Urban Space Squirrels Pictures

One day in 1856, hundreds of people gathered to gawk at an “unusual visitor” up a tree near New York’s City Hall. The occupant of the tree, according to a contemporary newspaper account, was an escaped pet squirrel, which the police had to be called in to capture.

Rural squirrels may claim one to seven acres as their territory and are protective of it. They keep intruding squirrels from trespassing or invading their space by marking trees surrounding their territory. Urban squirrels have a smaller territory and will sometimes share resources to survive. They’ve learned to coexist with humans. Squirrels in the yard can provide hours of entertainment, but they can also become quite persistent and pesky once they've learned to snatch food from bird feeders.

A squirrel in a tree is not much cause for excitement today. But as historian Etienne Benson writes in a fascinating recent paper, from which this scene is drawn, in 1856 squirrels were a rarity in cities. Long thought of as farm pests and frontiersmans’ game, they were only just beginning to be introduced into the parks of American cities, where humans had made homes for them. They were not urbanites to begin with. We made them that way.

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The Boston Common, the New Haven Green, and other public green spaces began to be seeded with gray squirrels between 1840 and 1860. They were given food and nest boxes, all in the name of livening up the parks. “An 1853 article in the Philadelphia press describ[es] the introduction of squirrels, deer, and peacocks as steps toward making public squares into ‘truly delightful resorts, affording the means of increasing enjoyment to the increasing multitudes that throng this metropolis,’” Benson writes.

Humans’ love affair with city squirrels turned out to be a strange rollercoaster, though—an example of what ups and downs can befall a species hitched to our fancy. At first they were cheery additions. People got them to eat out of their hands. Then people began to wonder if they were bothering the birds, thus prompting a burgeoning of the bug population, and they were removed or died out. By the 1870s they had been brought back, in tandem with trends in landscape architecture that encouraged natural-looking parks. Central Park, one of the gems of this movement, has had a population of gray squirrels in it since 1877, just a few years after its completion, Benson writes. Depending on who you talk to today, city squirrels are adorable window-dressing or grimy pests. But one thing is clear: From the parks, they infiltrated city neighborhoods and backyards, becoming a more-or-less welcome—and, seemingly, permanent—part of the human environment.

As more and more of the world becomes human-used space that other animals camp out in, by invitation or against our will, ecologists are studying modern populations like the historic ones Benson writes about. The discipline is called urban ecology, and you can spy some of its practitioners on median strips in New York City, carefully sucking up ants through a straw to track how their populations change. Some of them specialize in city squirrels. Cats, rats, pigeons, and even crickets that live in basements have all got their scientific fan clubs, avidly looking at what we’ve wrought. If you’re interested in getting a real-time sense of what future historians may write about today’s urban animals, you may want to look into this study of the creatures who make their homes within ours. It’s a reminder that real ecosystems do arise from what humans wrought purely in the spirit of beautification.

Veronique Greenwood is a former staff writer at DISCOVER magazine. Her work has appeared in Scientific American, Popular Science, and the sites of Time, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker. Follow her on Twitter here.

RECTOR: Yes.

The Rector wished to include a view of the Recreation Room in the brochure, and so an effort would be made to complete the work there soon. The photograph of Father Louis in the garden was very unsatisfactory, and since the point was to show the same man worshipping and working (to bring out the ora and labora idea, which laymen found so attractive), the Rector wished to photograph Father Urban in the chapel and in the garden.

FR URBAN: Why me? What’s wrong with you? Or Jack, for that matter?

RECTOR: I just thought you’d take the best picture. However, if that’s the way you feel… I wish now I hadn’t tried to use Father Louis.

FR URBAN: All right. I’m game.

Cranky baby meaning. RECTOR: Thank you, Father. Tomorrow morning, if you don’t mind, before the ground’s covered with snow.

Although retreatants would always be welcome at St Clement’s Hill, more emphasis was going to be put on the warmer months there. St Clement’s Hill could be operating at full capacity through summer and into autumn. In fact, it might be necessary to keep Minor open during the cold months in years to come, but perhaps they shouldn’t cross that bridge until they came to it. The immediate target was Lent. It was hoped that the brochure would be printed and distributed by then.

FR URBAN: What do we do in the meantime?

RECTOR: What we’ve been doing. During the week we’ve been working around the place, improving the facilities — getting ready for the future — and on weekends we’ve been helping out in parishes. Two of us go to Olympe, and one to Great Plains.

FR URBAN: No weekend retreats then?

RECTOR: Not at present. When cold weather came, the demand for retreats fell way off. So now we all go out on weekends. Except Brother, of course.

FR URBAN: In other words, there wouldn’t be anybody here now to give retreats even if we had retreatants?

RECTOR: Look at it like this. We don’t have retreatants now, and we do have to eat. We’ll just have to go on doing this until we can afford not to — until we can make a clean break. A difficult situation, but not a permanent one, I trust. As I say, I’m hoping to change it by Lent.

FR URBAN: And you’re counting on a brochure to do it?

RECTOR: Not entirely, although I will say I have great hope for this brochure.

FR JOHN: It should be very helpful.

FR URBAN: How do you stand with the Bishop?

RECTOR: I think we can say he’s behind us.

FR URBAN: What kind of a send-off did he give you?

RECTOR: How do you mean?

FR URBAN: Well, didn’t he write a letter or something?

RECTOR: No. To tell you the truth, Father, I think the Bishop had other plans for us here — in case we didn’t make a go of this, I mean. When I saw him last spring—

FR URBAN: You haven’t seen him since then?

RECTOR: Father Provincial saw him, and then, some months later, I saw him. He spoke then of the need for a seminary — diocesan, of course. He only mentioned it in passing, and I’m glad he didn’t make it any stronger than that. As you know, our experience in co-operative ventures hasn’t always been good.

FR JOHN: Bolivar Springs.

RECTOR: With the clergy shortage there is in this diocese, it might be some time before the Bishop would be in a position to operate his own seminary, but it wouldn’t be long before he’d want a man or two on the staff. We all know that’s the beginning of the end.

FR JOHN: Bolivar Springs.

FR URBAN: Well, I must say it’s no mystery to me — why you aren’t getting local support.

RECTOR: I’ve never thought of it as much of a mystery. Even the Jesuits had their troubles before they got established in Minnesota. Frankly, I wish they’d had a few more. They’re drawing from our territory, and the Benedictines are almost as bad.

FR URBAN: You have to expect that.

RECTOR: Look at it like this. In cities we have boundaries to keep people from attending the church of their choice. Well, I say we need boundaries to keep them from making retreats outside their own diocese — unless, of course, proper facilities are lacking within it. Otherwise, the little fella gets squeezed out. He might as well close up shop.

FR URBAN: Unless the Bishop’s behind you in any diocese, you might as well close up shop.

RECTOR: I think we can say that Bishop Conor’s behind us.

FR URBAN: Dragging his feet.

RECTOR: No, watching and waiting. If we really make a go of it here, you’ll see a big change in him. After all, if he weren’t behind us, we wouldn’t be here. You mustn’t forget that. We’re still in the making-friends stage. That’s all. The Bishop’s well aware of the work we’re doing in parishes.

FR URBAN: He should be.

RECTOR: We’ve had our largest groups from parishes where we help out on weekends. So, you see, it works both ways. Once off the ground, we should be self-supporting.

FR URBAN: We’ve been here a year and we still aren’t fulfilling our real purpose.

This was a source of great regret to the Rector. The situation at St Clement’s Hill did indeed leave much to be desired, but it was not hopeless. Nothing was, with God’s help. And whatever one might personally think of the present course — the Rector, for his part, regarded it only as the best one possible—it had received the approval of Father Provincial, and therefore it would be followed out.

RECTOR: Any questions? If not, maybe we should all try and get a good night’s sleep.

FR URBAN: I was kept awake last night by noises in the wall. Whatever it was, it sounded too heavy for a mouse. Do we have rats? I’d appreciate a straight answer.

RECTOR: Probably a squirrel.

FR URBAN: A squirrel?

RECTOR: Your little red squirrel.

FR URBAN: I don’t get it.

RECTOR: Wherever you have oak trees, you have nuts, and wherever you have nuts, you have squirrels. They don’t hurt anything. I’m talking about the cute little fella with the white belly. Your great red squirrel, sometimes called the fox squirrel, is something else again. I wouldn’t want him in the house.

FR URBAN: I shouldn’t think you’d want any of ’em in the house.

RECTOR: They’re not in the house proper.

FR URBAN: Well, can’t we get rid of ’em?

RECTOR: That’s easier said than done. Generations of red squirrels have stored their nuts in this old house.

FR URBAN: Stop up their holes.

RECTOR: That’s been tried. It doesn’t work.

FR URBAN: It has to, if you get all the holes.

RECTOR: Have you taken a good look at the eaves, Father?

FR URBAN: I can’t say I have. No.

RECTOR: Take a good look at the eaves. For many years they weren’t painted, and now they’re beyond painting. The way the wood is now, a squirrel can eat his way in or out in a matter of minutes. I’ve watched ’em do it. To cover the holes with tin, as Father Louis did, is just a waste of time, and it ruins the appearance of the house. The squirrels are always one hole ahead of you. Father Louis found that out. Shoot ’em or trap ’em, and more just take their place.

FR URBAN: We need new eaves then.

RECTOR: Have any idea what they’d set us back?

FR URBAN: I have no idea.

RECTOR: Well, I do. I’ve had several estimates. No, the time to replace your eaves is when you replace your roof. One thing leads to another. It took years of neglect to get this house in the shape it’s in now, and there’s no use trying to reverse the process overnight — unless you’re prepared to go all the way, which we’re not, at the moment. You may not believe it, and maybe I shouldn’t say it, but there’s more to running a place like this than meets the eye.