Working in the garden this afternoon I caught sight of a fox. He (or maybe she) between the raspberry canes, his (or her) sharp pointed nose peering round, eyes following and then seeing no danger, he (or she) lept onto the top of the compost heap, curled up and slept. Is the urban fox a wild animal? Or a byproduct of a human settlement?
This morning as I ran past Ham House I saw a healthy looking rat run across the track. I saw the same (or maybe a similar) one last Saturday. Is the urban rat a wild animal? Or another byproduct of a human settlement?
Thinking about it, many wild animals have and do adapts their behaviour to maximise the benefit they can gain from humans – eg birds that daily frequent our bird feeders, deer that choose to stay within the confines of Park rather than moving out into the streets of suburbia, peregrine falcons that nest on high rise buildings etc. Rather than denigrating some of the wild creatures that share our neighbourhoods, we should not celebrate their adaptability and take it as an encouragement that we should also be sufficiently adaptable to alongside others.
The Green Tau 