We left our workspaces because of coronavirus. Then Texas wildlife moved in
For the wildlife of Dallas-Fort Worth, a strip mall dumpster used to be heaven. Every night, after a long day of lurking in crevices, under floorboards or just over the hedge, a rat or a raccoon could dive into a green receptacle overflowing with trash and have their fill of our leftovers. Then: coronavirus. We all went home. Restaurants and offices closed. And the dumpsters are empty. “So there’s kind of a shift,” says Randall Kennedy, owner of Dallas-Fort Worth Wildlife Control.
That shift has brought the rodents into new territories in search of food and shelter. Specifically they have moved from shadows, walls and crawl spaces into the more public areas we used to congregate pre-corona. Kennedy has seen this firsthand in spas, warehouses, dentist offices and restaurants. His business, which uses trapping and relocation, is up about 50% in the last few weeks compared to what he’d typically see this time of year.
In early April, his crew was hired by a warehouse in south Fort Worth. Most of the staff had been let go, and most operations had ceased. The warehouse, which had easy entry through bay doors, was overrun by raccoons and possums and at least one fox.
The change in animals’ behavior comes down to comfort. They are mainly nocturnal and avoid people as much as they can. Now there’s no one to avoid. “If (animals) can get in and nobody is in there they’re going to go in there,” Kennedy says.
Fort Worth Wildlife Removal has also experienced a boom in business it attributes to increased exploration from animals. Business for Eco-Safe, a DFW-area rodent control and cleaning company operated by Greg Ahern and Gregory Brandt, has been up about 30% to 40% beyond what they would normally expect. They’ve noticed an uptick in rodent activity while sanitizing restaurants in downtown Dallas and north Fort Worth. “An area of foot traffic goes away and they feel more comfortable to explore,” Brandt says. “It’s their normal behavior.”
Eco-Safe has also been getting more residential calls. Ahern attributes the spike to people being at home longer and hearing sounds and seeing critters they would normally miss.
That’s the other part of the animal takeover: We’re the ones who have changed. People who work from home and have more spare time than usual are noticing the wildlife that has always been there — at least since our expanding cities and suburbs encroached upon it. “The wildlife, we kind of took their land away from them and they’ve realized that there’s a lot of food and they’ve adapted,” says Prudi Koeninger, president of the DFW Wildlife Coalition. Koeninger and her husband recently spotted a red-eared slider turtle in their backyard. While mowing, they found a nest of kildeer eggs.
As for Dallas-Fort Worth’s biggest animals — coyotes and bobcats — Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge manager Rob Denkhaus has noticed a few more social media posts about them than normal. He also attributes any increase in predator sightings to people being more observant. “I think this is more of a cultural thing, a change in our nature forced by COVID than it is a change on the animals’ part,” he says.
To Denkhaus, more sightings are a good thing. Texans have already become more comfortable with nature in recent years: planting native grasses in yards and welcoming not just birds but the bigger animals that may follow them to feeders. Any greater awareness that animals live among us could lead to less fear.
Of course, the office is still not a place anyone wants to encounter wildlife. Ahern and Brandt say not to worry: The rodents’ shift is not likely to be permanent. When the lights go back on and the whir of people and machines resumes, rodents will be back in the walls and then into the dumpster at night.
