Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The shoreline in Ketchikan, Alaska, teems with rare—harlequin duck—and common—
mallard and Canada goose—waterfowl.
in the Tongass National Forest that required powerboat, kayak, and hiking to
attain. But the real stunner comes from a comparison of two signature parks
in the United States. Yellowstone National Park is a wild gem where wolves
and grizzlies sit atop a food chain that characterizes a true primeval ecosys-
tem. The park is a whopping 2.2 million protected acres within a wild ecosys-
tem of nearly 20 million acres. Each March I spend a few days on the park's
northern range. In 2013, after counting twenty-six bird species in Yellowstone,
I l ew to the fourth largest megacity in the world, New York. There, in the
heart of Manhattan, walking distance from Broadway, Fifth Avenue, and Wall
Street, is a “wild” park of a completely dif erent order, Central Park. Thanks
to the foresight of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead, eight-hundred-
acre Central Park brings nature to the city.
As I bird north along Sixth Avenue, I see only house sparrows, Euro-
pean starlings, and rock pigeons. Then I enter Central Park and quickly i nd
