The beavers are back: animals return to Stockholm after almost a century

City links: An ambitious urban photography project in Toronto, beavers make a comeback in the Swedish capital, and the Parisians who are suing City Hall over dirty streets, all feature in a roundup of this week’s best city stories

Athlyn Cathcart-Keays

Friday 22 April 201613.25 BSTLast modified on Friday 22 April 201613.28 BST

This week’s best city stories takes us from barbershops in Philadelphia where a programme is bridging the gap between black men and the polling booths, to the grimy streets of Paris, where residents are fed up of being treated like the underdogs and are suing the state. Share your thoughts about these city stories – and any others you’ve seen – in the comments below.

As cities expand and encroach on the surrounding countryside, animals are forced to adapt to this rampant urbanisation, while urban dwellers must also learn how to life – and sometimes brush shoulders with their wild neighbours.

After disappearing completely from Stockholm less than a century ago due to hunting, the Eurasian beaver has returned to the city thanks to a repopulation drive that took place in central Sweden in the 1920s. Today, the rodent has finally made its way back to the bustling capital, enamouring local residents with their goofy teeth, while wreaking havoc for park wardens who are concerned that their constant gnawing on urban trees could pose a safety risk in a city with so much green space.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, the endangered El Segundo blue butterfly feels right at home next to the roaring jet engines of Boeing-777s at LAX, while up in the Hollywood Hills, mountain lions roam around tourists without being spotted. Read National Geographic’s Wild Cities features this week.

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Giant rat: Swedes agog at 'Ratzilla' in Stockholm

The appearance of a massive rat in a Stockholm family's kitchen has made headlines in Sweden, where it is being dubbed "Ratzilla".

Measuring 40cm (nearly 16in) plus tail, the creature terrified the family in Solna district.

Pest controllers finally killed the intruder using an oversized trap.

Even the family cat had refused to enter the kitchen while the giant rat was in residence, father Erik Korsas told BBC News.

It appears that it reached the kitchen via a ventilation pipe, having gnawed its way through cement and wood.

After devouring food leftovers under the sink, the creature feasted on a "Swedish smorgasbord" of waste in the bin, according to Mr Korsas.

The women of the house - mother Signe and daughters Dana and Erica, 17 and 15 respectively - took fright but his sons, 13-year-old Justus and six-year-old Laurentius, eventually proved themselves as genuine rat-hunters, he said.

It was the boys who investigated after the trap was sprung and the injured animal crawled away. It was they who brought him tools to help establish that it was well and truly dead.

Justus wielded the iPad which captured his father posing with the dead intruder.

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Swede bloodied in surprise beaver attack

Taking advantage of the first truly hot summer weekend in Stockholm, Sofie Adde was blissfully unaware that a casual dip would end in blood and stitches after a beaver mistook her thigh for lunch. 

Sofie Adde from the Gröndal neighbourhood of Stockholm was enjoying her first swim of the summer in the Mälaren Lake when the beaver pounced. 

"I went out for a quiet dip and had swum out a few meters when I noticed something underneath the water. Next thing I felt a pain in my thigh and up came the head of the beaver," Adde, 40, told The Local. 

"It gave me quite a surprise," the startled swimmer added.

"I wasn't sure what was going on as the beaver (dived) back down and I got scared and swam away immediately."

Following the attack, Adde had to have stitches and a tetanus shot. She doesn't harbour any ill-feeling towards the beaver, however, whom she claims she has seen before. 

"I've been down to the lake several times and I've seen this beaver in the past. There are a couple of beavers there and it is very unusual for something like this to happen."

Read on

Expert: kill more seals in Stockholm's waters

A leading fisheries consultant has warned that killing more seals and cormorants is the only way to reverse the trend of ever diminishing fish stocks in the Stockholm archipelago.


Sverker Lovén, chairman of Fiskefrämjandet, a fish-promotion association, has carried out a detailed investigation into the disappearance of several breeds of fish in the waters outside the capital, most noticeably perch and pike. 

He has come to the conclusion that if something is not done about the number of seals preying on the fish, there is a good chance they will eventually die out altogether.

”All indications suggest that seals and cormorants are the cause of the collapse of fish stocks. Perch and pike have completely disappeared from some parts of the archipelago,” said Loven to Metro newspaper.

Another fish under threat is the trout. 

”The recapture of trout we have tagged, has decreased by around 90 percent in the past ten years and the stock of adult trout as a whole has decreased to the same extent,” he added.

Despite the fact that this could signal overfishing, the number of people fishing in the archipelago over the same period has declined sharply.

By killing more seals, a major problem could therefore be avoided in years to come, argues Lovén. 

Seals consume some 25-50 tonnes of fish on a daily basis, while cormorants devour some 15-18 tonnes, meaning that, at the current rate, it is impossible for fish stocks to replenish.


http://www.thelocal.se/38534/20120116/

'Lazy' pigeons flock to ride Stockholm metro

A flock of Stockholm pigeons are using public transport for their daily jaunt foraging for food in the dumpsters and rubbish bins at a nearby shopping centre.

”They stand calmly at the platform and wait for the subway train to arrive. When it does they get on, travel one stop, jump off and then head for their favourite haunts,” Rasmus Sandsten, press spokeperson for underground operator MTR, told The Local.
The pigeons are believed to live somewhere near Farsta Strand, in south Stockholm, and travel daily one stop to nearby shopping centre Farsta Centrum where there are many cafés and plenty of food to be found.

According to Sandsten, the most likely explanation is that one pigeon first got stuck on the metro by accident.

”Then, when it saw where it ended up it thought; 'this was a great idea'. Sooner or later more of them followed suit,” Sandsten said.

However, the birds seem to choose other methods of transport for their return journey.

”We haven't been told of as many incidents of pigeons on the tube on the way back, so we think they fly on their way back,” Sandsten said.

It is not clear how or when these pigeons first started to use public transport, but according to Sandsten, train drivers have said that they have seen pigeons using the Stockholm metro system as early as the 1990's, when a similar pigeon gang regularly roamed the suburb of Hökarängen.

”And since then the birds have been spotted getting on the subway at stations all over Stockholm,” Sandsten said.

AT MTR, the policy among the drivers are to try to shoo away the birds if they happen to see one trying to get on, but not if it would mean that the departure of the train would be delayed.

Biologist Lars-Åke Janzon at the Swedish Museum of Natural History (Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet), told local paper Mitt i Söderort that although not especially clever, birds are very good at imitating each other's actions.

Therefore, Janzon thinks that tube staff should persevere in their efforts to shoo the birds away, or he fears that the number of pigeons using public transport will grow significantly.

”People are scared of everything, And that will include an enterprising pigeon or two. Many believe they carry disease, but that's not true. Not even their droppings are especially harmful. On the other hand, one might think it is sticky and disgusting if there is a lot of bird poo on the tube,” Janzon told the paper.

However, according to Sandsten drivers are seldom aware of the little stowaways before they get off at their destination.

And so far the company hasn't received one single complaint from passengers about the freeloading birds.

”They behave well while on board and don't seem to be making much of a mess. They also choose to travel later in the day, cleverly avoiding rush hour,” Sandsten told The Local.

Rebecca Martin
http://www.thelocal.se/37278/20111110/#