Wild animals invade the city

One of four wolf cubs born in Stockholm in May. Photo: Länsstyrelsen.

A friend of mine coming to Sweden for holidays from Paris wrote me a few days ago to know where to go to see wild animals. After thinking a while I realised she could actually do that in Stockholm.
Instinctively we might think that cities and wildlife are separate things. But just as humans are going through an urbanisation process, many animals do too.

Earlier this spring we had wolf cubs in the northern part of Stockholm, for the first time in 170 years. Wild boars are getting more common in the county and seals have been spotted in the very centre of the city, outside the Nationalmuseum when salmon smolt was planted in the waters there. There are also beavers and otters making their ways to urban waters looking for food and once in a while a moose gets lost and end up in a villa garden.

No need to mention rats – according to some people you can never get more than three meters away from one if you’re in a city – we also have other animals that live closely to humans. Bats are very shy, but only in Stockholm there are 12 different kinds, and late at night they can be seen flying around between the houses hunting mosquitos. And we have rabbits, lots of them. After some people let their rabbits out in the 1980:s, there were an estimated 5000 rabbits living in the central areas of Stockholm a few years ago!

Unashamed moose. Photo: Kristian Wiklund/Flickr.

But the animals I confront most here are actually roe deer and hares. Having been fed by people during the winter, the roe deer in my neighbourhood have become so tame they barely even bother to leave when I come close. And no matter how beautiful they are, it’s not as fun when they munch on my carefully planted lettuce and beetroots…

A roe deer caught in the act. Photo: Stefan Perneborg/Flickr.

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

July 15, 2010