The Urban Pantheist

Here's my photos of Victoria, more or less in the order that I took them. One of the very first things I encountered? A mermaid.



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Photos by urbpan. Location: Downtown Victoria, British Columbia.

Urban species #222: California poppy Eschscholzia californica

In the Summer, the rains abandon the Pacific northwest and the weeds and grasses turn sere and yellow. Above the wan amber stalks glow golden orange flowers--for the California poppy has been brought to this city to thrive in the summer drought. Native to Southern Washington down to California and the southwest, California poppy enjoys the dry summers of the Puget Sound area and its many other new homes. It has been introduced to places with Mediterranean climates all around the world, including Chile, Australia and South Africa. It can now be found in many eastern states, as well as in southwest Canada. According to the USDA, California poppy can even be found in Massachusetts, though only in Boston's Suffolk County. Only the state of Tennessee lists California poppy as an invasive.

California poppy enjoys full sun, and grows best on grassy hillsides, or treeless lots. Herbivores avoid its bitter-tasting alkaloids, and grazed areas often boast the most poppies. The chemicals in California poppy, though less potent than those of the opium poppy, can be used for analgesic and sedative purposes. In its native range, flying beetles pollenate California poppies, but in most places this function has been replaced by honeybees. Unsurprisingly, this attractive urban wildflower is the state flower of the most populous state, California.
( two from Discovery Park, Seattle )

Photos by urbpan. Location: University of Victoria campus, British Columbia.

Urban species #218: Domestic rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus

Domestic animals often find their way into the ecology of urban places. They owe their very existence to humanity and civilization. But humans are flawed stewards, and will allow their animals to escape, or through a misunderstanding of "wildness," will turn pets, livestock, and lab animals out of their enclosures. And then there are the countless deliberate introductions, for the sake of sport hunting, or to seed an island with edible inhabitants, which have wrought destruction on ecosystems around the world. In North America domestic rabbits run free because a pet was no longer wanted, an animal mistaken for wild was "liberated," or because a bunny was only meant to be an Easter gift. The vast majority of released rabbits live short brutal lives, their flight-or-fight instincts blunted by centuries of breeding for life in the hutch. A released domestic rabbit has a life span of somewhere between one and two years, according to the House Rabbit Society, and other sources. In Australia, European rabbits (the wild ancestors of domestic rabbits) have run roughshod through the country, and constitute a serious ecological problem.

In North America, there are a few small cities that harbor breeding populations of domestic rabbits. The requirements for a population to become established include plants to eat, soil to burrow into for protection, and a single month to reproduce. Predators of rabbits are many, but their famously high rate of reproduction may overtake the rate of predation. On the campus of the University of Victoria, British Columbia, for example, the rabbits are well-loved by most of the students, and relatively safe from human predation, at least. University campuses are generally free of roaming dogs and cats, and most wild predators (notwithstanding the occasional mountain lion report at UVic) tend to avoid urban areas.

Some more discussion of urban rabbits occurs here.

( see more rabbits )