To The Editor:

The saga of the BlackBerries has been wonderful to follow. On the one hand, here were all these people willing to step out of their own interested perspectives and see their own character as human beings defined by understanding and addressing the real happiness of this mother cat and her kittens ("Orphan kittens get homes. Goldman BlackBerries adopted"; news article, Nov. 6 - 12). This is the sort of thing that gives one a sense there is hope for our most invasive and quite often senselessly destructive of species.

There really are good people out there.

The story also points to an interesting change: Urban wildlife is increasing — feral dogs and cats, but also pigeons (brought here to be eaten; escaped to survive against all odds) and hawks (driven to extinction, now finding a way back); starlings and sparrows and a whole host of native wildlife — squirrels and raccoons and bears and even coyotes.

This increase is a mark of our success: We keep pushing our "bedroom communities" outward from the city core, changing the old habitat to something more suited to our needs.

This increase is also a mark of the animals' success: They have figured out how to live with us. This may be a greater success.

Part of the measure of the increase can be found in the way we react to animals. There was Simcha Felder’s chopped off city comptroller race; he took on pigeons, and it turned out more people liked pigeons than Felder (the split was 60/40, roughly). There is the increase in animals being referred for wildlife rehabilitation: the Wild Bird Fund reports the number of urban critters brought in for help has doubled each year for the last three years.

A substantial majority of New Yorkers likes our city wildlife. Borderline cases usually take little persuasion to see how charming these critters are, and how much they add. As to the hard-core: There are people who think the world is flat, too.

This is not to say there aren't anxious moments: Pigeons poop (but a good rain storm or some warm water solves that).

The point: The Blackberries and the whole cast of human beings who stood up for them is part of a larger story, a significant part of which is unfolding around us all the time. And that is really neat, well worth watching, and even better, well worth being part of.

Donald Jenner
Secretary/Treasurer of Wildlife in Tribeca