03.01 – Urban Ecology: The Hazards of City Life

Episode description:

They paved over paradise and put up a parking lot. But what exactly paradise is, is entirely subjective. The good of the scorpion is not the good of the frog. And so as wildlands have dwindled across the blue planet, an asphalt jungle has emerged. It’s a land of milk and honey for those willing to weather the risks. Here we consider the hazards these fearless explorers face. This is the Single Acorn Podcast.

WORKS CITED

• Pigeon Kings trailer (video), watch full movie (link)
• Wild Burlington Newsletter (archives of the newsletter)
• Bobcat caught in Burlington, VT on trail camera (video)
• Ghosts of Yellowstone: Multi-Decadal Histories of Wildlife Populations Captured by Bones on a Modern Landscape (source)
• Identification of vertebrate scavengers of small mammal carcasses in a forested landscape (source)
• Scavenging By Snowshoe Hares (Lepus americanus) In Yukon, Canada (source)
• US wastes enough food each day to fill a college stadium (from Jonathan Blooms American Wasteland) 
• A Dung Beetle Assemblage in an Urban Park in Louisiana (source)
• Physiological and parasitological implications of living in a city: the case of the white‐footed tamarin (Saguinus leucopus) (source)
• Two cougars found dead in Santa Monica Mountains, rat poison killing at least one (source)
• The persistent problem of lead poisoning in birds from ammunition and fishing tackle (source)
• Environmental Lead Exposure in the European Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) from Southeastern Spain: The Influence of Leaded Gasoline Regulations (source)
• Our Birth Control Undermines Amphibians (source) 
• Unnoticed sex reversal in amphibians due to artificial estrogen from pills (source)
• Suburbanization, estrogen contamination, and sex ratio in wild amphibian populations (source)
• Sexual and somatic development of wood frog tadpoles along a thermal gradient (source)
• Impacts of road deicing salts on the early-life growth and development of a stream salmonid: Salt type matters (source)
• Interactive effects of road salt and leaf litter on wood frog sex ratios and sexual size dimorphism (source)
• Geo Prizm (images)
• Anthropogenic changes in sodium affect neural and muscle development in butterflies (source)
• Protecting buildings against feral pigeons – Pigeon nests and deterrents (source)
• Daylight saving time can decrease the frequency of wildlife–vehicle collisions (source)
• Avian mortality at windows: the second largest human source of bird mortality on earth (source)
• The impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife of the United States (source)
• Lights out Chicago (link)
• CollidEscape (link)
• Effectiveness of bells vs bibs on cats
• Birds be safe: Can a novel cat collar reduce avian mortality by domestic cats (Felis catus)? (source)
• Reducing the rate of predation on wildlife by pet cats: The efficacy and practicability of collar-mounted pounce protectors (source)
• Koala study on koala-car collisions – Daylight saving time can decrease the frequency of wildlife–vehicle collisions (source)
• High density of bird and pest species in urban habitats and the role of predator abundance (source)
• Increases in local richness (α-diversity) following invasion are offset by biotic homogenization in a biodiversity hotspot (source)