Michael Moynihan: 'My' fox is a reminder that the environment starts at my own front door

Cork's flourishing urban wildlife reminds us that, rather than being some exotic elsewhere, biodiversity is part of all our lives

In Cork, as elsewhere, householders are delighted to see wild visitors from birds to foxes and hedgehogs. Picture: iStock

It happened before WhatsApp was invented, so the initial contact was a text which pinged loudly on my old Nokia. COME TO THE DOOR AND OPEN IT V QUIETLY.

Though it was after 11pm, I complied (it was before Netflix as well, what else was happening?).

When I opened the front door, I saw a fox standing in the garden about three yards away. My wife was coming home from work and had stopped at the garden gate; she was the person who’d texted me.

The fox looked at us both in turn with an expression that could only be interpreted as “So?”

After a minute or two, he padded off through the hedge, having clearly established he’d go when he was good and ready and not be rushed into anything. That’s quite a few years ago and I haven’t seen him since, though I keep an eye out.

My reason for opening with a tale of urban wildlife is not to expose how small my front garden is, but to look at Cork as a haven for wildlife. Or not. I’m open to persuasion.

I realise immediately that this is a more fraught area than first appears. 

Myths on the 'I am Legend' scale...

Wildlife in the big city is an idea that inspired the very definition of the term, urban legend, a term often centred on one particular yarn that emerged, sniffing intently, from 1970s New York City.

This was the story that exercised a powerful hold on the public imagination: New Yorkers went to Florida on holiday and sometimes bought tiny baby crocodiles home with them as souvenirs. The baby crocodiles got bigger, however, and the unhappy owners sometimes flushed them down the toilets of their apartments.

Some of the crocodiles survived the journey round the S-bend and popped up in the sewers, where they grew bigger and bigger, and wandered the dark tunnels looking for something more appetising than the scraps and refuse that were on offer....

You can see the appeal of the story immediately: vaguely plausible with a neat narrative, yet also entirely unprovable. One of its most powerful attractions is the sheer incongruity of the juxtaposition. The pipes and tunnels of modern infrastructure, stone and steel, and the lumbering dinosaur-like monster, snuffling through the darkness.

I hasten to add that such creatures don’t exist in Cork’s netherworld of understreet bog and tunnel — they didn’t exist in New York, either — but the presence of animals in the city is an interesting topic even if it doesn’t include large maneaters. 

'The persistence of urban foxes is almost a cliché at this point, but we shouldn't be surprised by the presence of wildness in the city...' File picture: Dan Linehan

What does it mean to have wild animals in an urban landscape? Is it a ‘Good Thing’, to use a term from the satirical history, 1066 And All That — an indicator that biological imperatives can find a way through the most challenging environment?

Or is it bad news, an ominous precursor to an I Am Legend-style future, in which surly lions stroll an overgrown Grand Parade and run down inattentive deer loitering on a deserted Merchant’s Quay? ( Less of the apocalypse, kid - Cork Business Association.)

In cities all over the world, the persistence of the urban fox is almost a cliché at this point, but we shouldn’t be surprised by the presence of wildness in the city. Not after a prolonged recent period in which once-busy city streets were deserted for weeks on end.

This led to some stunning images. The sheep which took over a Welsh town. Remember that? Or the brawling monkeys in Thailand, hungry without the largesse of tourists?

These were the eye-catching headlines we all chuckled over, but what about the less spectacular effects on wildlife in the city?

Only now, with enough distance and time to study the facts, can we see the proof of what our eyes and ears suggested. For instance, there were more birds flourishing in city spaces than ever before when we were all confined to barracks.

A report in Science Advances suggested that the coinciding of the lockdown with spring migration season in the US, for instance, helped bird numbers to rise.

When bird numbers were surveyed, they were estimated as 14 times more likely to go up than to go down across all markers, strongly indicating that human activity — absent in that time period — has a huge influence on bird numbers.

The obvious question is what has happened since, with some observers concerned an 'ecological trap' could have been set by the quiet surroundings of lockdown cities — would birds find far more dangerous habitats when returning the following year to an urban space restored to noisy normality, a normality far less welcoming to birds?

To be fair, Cork does pretty well in comparison to this worst-case scenario. 

Before Christmas, Eoin English of this parish brought word of a study with encouraging news.

“Researchers at University College Cork (UCC) have found that while almost two thirds of the city’s urban landscape supports biodiversity, almost four out of 10 bird species within the city are listed as a conservation concern,” wrote Eoin in this paper last November.

Eoin English's article in the 'Irish Examiner' last November featured the 'green and blue' biodiversity map of Cork City highlighting its rich wildlife habitats. See link below. File picture: Luke Lambert

“Dr Paul Holloway, a lecturer at UCC’s Department of Geography and Environmental Research Institute, said, ‘confirmation that the interconnection between the city’s green and blue spaces positively influences bird biodiversity will help shape conservation efforts.

“‘There is a pressing need to identify optimal habitats within urban environments, and this research has highlighted that urban gardens and brownfield sites are important contributors to the sustainable management of biodiversity within cities,’ he said.”

This is particularly interesting. The researchers used innovative satellite mapping to create a map of Cork which shows that “almost two-thirds of Cork city can be considered green or blue, with these spaces positively impacting bird diversity and abundance.

Eoin continued: Dr Holloway said, “what was of particular note were the ‘invisible’ green spaces, such as gardens, hedgerows, and ponds, and that, when they are considered at a city-scale, it suggests that Cork has a well-connected green and blue network, with this connectivity central to supporting biodiversity.”

What’s encouraging about this is that there’s a role for gardens and hedges. In other words, you don’t have to be an academic or own a private forest to aid biodiversity.

The focus on what the individual can achieve is also consistent with efforts in other fields. Last week, I spoke to Marica Cassarino about pedestrian life in Cork, and she made the telling point that while somewhere like the Marina is nice to visit for a leisurely walk, it’s better for the city and for everyone in it if walking is integrated into our everyday life.

The lesson here is similar. 

Rather than viewing the natural environment as something to see on an occasional day trip outside city limits, if people see the value in those ‘invisible’ green spaces all over Cork, then the effort to maintain that biodiversity becomes part of community life. Everybody wins.

Including my late-night visitor, all those years ago: Unhurried and casual in the front garden; sleek and poised as he picked his way through the hedges.