Jun 17, 2026 · 1 hr 41 min · 17 segments
"So synanthropes are animals that have adapted to human-modified environments, and the Greek translation essentially is together with humans, so synanthrope. And they're a fascinating subset of wild…
Indeed, you write about coyotes, right? I guess they survive in our cities maybe because of us.
And when you go to a mega city, you also spoke about our cities being places of biodiversity.
I've always thought about them as biodiversity of thought or creativity or innovation.
But you also say that they're attracted to at least the remnants of biodiversity we have here, and we have more than we realize.
Yeah, I mean, one of the things that struck me early on in doing the research for this book is that on balance, most cities are more biodiverse than the areas that surround them.
And like you, you know, I just assumed it was the opposite, that cities were biological deserts, that there really wasn't much happening in cities, and that you had to go out into the rural areas or natural areas to get a glimpse of true biodiversity.
The first is that humans naturally have settled in places that are the most fertile, the richest.
So already you're creating your communities in areas that are abundant and fertile and biodiverse.
And then as cities have expanded, they've absorbed all of these natural areas around them.
extreme weather events, you know, you think about wildfires and droughts and that has actually caused, you know, it's almost like a magnetic pull that is drawing animals into cities.
Coyotes have their home range used to be really the central area of North America, the plains, the deserts.
And over the last few hundred years, they've expanded in effectively every direction.
In the book, I discuss the emergence of coyotes in LA, a particularly huge city that is dominated by roads, by highways, by urban fragmentation because of the ways that you've got vehicles basically traveling everywhere.
And yet these animals have found a way, not only a way to survive within LA, but are also drawn to it.
Indeed, you write about coyotes, right? I guess they survive in our cities maybe because of us.
And when you go to a mega city, you also spoke about our cities being places of biodiversity.
I've always thought about them as biodiversity of thought or creativity or innovation.
But you also say that they're attracted to at least the remnants of biodiversity we have here, and we have more than we realize.
Yeah, I mean, one of the things that struck me early on in doing the research for this book is that on balance, most cities are more biodiverse than the areas that surround them.
And like you, you know, I just assumed it was the opposite, that cities were biological deserts, that there really wasn't much happening in cities, and that you had to go out into the rural areas or natural areas to get a glimpse of true biodiversity.
The first is that humans naturally have settled in places that are the most fertile, the richest.
So already you're creating your communities in areas that are abundant and fertile and biodiverse.
And then as cities have expanded, they've absorbed all of these natural areas around them.
extreme weather events, you know, you think about wildfires and droughts and that has actually caused, you know, it's almost like a magnetic pull that is drawing animals into cities.
Coyotes have their home range used to be really the central area of North America, the plains, the deserts.
And over the last few hundred years, they've expanded in effectively every direction.
In the book, I discuss the emergence of coyotes in LA, a particularly huge city that is dominated by roads, by highways, by urban fragmentation because of the ways that you've got vehicles basically traveling everywhere.
And yet these animals have found a way, not only a way to survive within LA, but are also drawn to it.
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