My experience at Bio Blitz was a paradox. The natural environment in which we were hiking, combined with the nearby sounds of urban life, felt like two completely different worlds, existing side by side. While I did hear nature sounds during the excursion, like crickets and birds and waterfalls, the distant hum of traffic was incessant, and made an impact on my experience. It was difficult for me to truly appreciate the “nature” of Central Park because the apparent existence of an adjacent urban world was a constant reminder that, despite its lush abundance of flora and wildlife, Central Park is not a naturally existing location.

That being said, I did not really expect to most rustic of experiences at Bio Blitz. I went into the event knowing already that while I might have my hiking shoes on, 5^th avenue is just beyond those trees. When we were informed that we would be examining “wildlife” I could not imagine that there would be much to explore aside from the local creatures like pigeons and raccoons, and an array of bugs and insects.

For the most part, I was right. There were no exotic species that blew me away, and the most active creature we saw was a raccoon scurrying away into a bush. There was, however, a charm to seeing even the most ordinary wildlife in a somewhat natural habitat. A cave might have been manmade, but the magnificent spider web at its opening was constructed by an insect merely going about its natural order. We saw many bats, as my shift was during the later hours of the day and transitioned from light to dark. The habitat that the bats lived in did not naturally exist, but that did not stop the bats from living the same way as a bat in a natural cave. The habitats and environment in Central Park are manmade, but the wildlife clearly manages with the illusion of a real habitat.

At one point I looked at my shoulder and saw that there was a small green bug resting on my shirt. It was interesting looking; it looked just like a single leaf on a clover, folded in half with tiny red eyes. As intrigued as I was by the insect, the reaction felt forced. I felt like it was my responsibility to act as though this little insect was a rare and precious find, and not just a common occurrence of a bug sticking to my shirt. It might as well have been a fly. I suspected that much of the wildlife on the trip was highly typical and did not yield many breakthroughs on urban forest life.

This is not to say that as a manmade environment, Central Park is not “real”. It functions the way any ecosystem would, and is designed to imitate unadulterated nature. Overall I did not feel a connection to the wildlife of New York City, mainly because I do not imagine New York City as having green wildlife. In my mind, New York is concrete, the concrete jungle, if you will. Adding green in attempts to imitate natural reserves nearby seemed almost satirical to me. It is wonderful that Central Park provides an escape from the daily hustle and bustle. Why pretend, however, that New York City is anything other than what it is? I was not fooled by the abundance of plant life; the loud honking and sirens were just as apparent as the humming of the cicadas. I felt like Bio Blitz, while a worthy excursion, tried to hard to pretend that New York City houses legitimate wildlife akin to reserves.

I would propose a new outlook on said wildlife. Instead of acting as though we are preserving something, we should act as though we are creating something entirely new. A hike within a city can be an entity in of itself. There is no need to pretend that Central Park is Yellowstone.