{"id":442,"date":"2024-04-22T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-22T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/codez.me\/?p=442"},"modified":"2024-04-24T01:21:46","modified_gmt":"2024-04-24T01:21:46","slug":"most-people-are-disgusted-by-these-animals-these-new-yorkers-are-filling-their-homes-with-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/codez.me\/index.php\/2024\/04\/22\/most-people-are-disgusted-by-these-animals-these-new-yorkers-are-filling-their-homes-with-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Most people are disgusted by these animals. These New Yorkers are filling their homes with them."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Amina Martin rehabilitates pigeons and other birds in a small apartment in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. | Benji Jones\/Vox<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In NYC, many wildlife rehabbers see pests as part of a thriving urban ecosystem. <\/p>\n

BAY RIDGE, New York City \u2014 One sunny afternoon in March, Amina Martin answered the phone in her small Brooklyn apartment. On the line was a taxi driver, who told her he had a pigeon in his backseat and was heading her way. The bird needed Martin\u2019s help. <\/p>\n

In New York, you never really know who your neighbors are. You might worry they have bedbugs or hoard cats. Maybe they\u2019re celebrities. Or perhaps their apartments are filled with opossums, squirrels, and birds, all rescued from the streets of NYC.<\/p>\n

Martin, a Russian immigrant, is that <\/em>neighbor. <\/p>\n

Her studio is full of pigeons, mourning doves, and a handful of other stray birds including an African gray parrot named Elmoar. The animals are in cages that line the wall in front of her bed. Some of the birds have broken wings, trouble walking, or are partially blind. Others are abandoned pets with little chance of survival in the wild. <\/p>\n

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At least twice a week, Martin lets each pigeon out of its cage to fly around her apartment.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

It was loud in her apartment when I met her that afternoon \u2014 a racket of coos and cheeps and the occasional interjection from Elmoar. \u201cHe\u2019s teaching me English,\u201d Martin jokes, adding that he says words like \u201cwhatsoever\u201d that she\u2019s had to look up.<\/p>\n

Martin let out a couple of pigeons who flew around her apartment, including her favorite bird, named Anfisa. The animal had ombr\u00e9 gray plumage with pops of iridescent purple and green (i.e., she looked like a pigeon). \u201cShe\u2019s in love with my husband,\u201d Martin told me. \u201cShe lays eggs on his pillow because she thinks he\u2019s her boyfriend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin is among a small number of people across the New York City boroughs who rehabilitate injured creatures that many other people label as pests. The driver who called Martin had brought birds to her before; an acquaintance of hers finds injured pigeons on the street and calls the same one or two taxi drivers to deliver them. (Sending birds via taxi? \u201cIt\u2019s a common thing,\u201d Martin says.) <\/p>\n

Over several weeks this spring, I met more than a dozen licensed wildlife rehabilitators (aka, \u201crehabbers\u201d) in New York. Many of them, like Martin, care for animals at home, turning their living rooms into makeshift wildlife hospitals. I visited a duplex in Staten Island full of squirrels and rats; a room in the Upper West Side with a box of baby opossums; and a small park on Roosevelt Island with injured Canada geese, adult opossums, and house cats, all living together and in some cases sleeping side-by-side. One rehabber in Manhattan told me she converted her balcony into an atrium for injured birds. <\/p>\n

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Top left:<\/strong> A four-week-old opossum getting ready to be fed. Top right:<\/strong> Rehabber Amanda Lullo holds a friendly wild rat she\u2019s caring for. Bottom left:<\/strong> A young squirrel sucking down animal infant formula. Bottom right:<\/strong> A baby opossum in a furry sack.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

New York\u2019s rehabber community is small; the opossum, pigeon, and squirrel people tend to know each other. Some of them, like Martin, document their work on Instagram<\/a>, amassing a hefty following. But many of them operate under the radar to avoid unwanted attention from the Department of Health, or their landlords. (A bedroom full of squirrels is typically beyond a building\u2019s pet policy.)<\/p>\n

You might be thinking: What are they thinking? People are commonly disgusted by the animals that have adapted to live alongside us \u2014 to eat our garbage, to sleep in our streets. We typically want them out of our homes, not in. Wild animals, no matter the species, can also be noisy, dirty, and sometimes diseased. (One of Martin\u2019s pigeons pooped on her bed, and of course, I sat right in it.) <\/p>\n

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