Introduction

There are many elements that link humans to the natural world and to wildlife species in particular. Humans and wildlife share the same basic needs and challenges: securing food and shelter, avoiding predators and rivals, seeking safety, and making sure that their children survive and prosper. Humans and wildlife share the same world, environment, and habitat. Habitat can be dened as that part of an environment where a species lives and which provides the animal with the food, shelter, and protection needed to survive and reproduce. Historically, people viewed human habitat-the rural, suburban, and urban areas where humans live and work-to be separate from wildlife habitat. Wildlife habitats were those areas that humans had set aside for them. This might be as small as a patch of cover on a farm or as large as a national park or national forest. This dichotomy of human habitat (i.e., human-dominated areas) and wildlife habitat (i.e., wildlands) was always an illusion because both humans and wild animals are mobile. Instead, human development is constantly expanding into many new areas, and people are hiking and camping in the most remote parts of North America. Likewise, wild animals are moving into towns and cities. Today, even our biggest cities have large and growing populations of wildlife, including Canada geese, deer, raccoons, and coyotes. The end result of this two-way movement of people and wildlife is a closer association of humans and wild animals. On balance, this close association is a positive development because humans enjoy seeing wildlife in their neighborhoods, and wild animals have more areas where they can thrive. But sometimes, this close association has negative consequences for either humans or wildlife, or for both.