines, migratory cormorants, pixilated woodpeckers, wild turkey . . . A friend gets infestations of wild turkeys. They congregate on his patio and roost on his roof.
I once had occasion to use a version of an old joke here. Someone asked me, "How many coyote do you think there are in this park?"
I said, "As many as want to be."
posted by Herodios at 7:17 AM on May 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I picked up on that.
Here in Atlanta, things are greener, and there are fewer places that are simply paved over. The rats are joined by possums . . . raccoons . . .skunks . . . Coyotes . . .foxes . . . every few years someone in the burbs sees a bobcat or a black bear. . . . muskrats . . . beavers . . . river otters.
When I read this FPP yesterday, I was inspired to make a little list of the wildlife we've spotted in our neighborhood. We are criss-crossed by a network of "green highways" used by wildlife to move through Cleveland and environs, made up of active and abandoned rail right-of-way, parklands, cemeteries, and a few still-exposed surface streams that empty into Lake Erie.
In addition to the usual assortment of mice, rats, voles, moles, shrews, and bats, we have seen
Fox Squirrel
White-tailed Deer
Eastern Chipmunk
Striped Skunk
White-tailed Deer
Eastern Cottontail Rabbit
Groundchuck
Virginia Opossum
Muskrat
White-tailed Deer
White-tailed Deer
Red Fox
White-tailed Deer
Raccoon
and Coyote
We also get the odd deer in our yard. I saw an eight-pointer just sauntering down the sidewalk once morning last year.
There are black bear, beaver, otters, and various mustelidae nearby, but not in our neighborhood. I have seen bobcats in Ohio, but not nearby nor recently.
That's not even getting to the birds, where we've seen four species of hawk, two species of owl, a bald eagle last year (Come back! Bring a date! Free koi!), occasional osprey (ditto), four species of heron, peregrines, migratory cormorants, pixilated woodpeckers, wild turkey . . . A friend gets infestations of wild turkeys. They congregate on his patio and roost on his roof.
I once had occasion to use a version of an old joke here. Someone asked me, "How many coyote do you think there are in this park?"
I said, "As many as want to be."
posted by Herodios at 7:17 AM on May 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
This conflation of ecology (the science) and environmentalism (the pollitical movement) began almost immediately with the first Earth Day in 1970, if not before.
Also that was a marriage of convenience for those on the right who wanted to criticize Rachel Carson, the Club of Rome, and any actual biologists with an opinion about conservation.
And then the rest of their thunder was stolen by those damned eco-nomists.
posted by sneebler at 1:49 PM on May 7, 2015
Also that was a marriage of convenience for those on the right who wanted to criticize Rachel Carson, the Club of Rome, and any actual biologists with an opinion about conservation.
And then the rest of their thunder was stolen by those damned eco-nomists.
posted by sneebler at 1:49 PM on May 7, 2015
Also, this urban nature documentary about rats is both funny and amazing. I think it was made in NYC.
posted by sneebler at 2:14 PM on May 7, 2015
posted by sneebler at 2:14 PM on May 7, 2015
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posted by Samizdata at 7:45 AM on May 6, 2015 [7 favorites]