Why So Many Creatures
Now Call Our Cities Home
UCSB Professor Peter Alagona’s Book ‘The Accidental Ecosystem’ Reveals Where the Wild Things Really Are
By Matt Kettmann | November 3, 2022
A few years ago, while riding his bike home from his job teaching the next generation of environmentalists at UCSB, Peter Alagona came across a bobcat on the path between Atascadero Creek and Hidden Oaks Golf Club. Up to that point, his academic life as an environmental historian revolved around endangered species, as detailed in his first book, After the Grizzly: Endangered Species and the Politics of Place in California, which was published nearly a decade ago.
After years of considering the elusive California condor, desert tortoise, and San Joaquin kit fox, the bobcat made Alagona curious about the wildlife that’s all around us, eating in our backyards, cruising our creekways, and sleeping in our parks. He dove into the burgeoning field of urban ecology, which analyzes, among other trends, how and why the animals we once considered so wild are now so comfortable in our cities.
Last April, Alagona published the stories and studies that he discovered in urban areas across the United States as his second book, The Accidental Ecosystem: People and Wildlife in American Cities. Written in a style that’s accessible to everyday readers but with the rigorous attention to detail demanded by academics, Alagona’s book examines everything from headline-grabbers like Malibu cougars, skyscraper-dwelling eagles, and bipedal black bears to innocuous yet important critters like gnatcatchers, raccoons, and house sparrows.
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