North America
Many North American species have successfully adapted to urban environments and are thriving. Typical examples include coyotes, rabbits, raccoons, squirrels, opossums, deer and red foxes. This has led to conflict with humans, as these animals open garbage bags in search of food, eat food left out for pets, take the pets themselves, feed on prized garden plants, dig up lawns, and so on. Coyotes pose a risk to small children, who should not be left unsupervised in areas coyotes are known to inhabit; they are large enough to easily kill/eat a child and lack the fear of humans most wild canids exhibit. While there are media accounts of alligators being found in sewer pipes and storm drains, most experts think that such 'sewer alligators' are unlikely to sustain a breeding population in such an environment. The National Zoo of Washington, DC has breeding populations of tropical geckos throughout its steam tunnels; which venture into Rock Creek Park and develop limited breeding populations during the spring/summer, however these populations die out during the fall/winter.
Animals known to dwell within human habitations include house mice, cockroaches, house centipedes (scutigera coleoptrata), silverfish, and firebrats.
Read more about this topic: Urban Animals
Famous quotes related to north america:
“So-called Western Civilization, as practised in half of Europe, some of Asia and a few parts of North America, is better than anything else available. Western civilization not only provides a bit of life, a pinch of liberty and the occasional pursuance of happiness, it’s also the only thing that’s ever tried to. Our civilization is the first in history to show even the slightest concern for average, undistinguished, none-too-commendable people like us.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)
“The compulsion to do good is an innate American trait. Only North Americans seem to believe that they always should, may, and actually can choose somebody with whom to share their blessings. Ultimately this attitude leads to bombing people into the acceptance of gifts.”
—Ivan Illich (b. 1926)
“We might hypothetically possess ourselves of every technological resource on the North American continent, but as long as our language is inadequate, our vision remains formless, our thinking and feeling are still running in the old cycles, our process may be ‘revolutionary’ but not transformative.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)