In Adventures in Habitat: An Urban Rat's Tale, through the ecological and literary examination of the Norway rat, I explore the development of an ecological literacy in urban environments. By attending to how other organisms function in and sensorily engage with a territory is a potential means to understand what it means to be human and find more sustainable ways of reinhabitation. As we are creatures who tend to live in excess of our environments’ carrying capacity, I query Neil Evernden's belief that through comparison with how another creature senses place in our shared environment we may realize through pushing beyond our imaginative limitations to understand our limits. I explore how this may be possible in cities where constant disruption desensitizes human attention to urban biodiversity. This essay emerges from Laurie Ricou's habitat studies pedagogy and methodology: a deep mapping of bioregion through a particular species within a particular bioregion. My article places the Norway rat historically in its wider global historical and environmental contexts but settles the rodent in a specific locale: Vancouver, British Columbia. As such, the piece's form follows a braided essay format and incorporates a blending of experiential and scholarly engagement.
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