The Urban Frontier

Coyotes may be a familiar sight in rural areas of the rugged west, but on Saturday night they turned up in an unexpected place. Two coyotes were spotted wandering around Chicago's Wrigley Field, a heavily urbanized area far from the large public parks and fringes of rural suburbs where wild animal sightings typically occur.

What were coyotes, large dangerous predators, doing in a busy area of one of the nation's most populous cities? The article suggests that they were searching for food, perhaps lured by a nearby McDonald's. But why would coyotes be forced to scavenge in the city for food, far from their natural habitat? Increasing encounters between wild predators and urban residents (attacks on pets, repeated sightings in increasingly urban areas) suggest that the human conquest of the environment is taking a turn to the wild side.

The human dominion in the American landscape has been complete since the close of the frontier in the 1890s (discounting uninhabited northern Canada), yet we continue to clash with nature. Our extensive national parks system is under threat by environmental degradation, human intervention, and urban encroachment. In the meantime, wild animals are coming closer and closer to human residences in search of food. This is creating a dangerous trend, for humans and animals alike.

Animals are being displaced from ancestral habitats by human population expansion, reducing the available resources and forcing interactions between animals and humans. Humans are vulnerable to disease, attack, and attacks on our domesticated pets. Wild animals are struck by cars, killed by hunters and LEOs, or injured by competition with other animals. This dangerous symbiosis is bad news for both the wild inhabitants of our country and the human population.

The increasing encounters between animals and humans in urban settings are forcing us to reconsider how we define and interact with nature. As we urbanize and continue to expand, we must be considerate of the wildlife we are encroaching upon. As we replace prairies, forests, and natural habitats with farmland, industrial centers, and our expansive "turfgrass" lawns we are altering the ecosystem to which we belong. No longer is there a clear separation between wilderness and city. To animals, cities are the frontier. They will seek to reclaim their territory whether humans like it or not.