Varmints en ville

The Mirror's field guide to city wildlife

By CRAIG SEGAL

 The furry ones have us outnumbered.

 They're armed with nasty claws, razor-sharp fangs, and in some cases multidirectional ass nipples that can spray you in stench from 2.5 metres away. There are millions of animals in and around Montreal--over 650 different species live on Mount Royal alone. They are in your floor, your walls, your roof.

 And they're not going away. Most species were here long before the city was built, and they've learned to live with us. If anything, their populations are growing--to the point where city hall wants Montrealers to be a little less friendly with their furred and feathered friends. A little-known 1994 bylaw makes it illegal to feed squirrels, pigeons and gulls, under penalty of a $60 fine--all part of an attempt to control their populations.

 Another bylaw, however, prohibits landlords from killing some animal intruders (such as skunks and raccoons) right away. First you must try to evict them by fragrancing their den with adverse scents, for example. Only if that fails can they be trapped or killed.

 And once the city pound, Berger Blanc, is called in, death is often the result--and it's usually not the catcher who bites the dust. They picked up 1,142 animals other than dogs and cats in 1999.

 The SPCA's Sandy Boyer disagrees with the city's approach of euthanasia. "Putting them to sleep will not fix anything. It's going to be worse." Boyer says animals will always maintain the numbers allowed by their environment: if 1,000 squirrels can live in a particular park, there will be 1,000. If too many animals are exterminated, females start to reproduce in overdrive--currently the case with the city's raccoon population. "Why don't you live with them instead of destroying them? It's like saying you should destroy people because they're overpopulating the planet."

 Whatever the case, the city's critters are here to stay. So grab your binoculars: the Mirror presents an authoritative guide to Montreal's urban varmints.

 GRAY SQUIRRELS
 Physical features: Weighs 50 to 1350 grams, 20 inches long. Ten-inch tails help with balance and occasionally act as a parachute and weather sensor; can also be used to communicate. Top speed 20 km per hour with leaps of up to 1.5 metres. Can swim 3 km. Can fall from 40 metres unhurt.

 Breeding: Two litters per year, 3-5 young per litter. Maximum lifespan 6 years.

 Urban adaptations: Lives in attics and walls; peels wire insulation for nests. Eats trash, raids bird feeders, licks salt off roads. Locates buried food by smell and memory. Its 40-degree binocular vision makes it hard to sneak up on.

 Damage: Concentrated squirrel populations can cause damage to city parks. Can transmit disease to humans, though bites are rare.

 Animal superpower: A squirrel's claws can be hooked into bark with no muscular exertion.

 Lore: Montreal is facing problems of overpopulation: city squirrels currently number in the millions. They cause damage to trees, especially in Parc Lafontaine; they burrow beneath the bark, tearing at the tree from the inside. Mount Royal is a favoured dumping ground for homeowners who catch live squirrels.

 According to the SPCA, one Laval resident recently made a futile attempt to kill as many squirrels as he could. He drowned 78 of them before giving up.

 CHIPMUNKS
 Physical features: Weighs 95 grams. Top speed 3.3 metres per second. Cannot leap from branch to branch like a squirrel. Have been seen killing garter snakes half a metre long.

 Breeding: Females can breed at 3 months of age, 3-5 young per litter. Lifespan 2 years.

 Urban adaptations: Lives in outbuildings, basements. Eats garden plants. Lives in its burrows off stored food. The nest is filled with up to 6 litres worth of seeds and nuts, covered with dry leaves and grass. Not renowned for eating garbage, but enjoys high-calorie human junk foods.

 Damage: Despite its tunnelling activity, most harm is done only to gardens.

 Animal superpowers: Can stuff enormous amount of food in its mouth pouches (according to Montreal nature expert David Bird in his book City Critters, one once carried 13 prune pits). Can issue 100 chirps a minute for up to half an hour.

 Lore: Chipmunks are less of a problem than squirrels since they are less aggressive. Feeding them disrupts their natural rhythm: they get hooked on people-food and forget about the food they've buried. Come winter, many die as a result of their dependency.

 RACCOONS
 Physical features: Weighs 4.5-13.5 kg. Top speed 25 km per hour. Excellent swimmers, can jump from 12 metres without injury, but not particularly agile.

 Breeding: One litter per year of 3-7 cubs. Copulation can last 20 minutes to an hour; female may end session by turning her head and baring her teeth. Urban lifespan up to 5 years.

 Urban adaptations: Loves the creature comforts of human homes: lives in houses, garages, sheds, attics. Also lives in drainpipes and chimneys. Enjoys human garbage; eats almost anything, except raw onions. Also eats squirrels and kittens.

 Damage: Notoriously noisy: growling, screeching and chattering sounds. Tears large holes in roofs and insulation; picks through trash. Highly susceptible to disease, including tuberculosis and rabies.

 Animal superpower: Can open ice chests and tightly-fitted lids, unlatch doors, and open fridges.

 Lore: According to the Centre de la Montagne, an outbreak of distemper in 1989 killed all the raccoons on Mount Royal. They've since returned, and are busy repopulating the mountain.

 A common problem for homeowners: raccoons trapped in chimneys--most of which aren't discovered until the unimaginable has happened. Worse still, 99 per cent of these cases are inexperienced females looking for a place to give birth. "Once she's been burned, the skin comes off as you squeeze it through the vent," says animal catcher Dominique Montreuil. "Maggots fall off it. For me that's the most disgusting thing in life: maggots. You literally hear them fall on you. They go 'dook, dook.'"

 STRIPED SKUNKS
 Physical features: Weighs 3 kg. Can be reddish brown, silver, all black or albino. Top speed 12 km per hour.

 Breeding: Only 1 litter per year of 6-8 young. Coitus can be violent, with biting and dragging. Lifespan of 4 years.

 Urban adaptations: Lives underground in dens, often beneath porches. Prefers suburban habitat (large populations are found in the East End and Longeuil), though numerous skunks live on Mount Royal. A single den can house up to a dozen skunks. An omnivore, skunks love garbage, rats, mice and half-grown kittens.

 Damage: Tear up lawns and gardens. Responsible for periodic shortages of tomato juice at local depanneurs.

 Animal superpower: Have scent glands with protruding nipples on each side of the anus; powerful sphincter muscles squeeze and spray musk. Scent nipples can be aimed with impressive accuracy at targets up to 2.5 metres away. The musk can cause temporary blindness and nausea, a few drops can saturate several km.

 Lore: Skunks are called Mephitis mephitis, or "bad odour, bad odour," and Spilogale putorius, or "stinking spotted weasel."

 Skunks are Montreuil's favourite animal to catch. "They're adorable," she says. "We dig a big hole to see where they are. People around say 'She's going to get sprayed! She's going to get sprayed!' But we have a technique so she won't spray." Montreuil picks up a skunk the same way an owl does: from above, one hand on the neck and one on the rear.

 HOUSE MICE
 Physical features: Weighs 11 to 22 grams (two to four times the weight of a ball-point pen).

 Breeding: Up to 8 litters per year with 4-7 young per litter. Lifespan of only 1 year.

 Urban adaptations: Live in man-made structures of all kinds.

 Damage: Renowned eaters of cupboard foods, but they spoil more food by contamination than they actually eat.

 Animal superpower: Require little or no water to survive. Can live in cold storage rooms and survive freezing temperatures.

 Lore: Can climb almost anything, in any direction. Can chew through concrete and aluminum. Can squeeze through any opening 6 mm or larger in diameter. Often take up residence behind stoves; it will climb up the back and crawl into the space beneath the stovetop, where it eats whatever food falls under the heating elements.

 NORWEGIAN RATS
 Physical features: Weighs over 400 grams, measures up to 1.5 feet long. Can swim up to 24 metres underwater. Their teeth never stop growing, which makes constant gnawing a necessity. Can gnaw through pipes and aluminum sheeting.

 Breeding: Big breeders. One rat and her young can produce hundreds more rats in one year. According to the SPCA, there are "millions and millions and millions" of rats in Montreal, despite the fact that their population on Mount Royal is decreasing. There are four billion rats on Earth, almost one for every human. Urban lifespan 1 year.

 Urban adaptations: Lives wherever humans live but, unlike mice, sticks to lower floors; also lives in underground infrastructure. Enjoys a well-balanced diet of human garbage, with a preference for meat. Most rats are killed and eaten by other rats.

 Damage: Noted disease carriers, reputed for spreading the Black Plague in Europe. They bite one in every 100,000 human city dwellers.

 Animal superpower: Rats can detect contaminants in their food as minute as 0.5 parts per million.

 Lore: "Man's worst animal pest" has been known to pop out of toilets and basement drains. Cats are not necessarily good rat-killers: rats have been known to skin cats alive. An old Montreal Star article cites a local exterminator who had killed one too many rats: "Mr. Leighton says he catches them in his sleep and often has nightmares in which swarms of evil gray vermin are the star performers."

 Rat traps are not the best way to get rid of them: you may only end up killing the foraging adult in a family, while babies could survive or end up dying and creating a bad stench. Despite their reputation as a public health menace, rats are always the landlord's responsibility--not the city's.

 PIGEONS
 Physical features: Rainbow of colours. Excellent flyers. It doesn't jerk its head back and forth for fun. The move is essential to walking.

 Breeding: Year-round breeding explains the constant puffing, strutting and cooing of males in hot pursuit. Lifespan 3 years.

 Urban adaptations: Live in the nooks of tall buildings which resemble the cracks in cliffs where their ancestors would have lived. Eat garbage, stale bread, rice and other grains.

 Damage: Pigeon shit is difficult to clean off buildings, and can even cause respiratory problems. Pigeons can transmit over 30 diseases to humans, including meningitis.

 Lore: Pigeons have lived alongside people for at least 5,000 years, and Montreal's pigeon population has been on the rise for the last 20 years.

 Once settled in a building's nook, they are notoriously stubborn about leaving. Some buildings use expensive wire systems to shock (but not kill) pigeons trying to nest in them. Other pigeon deterrents include owl sculptures and windowsills lined with beds of nails.

 Pigeon shit, in addition to spreading disease, also causes a respiratory problem called histoplasmosis, caused by spores in the feces. Crews regularly scrub city parks with mops, brushes and hoses to get rid of it.

 COTTONTAIL RABBITS
 Physical features: Weighs 800-1,800 grams. Colours: gray, brownish gray, white, buff and black. Top speed up to 30 km per hour.

 Breeding: Females can produce up to 29 young per year. Mating: chase each other around until the female turns and spars with the male, then one of them jumps up and the other passes beneath it. This is repeated several times. Normal lifespan is 15 months, but most are killed by predators.

 Urban adaptations: Most at home in suburbia, especially in parks or golf courses. Use other animals' abandoned dens rather than dig their own. Big eaters of flower gardens and vegetable patches. Also enjoy road salt.

 Damage: Garden hazard.

 Lore: Because their speed is their best defense against predators, rabbits actually make use of roads, pedestrian paths and other large clearings as escape routes.

 OTHER URBAN BEASTS
 Toads use their hind feet to shuffle themselves down into loose earth, either covering themselves completely, or just leaving their heads exposed. The wily amphibian often ends up clogging the plumbing of suburban swimming pools... House sparrows, of which there are more than pigeons, rule the city. Brought to America in 1850 to help control insect populations, they are the reason Montreal does not have more bird species: they are protective of their area, and will destroy larger birds' young and take over their nests... Attic-dwelling bats can find their way home from hundreds of kilometres away by echo-locating with ultrasonic sonar... You can blame our massive starling population on New York. In the 19th century a man who wanted to have all the species mentioned in Shakespeare's plays released several hundred in Central Park, and they spread from there... Crows eat eight to 10 meals a day. They live up to 10 years, can count up to four, and mimic human sounds... Gulls, of which there are around 40,000 nesting in and around Montreal, nearly went extinct in the late 19th century, when their feathers were popular for hats and gowns... Skyscrapers mimic the cliffs of the peregrine falcon's natural habitat. Montreal once had a famous family of peregrines living on the Sun Life building. Sun Life is now peregrine-free, but a small number of falcons still nest in the area... As do owls, which stand atop the urban food chain as eaters of squirrels, bats, skunks, raccoons and even peregrines.

 Additional sources: Compiled with the help of City Critters by David M. Bird (Eden Press), Mammals of Canada by A.W.F. Banfield (University of Toronto Press), and Wild in the Streets, directed by Christine York (Wichin-York Film, Cinema Libre).
 

 ANIMALS IN MONTREAL HISTORY
 1983: In 1983 two dozen Great Gray owls swooped into the city area. They stood three quarters of a metre tall with a wingspan of one-and-a-half metres. Two were wounded by trophy hunters.

 1960: A seal appeared in the MacKay Basin, at the foot of McGill Street in the Port of Montreal. It carried its 175 pounds all the way from Labrador. Pier workers fed it fish while others pelted it with stones. Police caught it and put it in a public bath. It died after refusing to eat.

 1936: Peregrine falcons nest on the 20th floor of the Sun Life Building, 300 feet above the street. They stand 15 inches high with a wing span of four feet. Adults kill more than one pigeon a day. They began to return each spring to build their nest and hatch their young. The city still has falcons in the summer. Now you can find them on the 32nd floor of the Stock Exchange building in Old Montreal. No longer endangered, falcons now nest in over 25 North American cities.

 1931: An eagle is spotted in two different places: on the south-east corner of the Royal Bank building on St-James Street, and on Saint James the Minor Church. It is nicknamed "Lone Eagle" before it is shot down from a Ste-Catherine church tower by a policeman.

 1832: A whale comes all the way down the St. Lawrence to Montreal's east end. Measuring 42 feet, 8 inches long and 7 feet wide, it is harpooned and dragged to shore. A speculator buys it and exhibits it in a shed on the shore. "He reaped quite a profit until the smell of the whale began to prove stronger than the curiosity of his visitors," writes Edgar Andrew Collard. :
 

 WHEN ANIMALS ATTACK MONTREALERS!
 Rat menace! In 1961 rats spread to every city district. One newspaper reported that "There have been instances of rats attacking infants in their cribs and many reports by mothers that they found nipples on babies' milk bottles gnawed away." In 1977 Montreal Matin reported that a man was attacked in bed by a rat. He killed it.

 Wolf! In 1966 a wounded and escaped timber wolf ran amok in the city's north end before five Montreal police cornered and killed it. "It looked like a big, dirty white dog," says motorcycle cop Paul Lucier, who slew the beast on St-Joseph.

 Swarming bees! In 1983 a swarm of bees searching for a new home held children at bay in a northeast Pierrefonds apartment complex.

 Killer coyotes! In 1970 police killed three coyotes in the city; the third was slain on Mount Royal in a shower of seven bullets after being flushed from her hiding spot by helicopter. She was described as "a big female."

 Grasshoppers gazooks! In 1948 thousands of grasshoppers swarmed Montreal and outlying districts. One Montreal Star headline read: "Locusts, Take Warning!--Your Stalingrad Nears! We Have the Food, Water, and a Secret Weapon!" A letter is addressed to grasshoppers, "who may have learned to read in our cultured city." One customer in an Outremont barbershop sat still as his neck was being shaved and a grasshopper flew into his face. In a letter to the Gazette, Heddy Thauer asks, "Could city officials not send boys out with the Man and His World type vacuum cleaners to clean up the grasshoppers?"

 Furious falcons! In 1941 people hired to point out the peregrine falcons at the Sun Life Building were attacked by them. Once they were safe, they suggested the birds be shot. An expert offered to catch them by "secret falconer's technique."

 The Birds! Crows and sparrows have been known to attack innocent passers-by who happen to stroll near their nests. They'll squawk at them or even swoop down and attack.

 Skunk gang wars! According to the SPCA's Pierre Barnoti, relocated skunks get in gang fights with the established locals. "The new skunks will fight with animals already living in the municipality. People call to say skunks and raccoons have been fighting and there's blood everywhere."

 Rabid raccoons! The SPCA's Sandy Boyer says hungry raccoons will attack cats. "If you have cats and you know there are raccoons in your area, keep your cats inside."

 False alarm! An SPCA inspector once received a call about a chicken that had run amok in a house. The inspector rushed over to discover it was a chicken-free human couple in the throes of lust. "But most of the time the things we do are not funny." :

 --Compiled by Craig Segal