TOW #13- "Bright Lights, Big Predators"

Richard Conniff, an Amerian non-fiction author who specializes in human and animal behavior, wrote the article "Bright Lights, Big Predators" for the New York Times this past weekend.  The increasing population of wild animals in cities around the world has become a controversial issue due to the animals' threat to humans.  Conniff uses personification and comparisons of this issue to other issues in big cities to convey to his audience that the animals aren't as dangerous as they may think and the thought of coexisting in cities is not entirely impossible.  He uses personification to justify the animals' placement in cities.  Conniff shows his audience the innocence of the animals when he writes,  "That leopard on a hilltop in Mumbai didn't move into the city.  The city rose up and engulfed its world."  He uses the personification of the city to place a blame for this impending situation.  When people think of these animals invading their city living space, they are incorrect.  The city has been built in places of wildlife, so it is not the fault of the leopards for roaming around in the city lights at night.  Once Conniff shows his audience that the wild animals are not to blame for their coexistence with humans in cities, he uses comparisons to other issues in the city in order to convince his audience that they have had much greater danger before.  Conniff compares the wild animal situation with the existence of rivers in cities when he writes, "We have learned to protect and restore rivers in our cities, says Adrian Treves at the University of Wisconsin, even though floods sometimes destroy homes and drown people." By comparing the wild animals to another risky situation that humans are totally comfortable with in their cities, Conniff lessens the validity of the fearfulness towards such dangerous creatures.  If they have allowed things just as harmful in their city to exist peacefully in nature, why can't they do the same with wild animals?  Conniff then takes an even more common and effective example of a high risk allowed in the city when he writes, "... we let cars dominate city streets, though they kill more than 4,700 pedestrians in the United States every year."  Something as common as a car poses a much higher risk to city-dwellers than the four-legged prowlers of the night.  With these comparisons Conniff can show his audience that the risk posed by wild animals is nothing crazy when compared to the many other dangerous things that we allow to exist in our towns and cities.  His audience, people who live in the city, cannot ignore the strong points he makes against the rationale for eliminating the threat of wild animals to the civilians of large cities.  His article is effective due to his personification and comparisons, and makes his readers contemplate living a life in harmony with four-legged friends.