Skip to Content
Nature’s Cleanup Crew cover image

Nature’s Cleanup Crew 2021

Highly Recommended

Distributed by Bullfrog Films, PO Box 149, Oley, PA 19547; 800-543-FROG (3764)
Produced by A Kensington Communications Production in association with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, with the participation of ZDF/ARTE
Directed by Robin Bicknell
Streaming, 54 mins



K-12
Animal Behavior; Biodiversity; Ecology; Habitat

Date Entered: 10/13/2021

Reviewed by LaRoi Lawton, Library & Learning Resources Department, Bronx Community College of the City University of New York

As a native New Yorker, did you know that there are 23 different species of ants on Broadway in New York City? Or that even though New York boasts of about 8 million people, ants boast even more with 1.2 billion. This film takes an intriguing look at the various insect and animal scavengers that reside in many of our urban and rural cities around the world. This film starts with what are called ‘pavement ants’ and illustrates why they are called ‘nature’s cleanup crew’ getting rid of what we call garbage or waste we produce every day; the viewer then travels to Berlin where the fox is shown how it helps reduce the rabbit and rodent population. As we encroach even further into lands that occupy many of these creatures, great and small, our interactions with them, is often troubling creating what can be termed habitat loss of creatures needed to scavenge animal remains and garbage we tend to leave around.

For many of the scavengers shown in this film, it becomes abundantly clear that they play an important role in the food web. They keep our ecosystem free of the bodies of dead animals and plants by breaking it down and recycling it back into nature as nutrients. They play an important role in maintaining a healthy habitat. This is an important film about creatures and insects many of us are either afraid of or don’t like. It also shows how important these same creatures are in cleaning up nature.

Awards:
Animal Behavior Society Film Festival

Published and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Anyone can use these reviews, so long as they comply with the terms of the license.