Once Manhattan was Mannahatta, a sylvan island where black bears, timber rattlesnakes, mountain lions and white-tailed deer roamed. So many tree frogs croaked that, as one naturalist wrote in 1748, it was “difficult for a man to make himself heard.” Streams teemed with eels, porpoises danced in the sea, and migratory birds chattered in chestnut and tulip tree forests. A red maple swamp full of beavers sat in the middle of what is now Times Square. Manhattan once boasted more plant species than Yosemite, more birds than the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and more ecological communities
...more
