Zoöp Observations: Dead animalsZoöp Observations: Dead animals

For an increasing number of animal species, the urban landscape is becoming a more attractive habitat than the countryside. We would do well to think of the city as a dynamic collection of ecological niches where opportunistic species might thrive surprisingly well. Cities provide food, shelter and all kinds of breeding and nesting places. But whenever a species thrives somewhere, that usually means that they also die there on a quite significant scale. High concentrations of a species usually attracts predators. Should those predators remain absent, overpopulation and food scarcity ensure a natural check on any population. Of course the urban landscape contains its own specific dangers, like dogs, cats, motorcars and other means of transport, of which wild animals are not always aware. In any case: a lot of animals die in the city every day, but the remarkable thing is how hard it is to notice. Only when you pay particular attention do you start to see the run over birds and rats, the animals killed by cats and dogs, and the emaciated corpses of animals that died of hunger and deprivation. Nature usually cleans up those corpses at an astonishingly fast pace.

On August 29 I found a dead brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) right in The New Garden. It seemed to have been in good shape just before it met death. I saw no bite marks from a cat or claw marks from a bird of prey; rat poison was also an unlikely cause of death. As it happened, one month ago I had a chat with the municipal rat catcher, who was checking on a set trap in The New Garden. He told me that since 2015, Rotterdam has stopped using rat poison in order to prevent "secondary poisoning" of gulls, birds of prey, and other animals that feast on dead rats. The rat traps set out by the municipality contain an internal clamp that kills the visiting animals immediately. Which means the cause of death of this specific rat remains a mystery to me. In any case, I left the corpse where I found it, knowing it would be cleaned up quickly, and unlikely to bother any visitors. Today, seven days later, nothing remains besides a dessicated carcass I buried in a shallow grave.

Today I came across another corpse. In the smaller of the two ponds of The New Institute floated the carcass of a moorhen chick (Gallinula chloropus) of about ten days old. I managed to pick it up with my spade. One week earlier I had seen and heard six, maybe seven chicks among the dense riparian vegetation of the pond, and I had also spotted their father and mother. These moorhen chicks are possibly a second clutch; likely their parents already hatched a clutch elsewhere in Rotterdam. It's good to see the moorhen return to the ponds of The New Institute. I still remember the cheeky moorhens from the past, who occasionally entered through the terrace doors to see if the cafe offered anything to eat.