Population for wildlife is on the rise while we are edging our way into their habitat. What do our encounters with urban wildlife really mean?
Welcome to another edition of Something Wild. I'm Rosemary Conroy.
A few weeks ago, a black bear and her cubs toured backyards in Concord. Just a month before that, a moose strolled through downtown Goffstown. And once-endangered peregrine falcons are winging their way around Manchester.
The good news is that these animals, like many wildlife populations, are increasing in number, thanks in large part to better management. The downside? Well, as our own population increases and expands its home range, we are invariably displacing wildlife.
That moose, for example, was most likely a yearling in search of his own territory. And since Goffstown is rapidly suburbanizing, it probably wasn't too hard for that moose to make a wrong turn and end up on Main Street.
The bears represent another aspect of this dilemma. Those clever bruins were merely taking advantage of the free handouts that many people unwittingly provided. That mother bear, for example, was emptying bird feeders faster than a Red Sox fan pounding brewskis at Fenway. And she was showing her cubs that urban settings are easy pickings: free seed, tons of tasty garbage, no predators, and when you do encounter humans, most of them pull out a camera instead of a shotgun.
Unfortunately, that lesson may prove fatal if those cubs grow up into nuisance bears. A fed bear is a dead bear, as wildlife biologists all too often have to remind us.
The peregrine falcons, on the other hand, are more successfully integrating themselves. Since they have learned to use office window ledges as substitute nest sites, their numbers are dramatically increasing. And since they prey on the much-maligned pigeon, no one minds at all.
So taking a walk on the wild side may now be as easy as crossing the street. Let's just hope our wild neighbors learn how to look both ways first.
Something Wild is a joint production of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, NHPR and the Audubon Society of New Hampshire. For Something Wild, I'm Rosemary Conroy.
