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\u201cOur Wild Familiars: How Animals are Adapting to Cities and Reshaping the Natural World\u201d is available for purchase on Tuesday, July 14. (Provided by Crown Publishing)<\/p>\nIn his latest book, UC San Diego assistant professor Dan Werb isn\u2019t looking to point fingers at his audience for the desecration of animal environments or the trickled down effects of climate change. Instead, he hopes to promote understanding.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur Wild Familiars: How Animals are Adapting to Cities and Reshaping the Natural World,\u201d tells the story of humans and the undomesticated creatures that have learned to not just survive but, in some cases, thrive alongside them.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur Wild Familiars: How Animals are Adapting to Cities and Reshaping the Natural World\u201d is available for purchase on Tuesday, July 14. (Provided by Crown Publishing)<\/p>\n
Each chapter focuses on a different creature (or synanthrope, meaning a wild plant or animal that lives near human settlements and benefits from the human-modified environment) and city in the form of a standalone narrative. Some examples covered in the book include coyotes in Los Angeles, rats in New York City, octopi in Seattle and raccoons in Toronto. In La Jolla, examples include sea lions at The Cove or coyotes in residential areas.<\/p>\n
Werb moved to San Diego in 2013 for a postdoctoral position at UC San Diego, focusing on HIV research at the border with sex workers and people who were injecting drugs. Since then, he has spent time in both San Diego and Canada, where he\u2019s on the staff of the University of Toronto.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur Wild Familiars\u201d is his third book release. His other two are \u201cCity of Omens: A Search for the Missing Women of the Borderlands\u201d and \u201cThe Invisible Siege: The Rise of Coronaviruses and the Search for a Cure.\u201d The latter won the 2022 Hilary Weston Writers\u2019 Trust Prize for Nonfiction in Canada.<\/p>\n
Both tackle weighty subject matter.<\/p>\n
Thus,\u00a0Werb told himself his third book would strike a lighter, more optimistic tone. In writing it, he also sought to push back against books where \u201cthe author is moralizing about how badly some humans act,\u201d Werb said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to write a book about climate change that didn\u2019t start and end with absolute despair,\u201d Werb explained. \u201cFor me, I get amped on hope and wonder and connection. \u2026 That feels like a better starting place to think about the world and how we might change it for the better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Research on what would eventually become \u201cOur Wild Familiars\u201d began in 2023. The next spring, the narrative began to come together.\u00a0In its final form, Werb describes his book as \u201ca guide for the curious.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cI think the way that you motivate change is through connection and feeling like you understand the world better and how it works along with efforts to create behavior at the city and municipal level. \u2026 I tried to go into this book with zero nostalgia and not try to judge people for the way they live their lives. I think the challenge is that we\u2019re not going to solve climate change by making everybody feel bad about themselves and feel ashamed. There needs to be structural shifts that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of which is expected through what some scientists call \u201cthe great urban shift<\/a>,\u201d a process in which climate change propels a large species turnover in urban places.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, that\u2019s a crazy phenomenon,\u201d said Werb. \u201cIt\u2019s something that we should be aware of because it\u2019s interesting and could potentially make our lives even richer. But I think it also centers cities and towns as sites of conservation. And that is super exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n