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Animal
From page A1
smaller mammals, such as skunks, raccoons, beaver, and foxes, have even moved into densely populated urban areas. In the spring and summer these animals mate and are active even during daylight hours.
“I can show you fox tracks in downtown Richmond!” exclaimed wildlife biologist Dennis Martin in a recent interview. The essentially shy animals remain hidden during the day and come out to feed at night, seldom crossing human paths. Sometimes, though, the neighborliness gets a bit too close for comfort.
Many of the problems humans have sharing living space with wildlife, Martin noted, stems from the fact that people often do not realize that they are living in the animals’ backyards, not vice versa.
In the course of his work, he has seen bears denned in hollow trees in peoples’ front yard, or even holed up under their back porches. It often is not until the animals become emboldened by hunger or inadvertently cause property damage that people even know they are there.
“Damage caused by wildlife is becoming an increasingly important issue for wildlife agencies,” said Martin, who cochairs the Cooperative Allegheny Bear Study, a research project supported by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Virginia Tech, and private industry. “Though bear damage may represent only a small fraction of that caused by other species, such as deer, raccoons, beavers and blackbirds, indi
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