The “Let’s Talk About Parks” series is designed to encourage exploration and discovery of Pittsburgh’s urban parks.
The benches near the gatehouses and solar-array-covered parking area at the new Frick Environmental Center in Frick Park are a great place to see families at play. Every combination of moms, dads, kids, grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends spend time in our city’s regional and neighborhood parks. Meaningful events such as birthday parties, engagements, weddings and holiday hikes take place in the park. Even in colder seasons, families of all configurations enjoy the outdoors as they bike, sled ride or look for leaves, berries or mushrooms together.
Human families aren’t alone in Pittsburgh’s parks. Animals have families, too, and they are busy making homes, gathering food and living in our city’s thousands of acres of parkland.
Many animal families are similar to human families in several key ways. Living in a small group with trusted individuals that are connected prepares everyone in the group for interactions with larger groups in the outside world. Like human families, animal families are often — but not always — connected by blood or parentage. Animal babies — like human babies and toddlers — need guidance from a parent or adult in learning the life skills needed to survive when they are grown. Humans generally need about 18 years of education before they are ready to make it on their own, while animals have wildly differing childhood ranges. Elephants often stay with their mother for up to 16 years, while young ducks like those found in the Highland Park’s Carnegie Lake will learn all they need to know from their parents in about two months before they strike out on their own.
Goats such as those who help keep the steep inclines of our parks free from invasive plants have similarities to human families. Baby goats are called kids, and on average they weigh about the same as a human baby when they are born. They depend on their moms for food until they are about 3 months old, when they begin to search for their own food. The geese you see flying overhead when you are in Riverview or Schenley Park have babies called goslings. While many animal families consist of a mother and her young, goslings stay with both parents for a full year as they learn to fly, swim, avoid predators and find food.
If you see a fish in our park lakes or streams, chances are its family may be close by. Both mom and dad fish fan the eggs before they hatch to keep them well oxygenated, and once hatched, the male swims in a circle around the family to discourage predators while the mom sticks close to the kids. Parental fish sometimes suck their young into their mouth to clean them and spit them back out into the water. Catfish dads are even more protective, keeping the eggs of their young in their mouths until they hatch. They don’t eat until the babies are born, which can take several weeks.
Bats like those that may be spied in the bat boxes in lower Frick Park have superhero single moms. The baby bats often cling to the lower body of their mother as she flies them from place to place. Baby bats may be left in a group with other young ones while the mothers go off to find food. A mother bat’s hyper-evolved sense of smell and sound allow her to find her babies once she returns with sustenance. Opossum mothers also go to great lengths to take care of their babies.
Opossum babies — sometimes up to 15 at once — are carried in their mom’s marsupial pouch after they are born, then switch to her back for a free ride as they become toddlers. Opossum parents share names with a familiar human nursery rhyme, too, as males are called jack and females are called jill.
Some animals are left to fend for themselves at an early age. While rattlesnakes’ moms will guard their babies for a few days until the tiny snakes shed their skin, they are on their own in no time. Baby rabbits — called kittens — have their mom around only for a few minutes a day after they are born. For about the first month of her babies’ lives, the mother rabbit — called a doe — will stop by the underground burrow once a day with food, then leave. She isn’t being mean because this scant contact minimizes the chance a predator will be drawn to the kittens.
Lucky humans have extended families to help raise them, with relatives, neighbors, teachers and friends lending a hand to teach us what we need to know as we grow. Some animals found in Pittsburgh’s parks also have extended families. Select species of woodpeckers and jays have families where avian babies hatched at a nesting site will stay at the site as they grow older so they can help raise the next generation. Naturalists like those working with the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy call this behavior “helpers at the nest,” and it is found most often where food or primary nesting sites are scarce. The birds’ extended families will work together as a group to flush out insects or other small prey, ensuring that that everyone in their clan — kids, cousins, parents and friends alike — all have enough food to survive.
To plan your visit to Highland Park’s Lake Carnegie, download a map at pittsburghparks.org/highland-park.
First Published: November 29, 2016, 5:00 a.m.
