SYDNEY, May 27 (Xinhua) -- Urban rewilding gains momentum in the fight against global biodiversity loss, bringing wildlife back to city life, according to a new study led by the University of Sydney.
The research reveals that animals long absent from city landscapes are finding new homes in urban spaces, a press release from the University of Sydney said on Monday.
According to the study, beavers in London are swimming in the city's waterways for the first time in 400 years. Falcons have adapted to life in American cities, now nesting atop high-rise buildings. Leopard frogs, once locally extinct, have been successfully restored to Las Vegas wetlands.
In Brazil, howler monkeys are now breeding in the forests of Rio de Janeiro. Singapore has reintroduced the oriental pied hornbill to its historical range, and in Australia, platypus populations are rebounding on the outskirts of Sydney, said the study published in Bioscience.
The research team, led by Patrick Finnerty from the University of Sydney's Faculty of Science, reviewed 2,800 studies on species reintroductions. While fewer than 1 percent of rewilding programs involved reintroducing terrestrial fauna into cities, the review highlights a growing global movement to reintroduce native animals into city parks, wetlands, and reserves.
Urban rewilding not only boosts biodiversity but also reconnects people with nature, Finnerty said.
"In today's urban environments, many children can name hundreds of brands but often not a single native bird or mammal," he said, adding that restoring wildlife to urban environments helps address the "nature deficit disorder."
With 70 percent of the world's projected 10 billion people expected to live in cities by 2050, the researchers argue that rewilding should be a key part of urban planning and ecological restoration efforts. ■
