Freshkills Park, a developing urban park on Staten Island covering 2,200 acres, was formerly the largest landfill in the U.S. The capping process of the landfill is complete, though the park is not expected to fully open until 2036. Wildlife, such as foxes, deer, and various birds, has begun to return to the area, accelerated by reduced human activity during the COVID shutdown. This resurgence has been documented by Ramírez-Garofalo and his team of ecologists over the past decade.
"It's an impermeable geotextile membrane," he said, referring to the thick plastic that was used, starting in the mid-nineties, to cap the four giant trash mounds of the old Fresh Kills landfill.
"The foxes are running wild," Ramírez-Garofalo said. So are the deer, turkeys, skunks, crickets, spiders, ticks, bats, dragonflies, and ospreys.
"During COVID, when the city shut down, it allowed a lot of the animals that were restricted to the extreme south shore to move across Staten Island," he went on.
"There was a lot less people and cars around, and so skunks, foxes, and turkeys all colonized basically every remaining patch of habitat."
#freshkills-park #wildlife-rehabilitation #urban-development #environmental-conservation #staten-island
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