The City Wild

Nature survives and evolves into any and all available space. Nowhere is this more evident than on our city streets, in our gardens and parks, on old canal towpaths, riverbanks, railway lines, road verges and industrial sites. And it is thriving, regardless of how much human and other activity may hinder its development.

Cork city has evolved into one of the best wildlife cities in Europe. Galway’s unique location on the River Corrib provides the city with numerous habitats and a multitude of species, as do Dublin, Limerick and Belfast. Everything from badgers, otters, foxes, squirrels, hares, ducks, swans, pigeons and sparrows have evolved the unique skills it requires to prosper in such an apparently barren landscape and make it their home.

The first episode will begin on an epic note, showcasing the amazing adaptability of life and the physical elements on earth it has had to evolve into and around. As such, human activity will be dealt with as just another physical element around which life must evolve.

The series will follow the trials and tribulations of selected characters over the space of 8 months. The first episode will introduce the main characters the series will be following as they struggle through the end of the winter and prepare for spring. This will follow the traditional structure of an observational nature program, with some very revealing footage and a voice-over.

The main characters will include the well-known swans of Dublin’s canals, Galway’s urban foxes, the squirrels that are thriving in city parks and gardens across Ireland, and some of the 20,000 wading birds that visit Corks tidal mudflats.

Next, we cut to location interviews with individual city dwellers of all ages telling us of their weird and wonderful run ins with the same urban wildlife. These will vary from attacks by wild foxes and badgers, to attempts by disgruntled gardeners to kill off what they see as pests, to suburban dwellers feeding birds and squirrels whom they have ‘adopted’ as pets.

The purpose of these vignettes is to show the human aspect involved and to give the audience the feeling that in following the series, they are being taken into a world that the average city dweller does not know or understand, but is nonetheless a part of.

The series will also follow the dedicated work of organisations and individuals as they go about nurturing and protecting these valued creatures, as well as encouraging viewers to get involved. Themes and talking points will include tackling the problems associated with urban wildlife, the home and garden as habitat, the particular habitats and food supplies provided by human development, the phenomenon of domestic animals ‘going wild’, the specific skills species have evolved and opportunities city life has provided for others, and the changes in their natural lifestyles brought on by such an ‘unnatural landscape’.

These will become a central part of the narrative as we follow these character through spring, summer and on into winter, giving the audience a complete picture of all elements involved in the great game of survival being played out on Ireland’s city streets.

Throughout they will have to contend with the natural physical elements and intrusions brought about by further human development, on top of the all the problems associated with raising young in the wild.

During and after the series, audience members will be able to follow the lives of these and other characters living in their area through regular reports on the shows website, keeping anticipation up for the second series.

The city has become a natural habitat all of its own. Its golf courses, sewers, waste ground, land-fill sites, back-alleys and abandoned houses providing a unique landscape that allows for the evolution of unique natural systems with their own specially adapted predators, prey and opportunists.

Telling the fascinating story of the characters that inhabit this world is the best way of bringing nature alive for our continually urbanised population.