Three months ago today, I had an accident. I would have rather of had a dream, but I had an accident. Happily traveling along on my bike heading to work in Forest Park, St Louis, Missouri, I came to a standstill. 20 to 0 mph in a nanosecond. The bike tumbled over 180 degrees, with my face the first body part to meet pavement. The next 7 hours I spent drugged up in an ER getting ER type care. Surgery days later to “fix” the shattered and lacerated nose and mouth. In the intervening months, I have had lots of time to think about health across many scales: from the individual (me in this case!) to countries full of individuals; from humans to octopuses; and even from Earth to the Universe. It also gave me plenty of time to contemplate why Forest Park and all urban parks matter.
During these months, my thinking of health and parks was done out in the world, working on health projects in parks. First, I was at the Forest Park field site working with box turtles and snapping turtles and then in the Galapagos, studying giant tortoises (see http://www.drsharondeem.com/turtle-conservation/ for links to both these projects). My doctor said, “You can heal in Missouri or you can heal in the Galapagos Islands. Your choice.” (Yes, he is a very smart surgeon!) Therefore, off to the Galapagos I went. The past three months of contemplation of urban parks began within minutes of hitting the ground. My first thought was ‘what the heck?’ The next thought was ‘where am I?’ It was this second thought to lead me on the path of pondering urban parks.
No different to most accidents, I was within a mile of my house. I was in a little known treasure in America, Forest Park in St. Louis, Missouri. Forest Park is one of the largest, and dare I say best, urban parks in the USA at 1,293 acres with forests, fields, a Zoo (Best free attraction in America!), museums, golf courses, an outdoor theater or two, lakes, creeks and wildlife. The wildlife in Forest Park alone is amazing. There are birds, both resident and migratory, including the great horned owls of Mark the Owl Man fame (http://forestparkowls.blogspot.com/), amphibians, reptiles (all kinds of turtles), and mammals from the small to the not so small, with an occasional coyote or deer finding their way into the park. Trust me when I say the best urban park in American claim is not something I take lightly as I grew up next to Rock Creek Park in DC and spent 5 years living near Central Park in NYC. Forest Park is an urban gem surrounded by city.
The park receives an estimated 13 million human visitors annually, which is not bad in a city of 316,000. The Zoo alone gets roughly 3 million visitors a year. At the Zoo, visitors may enjoy the natural world and learn to care for creatures with whom they share planet Earth, while improving their own health. For example, zoo visits have been shown to improve human health both physiologically (lots of footsteps and lower blood pressure) and psychologically (increasing happiness and energy levels while decreasing tension). If not a visit to the zoo, you may instead go to a museum for art, history or science, take a paddle boat out on the lake, walk the dog, take a stroll, smell a flower, or go bird watching. The opportunities are endless, allowing one to reconnect to life and to, maybe just maybe, get a little healthier.
That freaky accident on that beautiful May morning gave me the chance to spend time thinking about the value of urban parks, and the importance of these places for human, animal, and planetary health. Urban parks help to minimize cities as heat sinks and areas of carbon dioxide build up. A good thing for planetary health. For animals, wildlife species increasingly rely on urban areas for survival, and parks may serve as safe havens for many species or stopover sites for migrating birds and other migrating animals. As for humans, with more than 50% of us living in urban areas these oases of nature, in an increasingly urbanized world, may be what we need to remain sane and healthy in a world that often feels less than sane or healthy. Parks might be just what the doctor ordered. So get out into a park. Remember though, if you are visiting on a bike, wear a helmet.
Citations
Louv, R. 2011. The Nature Principle: Reconnecting with Nature in the Virtual Age. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. 320 Pp.
Sakagami T., and Ohta M. 2010. The effect of visiting zoos on human health and quality of life. Animal Science Journal. 81: 129–134.
Sahrmann, J., Niedbalski, A., Bradshaw, L., Johnson, R.A., and Deem, S.L. 2016. Changes in Human Health Parameters Associated with a Touch Tank Experience at a Zoological Institution. Zoo Biology. 35: 4-13.
Williams, F. The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative. W.W. Norton & Company. 288 Pp.