Urban Wildlife Coalition founder defends all Chicago creatures, even slugs

Bathsheba Birman relocates worms from the sidewalk after a storm in her Sauganash neighborhood. She flips over bugs that are stranded on their backs.

But she says saving creepy-crawlies and other assorted creatures does not mean stepping on humans or being an extremist.

“I’m not interested in flinging paint on people or certainly not stripping naked,” said the 37-year-old founder of the Urban Wildlife Coalition.

The UWC does not wear fatigues nor tie themselves to trees. Instead, they petition and protest for a more hands-off approach to wildlife management. Humans can coexist with nature, in their viewpoint, without killing animals or destroying habitat.

Nearly 100 animal advocates, most from the Northwest side, have signed on. Birman said they are regular citizens and not radicals, more grandmas than militants.

“We are seeing more of a mainstream population that is deeply concerned about the issues that would have been consigned to some far-left categorization in the past,” she said.

Birman started the organization nearly two years ago to prevent a deer cull at North Park Village. Sharpshooters were ready to thin out a swelling Bambi population. The UWC stopped the kill thanks to support from Ald. Margaret Laurino (39th). Their interests soon expanded to other wildlife, from parakeets in Hyde Park to beavers at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

“If it can feel pain, you probably shouldn’t be killing it,” Birman said. “That’s a really easy rule of thumb.”

She said that philosophy earns her a variety of enemies: gardeners sick of rabbits, park officials frustrated with deer, and even other environmental groups that endorse population controls like goose egg sterilization. She dubbed the last faction “Big Green,” deep-pocketed organizations like the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society.

For Birman, all creatures deserve to be left alone, or at least deterred in non-lethal ways. Cougars have captivated Chicago residents, but she wants us to also think about less sexy species – skunks, slugs, and grubs.

“Who is going to be out there to advocate for possums if it not us?” Birman said. “I am equally concerned about [animals] that are not endearing to the public.”

That includes pigeons, which she said do not deserve public scorn nor the moniker "rats with wings," coined by Woody Allen.

Birman speaks and thinks methodically, armed with a bulging file of supporting maps, photos, and articles.

Born in Massachusetts, Birman moved to the Chicago area as a teenager. Her interest in the environment was fostered by her bird-watching mother and tree-loving father.

Her day job involves animalistic behavior in a very different sense. She is a freelance writer specializing in bar and club scenes, where watering holes and mating rituals are just as important.

She also started a dating service called Nerds at Heart, which attracts more publicity than her environmental work.

“She probably is one of the smartest people I have ever met,” said Mary Lee Paoletti, a member of the UWC who calls herself a kindred spirit of Birman’s.

The Chicago Park District declined to comment on the UWC, but Adam Schwerner, director of the Department of Natural Resources for the Park District, has justified the Park District’s management practices publicly.

“There is no real nature left, right in Chicago anyway,” he said. “And so whatever is there is manufactured to some degree.”

Birman said parkland is in recovery, but that does not warrant killing so-called invasive species.

She said, “There is a sense that anyone that wants to take a kinder gentler approach then must be emotional, uneducated, extremist, etc.”

Birman is a vegetarian and does not personally condone zoos or the circus.

“Unless it is Cirque du Soleil,” she said.