WILD CITY: A Guide to Nature in Urban Ontario, from Termites to
Coyotes Wild city is generally used as a paradoxical phrase,
often to describe the seeming juxtaposition of animals
associated with the wilderness turning up or living in built-up
areas. The scope of this book, however, is much broader, and we
use wild in the sense of all those aspects of nature that,
though near at hand, are not domesticated and directly
controlled by us. We also cover the most common street and yard
trees that, though intentionally planted and tended, play a
central roll in urban ecosystems. Cities are commonly thought of
as being outside of nature, and certainly there is no landscape
more altered and intensely dominated by humans. Nature, however,
has adapted to and evolved with urban settlement for perhaps
10,000 years. Pigeons, dandelions, house mice, starlings, house
flies and an assemblage of other familiar species, together with
domestic garden plants, grasses and trees, form a cosmopolitan
urban ecosystem. Individual cit