Embodied Wildlife Histories and the Urban Landscape

Abstract

Peter Matthiessen's Wildlife in America says little about the bodily connections between humans and wildlife. But environmental historians' growing interest in health should be extended to wildlife stories because humans' relationships with wildlife have shaped environmental health ideas, policies, and inequalities. Embodied wildlife histories would also encompass many common creatures that are not typically considered wildlife, such as Norway rats. The same processes of urbanization and landscape change that endangered many of the more charismatic species in Matthiessen's account also supported synanthropic species like rats and white-tailed deer, and increased contact between them and human communities. Histories of zoonotic diseases such as plague and encephalitis that jump from wildlife to humans in cities and exurbs can shed light on similar threats that have recently arisen, including Lyme disease and West Nile virus.