The other day, I was driving east on Seventh Street as white-tailed deer galloped leisurely in the westbound lane. Seemed lost, but determined and headed in the right direction to get to the mountain as quickly as possible. I think Frederick City is such a country.
It was strange to see deer running through the city streets, but I had to wonder what it must have been like for them to see a city street that used to be their natural habitat.
Since the deer encounter, I’ve heard reports that a black bear had to be sedated at the Hampton Inn. Snake!
These incidents remind me of some of my own encounters with wildlife in this city over the past quarter century, and how often wildlife and humans are in serious trouble within the city limits of Frederick. was also intrigued.
In 2018, the city of Frederick had a population of 72,481 and is projected to reach 93,100 by 2045. The cities themselves are also physically expanding. For example, between 2008 and 2013, the city authorized her 1,504 acres of land to be annexed to the city. More people, more households, more development means more impact on native wildlife and habitats, and more encounters between humans and wildlife.
The squirrel story alone could fill almost an entire article. At my home in downtown Frederick, I eat the apples and tomatoes my family grows every year. They chewed on our patio cushions. They bit our house! We once had a squirrel try unsuccessfully to jump onto a fence and hit her one of the dogs directly on the back. It didn’t go well for the squirrels. Nature. Otherwise let them do their own thing.
In addition to squirrels, we have encountered possums downtown over the years. I had a possum in my garden within the last few months. I like possums because they are the only marsupials in North America, but why are they in cities? Why are they in North America too? Do you know. But there — Hssssssss — everything looked awkward on the fence. It had a distinctive lightning bolt-shaped mark on its head. He was called Harry Possum. The next night he was on the fence, one of his dogs killed him in the yard. I needed to get him away from the dog as soon as possible, so I took a shovel and gently slid his body over the fence into my neighbor’s yard (it’s okay – my neighbor has been back there since 2004). no; it’s a great place to stop.body). If that possum didn’t come back on my fence the next night, I’d be dizzy!
Speaking of the possums of Frederick City, I’ll never forget eating dinner on the outdoor patio one summer night when noise came through the basement windows of the house. was. I went and lifted the cover and the biggest possum I’ve ever seen in my life hissed at me. It was the size of 3 normal possums. It was a big boss possum. If there was a possum video game, this would have been the possum you had to defeat to win the game. I first picked up a fire poker (assuming I needed it to fight the beast) and went back and forth saying, “Oh my god, that’s huge!” How many times. In the end we put the crate cover back over the basement window and covered the possum, eliminating the problem. The next day, all marsupial mothers were gone, and an important lesson was learned. leave me alone
In January of this year alone, Frederick County Animal Control responded to a total of 4,552 service requests. To get an idea of how many of these calls were within city limits, during this same period there were approximately 503 calls for service to the three zip codes that make up most of the city of Frederick.
The department’s primary duties are for pets such as dogs and cats, livestock, and other livestock, according to Sergeant Maggie Hill of the Frederick County Animal Control Department. Generally, county animal control departments only answer wildlife calls in emergencies. But that doesn’t stop the calls from coming in. Hill says downtown Frederick gets a lot of calls looking for bats at this time of year. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources is the appropriate agency to address wildlife concerns.
I didn’t call anyone on my first city bear encounter. It was brief. One morning I was walking south on North Market Street. I looked 300 blocks ahead and saw an American black bear running north on the sidewalk across the street. He was in a truckload and clearly on a mission. I was standing across the street, hanging his chin in disbelief. The morning commute is really wild in the city of Frederick.
DNR handles all bear calls, but it cannot respond to all wildlife calls. Another resource available to those with wildlife concerns is the services of private contractors such as ABC All Wildlife Removal Services. ABC owner Tim Ryan has been answering wildlife calls for two decades, but two of his most memorable calls were not to native wildlife. They made a call about a giant monitor lizard in Cascade that was reportedly catching an alligator in Frederick County and chasing a woman’s dog in her yard. Both crocodiles and lizards now live in Catoctin Zoo. Ryan said he had a call about a boa constrictor and one iguana, but the rest of the calls were pretty standard.
Ryan receives hundreds of calls each year about a variety of wildlife issues. He hears beavers and muskrats in Frederick City. I asked him about the city’s snakes. It never happened, so at least there is.
“A lot of what I do is just talking to people on the phone and helping them solve their own problems,” Ryan said.
He said some people get pretty excited about wildlife encounters, especially depending on the type of wildlife they’re encountering.
According to the Maryland DNR website, Maryland is home to an estimated 90 mammal species, 93 reptile and amphibian subspecies, and over 400 bird species. Foxes, wild turkeys, possums, deer, bats, squirrels, skunks, raccoons, beavers, muskrats, groundhogs, bears, coyotes, rabbits, and a variety of birds and snakes can be encountered in Frederick City.
From this list of pests, I have had direct personal run-ins with nearly half of them. That seems excessive to me in downtown Maryland’s second largest city, but from an animal perspective, excessive is probably the opposite. We are the ones invading their domain. After all, raccoons and bunnies didn’t all come to live in the city like crazy.
About ten years after my first bear encounter in Frederick City, I came home from work one day to find the gates open and my house more or less surrounded by police cars and DNR trucks with bear cages. I found
A bear wandered into my backyard, ate broccoli from my yard, was photographed for newspapers, and was tranquilized in the butt while trying to escape my yard over the fence. The dart didn’t hit and he ran away. They tracked him down until he was out of the city beyond US 15 and headed for the mountains.
To this day, there remain two cartoon-style broken tops of the fence where bears would put their paws and try to climb over the fence. Can you imagine? Of all the things I thought living in Frederick would worry about, bears never broke my broccoli or destroyed my fence. Was the bear in my yard, or was my yard the bear’s previous habitat?
post script: Since I submitted this article for publication, I’ve had to use a garden rake against a very grumpy raccoon at 7am. There I was in my pajamas, an absolute rage, violence and rage of teeth and fur spiraling before me. Using a rake to pry the dog off the raccoon, it ran off under the fence.
I called the phone number for the Frederick County Animal Control Department and someone answered. At the time, they tended his 10 cows, which were free-range and on the street. Meanwhile, the raccoon was already out of sight and moving.
My adrenaline remained pumped for hours afterwards. Frederick is wild like that. Hey, did I mention the close encounter I had with the hawk?
Andy Stout is an anthropologist and writer with an interest in community, culture, music, art, history and conservation. He has written numerous articles for local, regional and national publications covering a variety of topics. He has lived in Frederick City for over 25 years.
.
