Urbana Animalis (52')
URBANA ANIMALIS (52')
INFORMATION
FR / 2024 / 52’ /
Ekla Production / Ushuaïa TV / Directed by Eric Beauducel & Anthony Binst
Worldwide rights available
TAGS
Wildlife, environment, climate change, Amsterdam, London, Paris, NYC, Montreal, New Dehli, Darwin
SYNOPSIS
In March 2020, the Covid 19 pandemic forced half of the world's population to lock down ; more than 3.4 billion people called to stay at home in nearly 80 countries. An unprecedented situation with unexpected consequences. From the four corners of the world, we all noticed wildlife reclaiming urban spaces freed from pedestrians and traffic. We witnessed the return of fishes to the waters of Venice, families of ducks strolling through Paris, cougars in the streets of Santiago, wild boars in Barcelona... Yet these species were already there. They were just hidden or around the corner. This global health crisis unveiled a situation that was little known but real.
Indeed before the lock down, there were already 35,000 wild boars in Berlin, 15,000 coyotes in Chicago, opossums in Detroit or Flint, scorpions in Sao Paulo, foxes in London and falcons in Paris. Everywhere animals change to adapt to a new and growing environment: cities. An unavoidable process in a world that will be 60% urban in 2030. Artificial light, concrete, air pollution, overpopulation, all this contributes to a new era of evolution, called the Anthropocene.
All over the world, the behavior and genetic code of animals is constantly mutating. Every city has become an ecosystem and the changes in these new urban animals have certainly not all been monitored yet. Alongside wild and domestic species, a new realm of life is emerging: that of urban species!