BiodiverseCity St. Louis

Virginia Opossum
(Didelphis virginiana)

© Matilda Adams/Missouri Botanical Garden
 

As the state’s only native marsupial, the Virginia opossum doesn’t end up in the spotlight as often as other creatures. Known for their hairless tail used for balance and gripping, their grey body and white face, and their slow, deliberate movement, they also function as a crucial part of urban biodiversity, especially in the wintertime.

Unlike many animals, opossums do not hibernate. In the winter months, they remain active, often showing up in neighborhoods, parks, and wooded areas around the region. The season's leafless trees and bushes make them more visible in the wintertime.

Opossums are opportunistic foragers with a highly varied diet. They feed on insects, amphibians, small rodents, and fallen fruit. They serve their important ecological role by reducing pest populations and acting as a sort of “cleanup crew” for nature. Even when other ecosystems seem quiet in the winter months, shy and slow opossums help support biodiversity in our environment.

There are many common misconceptions about this species, especially regarding their behavior. Their famous “playing dead” posture is a genuine nervous system response to fear, not a cute act. This reaction is a last-resort option in the face of danger, after trying to scare off a predator with no luck. Similar to fainting, the “playing dead” act is a brief nervous shock, but the animal recovers quickly, then takes the first opportunity to escape. Also, seeing an opossum out during the day in winter is normal behavior, not sick or aggressive, as they are searching for limited food. They rarely carry rabies due to their low body temperatures.

To coexist with opossums, especially in urban areas, remember to secure your trash and keep pet food indoors and in a closed container to prevent unnecessary conflicts. They adapt well to urban environments and often find brush piles, storm drains, or crawl spaces for shelter.

As you explore natural spaces near you this winter, keep an eye out for their raccoon–like tracks or glimpses of these marsupials—we have them to thank for braving the winter and humbly contributing to biodiversity, even in the coldest months.

—Hannah Gibson
Community Conservation Coordinator, Missouri Botanical Garden

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Volunteers make observations and impact at Heartlands Conservancy

SHADE
by Sam Bloch

Trees do feature in this mix from enviro-journalist Bloch, but his subtitle, The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource, roots for many kinds of resilience-makers and—most valuable to me—a shift in perspective that might truly help us get them working.

This book bears on Biodiversity because:

(a) Growing tree canopy shade takes time, so it makes big sense to cultivate multiple shade strategies;

(b) Our species’ capacity to care for other life forms crashes down when stress heats up:

(c) How refreshing to bask in the dappled light of ideas to humanely, effectively engineer some Nature-inspired solutions!

Sam Bloch considers shade from multiple angles. He writes what he finds in a voice I enjoy, respect—and would like to engage in conversation.

As a Cultural Historian, he treks through ancient Mesopotamia, a palace-city early humans raised up in the desert, to house their gods. Streets laid on diagonals to the compass points teemed with building density to maximize urban shade. How better to honor deities than to keep them coolly comfy in a blazing-hot place? What can Mesopotamia teach cities today?

In an Urban Planner’s hat, he explores Seville, Spain, where “right-wing business interests found (shaded) common ground with leftist agitators for working-class justice.” Under rippling fabric Toldos! These are traditional low-tech shade structures, slung between buildings. They’re now routinely hoisted and maintained over all the city’s streets as an official service that benefits all Sevillianos—and delights a lucrative tourist trade.

Shade is stuck in a dark place in our collective psyche. Think of all the fear-and-loathing associations we have with darkness. Ponder our values where pale skin signals ruling class, envy-sowing leisure, compared with faces browned by outdoor labor. Then carry this awareness to the burnt ends of human bigotry.

Bloch tells how shade was “outmoded” by industrial age cheap energy. Blow off humble shade for the “modern indoor comfort” of fossil-fueled AC, if you’ve got the means. Yet his subtitle’s premise of Promise foreshadows possible change, even to the climate of Human Culture. How might generous benefits offered by shade help sunset some of our species’ overheated habits and beliefs?

SHADE shines a light on how health statistic methods that advise public policy are insufficient to account for extreme heat impacts. Heat can kill as well as heart disease and cancer. SHADE calls out the healthcare sector to more clearly define how heat complicates conditions conventionally considered worthy of research and mitigation, of investment for the public good.

The book restates the glaring fact sourced from the WHO to the Vatican: those most at risk on a heating-up Earth are those least able to take the heat. Here Bloch’s reporter ethics challenge us: What if a bunch of shady characters steered some climate action toward physically, functionally throwing shade?

Beyond much good info, what has me so excited about this book is Sam Bloch’s reframing of many practical options into the umbrella idea of shade as a fundamental service we can work with Nature to deliver, where and how it’s needed most.

I believe this is a scale of perspective change with Movement potential. Though not (yet) universal by any means, I’ve seen such good work mushroom throughout my career hawking sustainable change in the fossilized realm of biz-as-usual. Here’s one example from our recent turn-of-century.

Just this kind of think-shift significantly powered the movement for Green Building when carpet-maker Ray Anderson met industrial ecology pioneer Paul Hawken. Ecology is all about relationships. Hawken’s work motivated Anderson to “evolutionize”  his product to become Floor Covering Services. Resulting processes and measures of success transformed Anderson’s company, Interface, Inc., with impacts in the building and manufacturing sectors that ripple through global business today.

Could making more shade become a productivity standard in a service economy? A good book gets you to think!

Human stuff has whacked climate stability—and biodiversity—for our whole planet. Community service can be a recompense for destructive actions. This book’s promise of SHADE as a service our species can proliferate deserves, I feel, a place in the sun.

—Jean Ponzi
Green Resources Specialist, EarthWays Center of Missouri Botanical Garden