♪ MUSIC ♪
NARRATOR: When wildlife and humans
face-off in the big city,
raccoons invade backyards,
snakes annex an historic landmark,
gulls come to blows over a slice of pizza,
and a city park is transformed into a wrestling ring,
on the jagged coast of Canada's Eastern shore.
A delicate and diverse ecosystem thrives
on the fringes of the continent.
Welcome to the Wild Wild East.
Eastern Canada's largest city
may seem like an unusual place for wildlife,
but Halifax is an unusual city.
Animals travel here from the shoreline
and the forest.
Deer,
raccoons,
chipmunks,
gulls,
and even snakes
make their homes amongst urban sprawl.
These crafty critters
find plenty of advantages to life in the city.
The urban environment offers a near perfect mix
of protection,
food
and shelter.
But life in the big city isn't cheap.
Living here costs some animals their lives.
Humans are the apex predators here.
Traffic, urban sprawl and pest-control
all threaten the animal's survival.
To survive the animals must be smart.
Using speed,
camouflage, flight
and foraging under the moonlight,
wildlife makes the most of city life.
Crows gather in the hundreds
to share intel about food sources
and unfriendly faces across the city.
Raccoons den in attics, high off the ground,
only coming out at night,
when their downstairs neighbors are fast asleep.
In the city, these buildings are like
the raised cliffs of islands,
sheltering the birds from nearby predators.
Though we may not see it,
wildlife is always watching us.
This is the city
seen through the animal's eyes.
As a new morning dawns over the Halifax Harbor,
commuters rush to work,
distracted by business meetings and lunch dates.
It's easy to miss what's hidden high up in the trees,
but if you look hard enough,
a masked bandit looks back.
Raccoons are everywhere in Halifax.
For every one in the woods,
there are at least 10 in an urban environment
the same size.
That means in the city there could be
up to 150 raccoons per square mile.
Raccoons are even living in people's houses,
transforming an attic into a den.
And unbeknownst to the homeowners,
these kits were born here last spring.
It's fall now and the kits are six months old.
Like all raccoon moms, she's a single-mother,
bringing up her litter all on her own.
She teaches by example.
The kits shadow her on foraging trips
as their senses develop.
Though they have good night vision,
raccoons are thought to be color blind
and have trouble seeing long distances.
Their other senses are more attune.
Raccoons' hearing is so strong
their ears can pick-up an earthworm
squirming underground.
And their noses help them navigate undetected
while the city sleeps,
catching whiffs of potential food,
or the scent markings of other raccoons.
But their most important sense, by far,
is touch.
Raccoons see with their hands.
Two-thirds of the sensory receptors in a raccoon's brain
are used to process tactile information,
more than any other animal.
Raccoons will rub their food before consuming it,
gaining information about what they're about to eat.
And they're able to find insects
simply by digging their paws deep into the garden.
In the wild raccoons need to escape ambushes
from bobcats and coyotes.
But their greatest killer in the city?
Traffic.
It's Mom's job to teach the young kits
how to dodge dangers and find food.
She's their protector
until the young raccoons are 10 months old,
and ready to strike out on their own.
Raccoons are nocturnal, so while they rest,
the city begins its day,
it's time for this furry family to nod off.
In Halifax Harbor, historic George's Island.
It's ruled by one of the world's most feared animals.
Hidden in the untamed grass,
the Maritime garter snake.
This military fortress was built in the 1700s
to protect the young city of Halifax.
After the Second World War,
the fortress was abandoned,
and the snakes seized control.
On the mainland, the legend of "Snake Island" grew,
with rumors of thousands of snakes.
A scientific survey from 2006
clarifies this speculation,
estimating that there are around 600 adult snakes here.
Not many people visit the island,
and even fewer see a snake,
much to their relief.
But if snakes can't be seen on Georges Island,
it's because they don't want to be.
The cracks and crevices of the decaying fortress
make perfect hiding spots.
But when no humans are around,
garter snakes lie out on the warm stones
to regulate their body heat.
The garter's diet is purely carnivorous,
and they'll eat almost any living thing
they can overpower.
On George's Island that means lots of insects.
This ant is bringing back a dragonfly dinner
for the colony.
But if it's not careful,
it might become a snake's snack.
But the most plentiful item on the Georges Island menu
is escargot.
Flicking out its tongue,
the snake collects invisible scent particles in the air,
transferring this data to an auxiliary scent organ
on the roof of its mouth.
Snakes primarily see the world through their tongues
and its forked tip expands their view.
Garters were so named by North America's early settlers.
Their scales resemble the woven ribbons
worn by the people of the time
to hold up their socks.
They are the largest serpents in Nova Scotia,
and can grow as long as baseball bats.
Underneath their scales,
the snake's skeleton is made up of 200 vertebrae.
Humans only have 33.
Sandwiched between ribs and skin
is a layer of muscle that gives the snake
amazing control over its entire body.
People have marveled for ages at the serpentine slither.
How can a beast without limbs
move with such precision?
Snakes propel themselves by using their environment.
They weave forward by pushing their bodies
off rocks and plants.
Slithering across open ground is a little trickier.
In the same way hockey players
dig their skates into the ice to push off,
snakes use their overlapping scales
to dig into the ground
and push themselves forward.
And because the scales all face the same direction,
a snake can't move in reverse.
Soon winter will arrive,
and the Georges Island snakes will trade the warm stones,
for moist dens underneath the fortress.
They don't hibernate,
just severely limit their activity,
and huddle together for warmth.
At the southern tip of Halifax peninsula
is Point Pleasant Park.
A little piece of nature
on the fringe of the urban landscape.
This is the place urbanites go
expecting to see wildlife
like the black-capped chickadee,
the North American red squirrel,
or the eastern chipmunk.
Feeders to decorate the paths draw out wildlife.
And the well-fed critters have come to rely
on the nuts and birdseed left out for them.
They've adopted a new, human-assisted,
foraging pattern.
While it changes their natural behavior,
it also means more animals are able to survive here.
And for birds like the blue jay, that forage year round,
it means a reliable meal during the harsh winter.
Though managed by people,
this forest is the stage
for the natural dramas of life to unfold.
The highly territorial squirrel watches on.
As far as he's concerned,
these nuts are his.
He won't stand for this intrusion,
not from the smaller chipmunk.
With the squirrel moving in for the nuts,
the chipmunk knows it's time to move on.
But the approaching pigeons
are way out of the squirrel's weight class,
he'll have to wait.
The squirrel moves back in for the nuts,
but then...
...a twist.
A new rival.
In the city park, territories frequently overlap.
(squirrels squawk)
Dust-ups like this one happen in the blink of an eye.
As daylight begins to fade,
the long workday comes to an end.
But out above the harbor,
a notorious bird shades the crimson sky.
American crows are coming home to roost.
Every night, hundreds of crows
descend on this Halifax university.
A mountain ash tree
is the crows' cafeteria on campus.
At this time of year, a good meal is hard to come by.
Roosting in an area with an ample food supply
means dinner and breakfast are secured.
Crows thrive in the city because they're geniuses,
who use their surroundings to their advantage.
To open nuts, crows will fly above city streets
and drop them into traffic
and let the cars be their nutcrackers.
Once their meal is revealed,
they will dodge cars to collect their meals from wheels.
Crows can talk to each other too.
They are able to communicate the location
of food sources across the city.
Crows have remarkable memories
and never forget a face.
When they've been chased away by humans,
they'll actually warn other crows
about the unfriendly human.
A group of crows is called a murder,
but often it's one big family,
made up of two parents, and up to 15 children,
born over the last five years.
Once a male and female mate,
they will most often be together for life.
When the temperature begins to drop in the fall,
the city's crow families join together
to spend the night at a communal roost.
Gathering in large numbers keeps them warm.
And although they'll roost in the country too,
they prefer the city; it's warmer than rural areas.
The city life also offers another advantage for the crow.
On-campus lamp posts are night-lights.
This helps them spot their greatest predator,
the great horned owl.
But with this many crows in one spot,
he wouldn't dare attack.
Crows ward off predators by mobbing them,
cooperatively attacking the predator,
like a scene straight out of a Hitchcock film.
As the night wears on,
crows swoop in from all directions,
their numbers entering the hundreds.
The roof of this university building
is their final resting spot.
This murder, silenced by the night.
After a long day, the pulse of nightlife
pounds through the streets.
Locals call this intersection Pizza Corner.
But as the humans stumble home,
a new crowd is just waking up.
Most people call them seagulls,
but the proper name is gull.
These highly adaptable birds
can survive anywhere there's food.
Until a century ago,
that meant living near the water,
and preying on fish and crustaceans,
so people gave them the nickname, seagull.
But they've found easier pickings inland.
Their new foraging grounds include landfills,
parking lots, and farmer's fields.
There are over 50 different species
of gull around the world.
The two most common in North America
are ring-billed and herring gulls.
The best way to tell them apart
is by the markings on their beaks.
Ring-bills have a black ring,
and herring gulls have a red dot.
This crowd is a mix of both.
As the morning draws closer,
more and more gulls descend on Pizza Corner.
This nightly ritual is a blessing
for the city sanitation crew.
The gulls do most of their work.
The number of gulls around the world
has skyrocketed in recent years.
In areas where food is abundant
they can double their population every 15 years.
But gulls' increasing proximity to humans
has made them more confident,
and more aggressive.
Gulls are incredibly intelligent birds.
And it may be hard to discern,
but they are actually communicating.
(gull squawking)
Its long call tells the other gull
it's not going to back down.
(gull squawking)
He spreads out his wings as a warning.
This gull won't hesitate to peck.
But as more and more gulls swoop in,
the feeding frenzy turns into a turf war.
Gulls can be ruthless in their pursuit of food.
When food is scarce, they'll even go as far
as eating the young of their own species.
Blowouts can leave gulls seriously injured.
And this one now has a broken leg.
Human intervention arrives on the scene.
(police siren)
Breaking up the gull's brawling breakfast.
Meanwhile, across the city,
another nightly occurrence
in a typical urban backyard.
Raccoons' fur is camouflage,
helping them blend in to the backdrop of the night.
Many people believe that raccoons
are the genetic descendants of dogs,
cats or even bears,
but they constitute their own species.
Raccoons' genetic ancestors
lived in the tropics of South America.
Two and a half million years ago,
they began to move north,
evolving into the raccoons we know today.
As the population of North America grew,
raccoons began living closer to humans.
Now animal researchers believe that city raccoons
are evolving again,
adapting to their new urban environments.
More than just instinct, their success here
is because of their amazing
problem solving skills and memory.
Here there's more food and no natural predators.
The raccoons are more fertile,
have a greater survival rate,
and are chunkier than their country cousins.
And those marvelous hands are also quite dexterous,
helping them open doors or break into garbage bins.
But, in the city, idle hands are the devil's playthings.
(plate smashes)
With their cover blown,
the raccoons move on to the next backyard.
It's no wonder raccoons are generally seen as pests
by their human counterparts.
They even carry and spread harmful diseases,
like rabies and distemper.
But as long as humans keep leaving out dinner,
raccoons aren't going anywhere.
Another day in the Wild Wild East,
and the routine begins again.
Many think urban sprawl displaces wildlife,
but the story is much more complicated.
Animals are everywhere in the city,
adapting their behavior to new surroundings,
and in some cases even changing it.
Wildlife in the city can be messy,
(plate smashes)
or loud,
but from the animals' point of view,
they've got just as much right to be here, as we do.
They share our food,
our streets
and even our homes.
And someday,
if city planners are mindful of nature's design,
human and animal life may achieve harmony
in Halifax.
The city never sleeps,
in the Wild Wild East.
♪ THEME MUSIC ♪