UWIN Now Has 59 Worldwide Partners

The Urban Wildlife Information Network continues to grow! Earlier this month, UWIN announced the 59th partner to join an ever-expanding network of partners researching human/animal coexistence in cities: San Diego Natural History Museum’s Healthy Canyons Initiative (learn more about the organization here). 

In late 2024, UWIN added new national partners in Sioux Falls, North Dakota; El Paso, Texas; Stillwater, Oklahoma; and Savannah, Georgia. It also onboarded new partners in Bushbuckridge, South Africa, and added a “legacy” partner in Florence, Italy.

“It’s exciting to see that our network of cities studying urban wildlife continues to grow,” says Dr. Seth Magle, director of the zoo’s Urban Wildlife Institute. “Every city is different, and we welcome anyone who wants to join us in understanding animals on our urban planet.”

The Urban Wildlife Institute was created by Lincoln Park Zoo to conduct long-term science needed to ensure that animals and humans can coexist in urban areas. UWIN brought that work to other countries and continents so it could collect and compare data across cities. UWIN partners maintain and monitor dozens of research sites, collaborate on data that is available to all members, author publications, get training and guidance from UWIN staff, and work to deepen the body of knowledge surrounding animals in cities.

Image from a wildlife monitoring camera in Salt Lake City, Utah.

UWIN also includes international partners in Brazil, Germany, Argentina, Canada, Madagascar, and Costa Rica, plus cities all across the U.S. This means that partners now exist in more than 50 urban regions around the Americas, Europe, and Africa.

As its footprint gets larger, UWIN will help advance scientific understanding that can protect urban-dwelling species. It will continue to ask questions about species distributions and how they change, how to build successful wildlife corridors, how to conserve rare species, what kinds of characteristics attract species to certain areas, and more.

“To conserve biodiversity on an urbanizing planet means developing new and innovative approaches to help people and wildlife thrive and coexist in cities,” Magle says. “Each new city we add to the network gets us closer to a blueprint for wildlife-friendly cities around the world.”

For more information on the work of UWI and UWIN, visit this page.