It was bonkers to me there were beavers and turtles in the lake down the street, not to mention big snakes and humming birds...and the first time you see a possum is kind of crazy
When I was growing up the British garden centre nearby sold chipmunks as pets, which amuses Americans when I tell them
Apparently they have wild raccoons in Germany
Farmers haven’t been happy though, as the wolves kill their sheep.
My mother (who lives in the UK) recently visited me (in the US). While walking we saw a bald eagle fishing. She was blown away. Here that's commonplace
We have a colony of bats in our backyard at the moment. A very noisy colony of bats that leave at dusk and return at 4 in the morning, squabbling.
It was fun for the first month. Now we're hoping it will get too cold for them and they will move back to the coast for a while.
https://www.austintexas.org/things-to-do/outdoors/bat-watchi...
Or the time I saw the fattest coyote I'd ever seen casually walk right past me on the sidewalk.
Or the coyote in Quizno's (sub sandwich chain) incident: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2007-04-04-070404...
A coyote walks into the shop and cools off in a drink cooler.
In town, though, they're brazen and walk right by people and sometimes will snatch their pets from their backyards as a snack.
It's usually just the outer suburbs, but both cities have undeveloped river valley greenspace that the animals use to find unobstructed paths almost to the city center.
https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/bear-sightings-around-alberta-ca...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/moose-calgary-northwe...
How can no-one have taken a picture, or, if they did, how can the Trib not have included it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_fur_trade
Beaver pelts have been referred to as ‘soft gold’.
There are 100's of thousands of bears roaming the US, 10's of thousands of mountain lions, millions of alligators, thousands of wolves, etc. etc.
It's a function of lower population density, I think, as well as agriculture tending to have moved to the midwest and plains states. There's been a lot of regeneration of forests in the Eastern US since they were clearcut in the 19th century.
Certain species like deer thrive in the boundaries between two different ecosystem types because they get different resources from both ecosystems.
Humans do not only reduce forest size, but also change the geometry of forests: fragmentation makes the edges more pronounced (increases the perimeter:area ratio)
This harms some animals like large solitary predators who require vast ranges, but helps other species like deer who prefer the edges.
I have dozens of deer living on my property. Badgers, skunk, chipmunks. Eagle fly by regularly. Flocks of crows in the thousands will occasionally park in my orchard, then move on.
When I went to Atlanta and the surrounding suburbs, I was completely flabbergasted to come across a tree which had been felled by a beaver.
Not because they exist, I know quite a bit about them, but perhaps specifically because there no signs, no souvenir items in the nearby park shop, no jokes, no real mention, of the fact the forests around atlanta were so diverse they had large mammals. It was just an after thought. Oh that tree? Yes a big beaver did that randomly no biggie.
I then drove to the swamps in Florida and saw the alligators. But I was expecting the wildlife - as its an attraction and known about.
Small things like seeing a flock of large birds on a telephone line, in the city of miami, yet a flock of such a size, with such large birds, is something I had not seen in my life in any city or place in Europe - and I doubt anyone walking passed would stop to notice it.
I really do think the bio diversity in the US is taken for granted! I know about the special parks and often spoken about animals and habitats, but its the small moments you realise just dont exist anywhere else that I am unsure the locals even realise.
Maybe I am wrong - just wanted to share, thanks.