About Thomas Hynes

Hi! My name is Thomas Hynes. I sign my emails and introduce myself as Tom, but I’m weirdly particular about being Thomas professionally. It’s confusing. I get it.

Anyway, I live in Brooklyn with Veronica and our very good dog. Some of my writing has been featured in Scientific American, Sierra Club, The Awl, New York Daily News, Gothamist, Business Insider, Atlas Obscura, and Untapped New York. I also have a Twitter where I tweet about NYC wildlife, but also Mets baseball, DC statehood, and whatever else interests me.

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Some non-NYC wildlife things I am proud of include:

The Shippan Turkey Trot - a Thanksgiving morning race that my sisters and I started to raise funds for the homeless in our hometown.

BikeGangNYC - a blog that my friend Wade and I run about how fun and great biking in New York City can be.

Red Cloud Indian School - a school on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota I’ve been lucky to work with most of my adult life.

Being married to Veronica - she’s the best. (Hi, honey!)

Continued Reading

I relied on a lot of great books to write Wild City. Check out some of my particular favorites here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does it matter to you where I buy the book?
First of all, thank you for even considering to buy my book!

Oh, sure. No problem. It seems like an interesting book.
Hey. I appreciate that. I really mean it. Thank you.

But does it matter where I buy it?
I mean, I suppose it’s important to keep our corporate overlords at Amazon happy. But I think I actually stand to benefit the most in a future where independent bookstores still exist and thrive.

How did..
Wait. Can I give a different answer about where to buy it.

Sure. It’s your website… Where should people buy it?
From my sister!

Great. So how did you come up with this idea?
I had written an article for Untapped New York about sewer alligators and a friend of mine was like “You know what you gotta do next? You gotta go see those parrots out in Green-Wood Cemetery.” And I literally had one of those lightbulbs turning on moments.

Who did those sick illustrations?
KATH NASH! CHECK HER OUT!

What are three things New York City can do to improve its environment?
Well, that’s a great question.
1. Enact city-wide organic recycling, aka composting. This will eliminate 1m tons of trash from being trucked away to a landfill where it would otherwise sit and emit methane for the next few decades. It’s a waste of gas to get it there, it’s a waste of land, and it’s a waste of the potential energy source we could capture if we wanted to be smart about all this.
2. Capture more rainwater through rooftop gardens, parklands, and daylighting as many buried streams as possible. This will keep stormwater from mixing with human waste and overflowing into the harbor, a thing that happens EVERY SINGLE TIME it rains in New York City.
3. Take back the streets. Seriously, enough with the cars. New York City needs to take back street parking spots, take back lanes of traffic, take back entire streets and freeways. Take back as much as possible and convert it to parkland, alternative modes of transportation and pedestrian plazas. It will yield an immediate improvement in our air, and also our quality of life.

What’s one detail that didn’t make it into the book?
There was more than one.

Well, can you name just one?
Sure. Peregrine falcons have huge eyeballs in proportion to the size of their head. If our eyes were relatively the same size as a peregrine falcons, each eyeball would weigh 8 pounds!

No way?!
Yes way!