Research

Many wildlife species live in cities, putting wildlife in close proximity to humans and creating opportunities for disease spread. One of the reasons that some wildlife thrive in cities is the availability of resources like food. For example, our food waste is an excellent resource for wildlife that are scavengers—animals that eat dead or decaying things. Although we’ve all seen wildlife eating out of the trash, there has never been a comprehensive, scientific study investigating which scavengers use our food waste as a resource in NYC and how different characteristics of our waste impact that usage. This matters because different scavengers are hosts to different pathogens. The overall goal of this project is to investigate how our food waste might impact scavengers and therefore the potential for disease spread in NYC.