Chimneys and attics can serve as raccoon dens, while raised porches and cluttered garages offer shelter for skunks \u2014 part of a broader shift toward city living<\/p>\n
Just because you happen to live in an urban setting doesn’t mean that you are bereft from viewing wildlife. With a bit of looking around, many people are still encountering a myriad of wild critters in the backyard, garden and local park.<\/p>\n
Across our county, as first the forests and then the fields disappeared, being replaced by a grid-work of roads and monoculture lawns, the resident wildlife had to either adapt or move on.<\/p>\n
No longer do lynx nor passenger pigeons frequent southern Ontario. One moved to the north,\u00a0where vast expanses of forest beckoned; the other couldn’t handle the change and expired as a species.<\/p>\n
But some animals did adapt, even thrived, as settlements grew and became a new type of habitat unto itself. Today, an early morning walk down any side street may result in you seeing half a dozen, or more, species of urban fauna.<\/p>\n
Grey squirrels have taken very well to urban living, as those majestic tree-lined streets provide are often large, hollow, and a good seed producer. And those now ancient houses erected beside these trees have provided squirrels with all sorts of aerial entrances to attics, those perfect man-made den sites.<\/p>\n
It is interesting to note that grey squirrels come in two colour types: gray or black. Biologically speaking, black squirrels do not exist as a species, they are classified as the melanistic form of grey squirrels. (Not a lot of help when you have an attic full of ’em, but interesting to note.)<\/p>\n
Natural predators of squirrels have also been reduced, as great horned owls and red-tailed hawks don’t often hunt urban areas. But enterprising man invented the automobile as a limiting factor for squirrel populations. By having the roads wide enough so that trees can’t quite touch from one side to the other, these tree-rats are forced to cross the road on foot, thus becoming fair game.<\/p>\n
Cottontail rabbits abound (really bad pun) in urban settings. With hedgerows to hide in, sheds and garages to live under, and little garden plots to feed in, rabbits are quite happy to share their territory with us.<\/p>\n
Speaking of sheds to live under, did you know that in southern Ontario there are more raccoons and skunks living in urban areas than in the countryside? It’s true! Chimneys and attics are ideal for raccoon homes, while raised porches and old, litter-filled garages are appreciated by skunks.<\/p>\n
A former trapper, who now lives in the city of Hamilton, found he could no longer make a living from selling fur pelts. Instead, he now charges a fee to homeowners to remove nuisance animals from their abode. He claims he made an income of about $60,000 in one year! (Do the math: 150 invaded homes times $400 a removal, equals the above.)<\/p>\n
Some species of wildlife are so much a part of the city that we now take them for granted: pigeons, starlings, robins, grackles, and mourning doves are a few that have adapted well to urban sprawl. And Canada geese and ring-billed gulls have greatly benefited from the establishment of parklands beside waterbodies, especially if French fries are included.<\/p>\n
One of the more recent additions to Simcoe County’s wildlife list has been the house finch. Looking like a sparrow with ‘war paint’, these little finches have been steadily sweeping across the Great Lakes region since 1948.<\/p>\n
They had been released in New York city by a pet store owner who had bought them illegally \u2014 and once caught, rather than sending them back to northern California, he released them out the back door of the shop. House finches arrived in Simcoe County about 1984 and are now a very common urban bird.<\/p>\n
Do not overlook the more commonly observed birds, such as those bob-bob-bobbing along robins. Since the invention of the concept of \u201clawn\u201d in the early 1950s, robins have swiftly relocated from woodlands to nesting over the porch lights of nearly every other house in town.<\/p>\n
Next time you find yourself trapped in the city, take a walk down to the park or along a tree-lined side street. You may be amazed at the number of wild critters you encounter. Those who live in the city may not always be in blissful harmony with wildlife, but wildlife is tolerating us fairly well.<\/p>\n
David J. Hawke is a freelance writer and naturalist who lives in rural North Simcoe County. He has been continuously creating weekly nature stories since 1989\u2026 and thinks that there are still many more topics to cover!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chimneys and attics can serve as raccoon dens, while raised porches and cluttered garages offer shelter for skunks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-706998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}