A family of foxes has been living beneath the platform at London Bridge station for three years. Station staff know them by name. Commuters photograph them daily. No one is quite sure what to do about any of this, because the foxes seem fine — better than fine, actually. They are thriving.
The Urban Ecology Boom
Urban wildlife is not a marginal phenomenon. It is an accelerating one. As habitat fragmentation pushes animals out of traditional territories, a subset of species — the adaptable, the opportunistic, the behaviourally flexible — are moving into cities and doing unexpectedly well there.
"Cities are, in biological terms, extremely resource-rich environments. The notion that they are hostile to wildlife is a human assumption that the wildlife hasn't read."
Peregrine falcons nest on skyscrapers, where the updrafts and sight lines are better than any cliff face. Coyotes have established territories in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. Wild boar are documented in Rome, Barcelona, and Paris. Bears are rummaging through suburban bins in Colorado and British Columbia with increasing regularity.
Adaptation in Real Time
What makes urban wildlife particularly interesting to ecologists is the speed of behavioral adaptation. Animals are changing habits, schedules, and techniques within single generations — far faster than genetic evolution could account for. They are learning, culturally, how to be urban.
London's foxes have learned to use pedestrian crossings. Berlin's boar have learned to avoid rush hour. These are not anecdotes. They are documented behaviors, replicated across multiple individuals, suggesting cultural transmission within animal communities.