HS Environment | Animals are moving more and more from sparsely populated areas to cities, according to the researcher, the reason is people’s changed attitude

Finland in the cities there are even more animals that were rarely seen in the shadows of apartment buildings in the last millennium. There are many explanatory factors in the background.

Urban environments offer sources of food that many animals benefit from, Research Professor of Natural Resources Center Ilpo Kojola tells.

“A significant part of the abundance of food in cities is indirectly brought by people: more plantations are made or there are deficiencies in waste management. For example, crows find everything that is left by people, even if they are not meant to be fed.”

According to Kojola, the urbanization of some species is explained by the large population growth. For example, the size of the white-tailed deer population was estimated at 10,000 individuals in the 1990s, while today the number is around 120,000. As a result of such a strong growth, it is natural that more and more animals are also seen in urban environments.

Environmental science lecturer at the University of Turku Timo Vuorisalo in my opinion, the main reason behind the urbanization of animals is that people tolerate them clearly better than 20 years ago, and many animals no longer have to fear humans. Vuorisalo highlights the starving fox cubs found in Naantali in the spring, whose mother had been left under a car and were written about in the newspapers.

“People were really into these foxes. Some urban animals even approach pet status in this way – their movements are followed on social media or in the media, and they may even be given names. In the countryside, the fox has always been considered a somewhat harmful creature,” Vuorisalo points out.

Some animals that roam the cities are just single, stray individuals. According to Vuorisalo, these are, for example, the fawns of the previous summer that always get lost in the cities in the early summer and have been weaned by the mother. They totter around in panic for a few weeks until they settle in a more suitable habitat.

Natural Resources Center specialist researcher Andreas Lindén reminds that if a species becomes common in the city, it will probably do very well there and there is no problem with it. Animal species that are suitable for a wide range of options will urbanize more easily than others.

“These are omnivorous animals that know how to creatively utilize the structures of human settlements, for example as nesting sites. A condition for urbanization is also often that the species is either naturally fearless or accustomed to humans as a harmless creature,” Lindén describes.

According to research professor Kojola, the adaptation of animals to the city is not only species-specific but also the result of a learning process. When a species has adapted to life in the city, traffic, for example, is no longer as big a risk for it as before. Animals born in the city have learned from their mothers ways and styles that allow them to survive in the city – those born elsewhere, on the other hand, are in greater danger in the city.

According to Kojola, the urbanization of animals is also helped by the fact that most mammals have a circadian rhythm such that they move at a different time than humans.

In cities foxes, crows, magpies and rats have started to appear even more in the 21st century. The crown pigeon was still a forest species at the turn of the millennium, but today there are a lot of them in Turku and Helsinki, for example, says Timo Vuorisalo.

“On the other hand, urban life would probably be impossible for fowls of the forest, such as the Metso, for example. However, settling in a city requires quite a lot from an animal, and not all species are capable of such a change.”

A city cyclist and a crow in Helsinki on the shore of Kaivopuisto on Friday in April in 2020. Picture: Vesa Moilanen / Magazine photo

According to Kojola, hare animals have been allowed to reproduce in urban conditions in peace, among other things, because they are even safer there from animals that prey on them than in sparsely populated areas.

Today, a strong population of hen hawk lives in Helsinki, which used to live mainly in the backwoods of the countryside. The peregrine falcon uses domestic pigeon and crow bird populations that are abundant in urban areas for food.

About fifteen years ago, scumbags arrived in the center of Helsinki. Kojola thinks that the background may have been a rampant city rabbit population at the same time.

“The explosive increase of white-fronted geese in the capital region was related to human plantings,” says Kojola.