Mammals of the area

There are quite a few mammals found around this area most we hardly ever see as they are very cryptic but there are a few that are quite common. American Red squirrels, Eastern Grey Squirrels, Easter Chipmonks and White Tailed deer are common. They can easily be found through out the city and suburbs of this area. Then there are the common but cryptic mammals these include the American opossum, North American Raccoon, Brown Rats, and House mice. It is stated that in any major city you are always within a 4 foot radius of a Brown Rat. This is remarkable and it is mainly do to how well the can adapt and reproduce they are a true K strategist species. Another family of mammals that falls into the cryptic category is the Mustelid family, this includes skunks,   weasels, fishers and wolverines. These are very hard animals to see and usually the best way to know that these mammals are around are by their tracks.
One type of Mustelid that lives around this area is called an Ermine these small creatures are superb hunters and have caused quite a few problems where they are not native. They eat anything they can grab hold of, birds, other mammals from rabbits to mice, incests and reptiles. In the summer they have a brown coat but in winter they have a pure white coat with a black tip on their tales. These coats were very sought after during the fur trade in the 1800s and dramatically reduced the population during this time. However now ermines are making a comeback and are quite common just very very hard to see.

Finally the main carnivores around this area are mammals. If we lived around here 200 years ago we would have many more different large mammals, at one point Mountain Lions, Black Bears, Lynx, and Grey Wolves would have lived here. But during the early 1900s there was a mass extermination of these large mammals as they would kill livestock and sometimes people. This led to the extermination of Mountain Lions, Wolves and Black bears from this area. This caused a few problems that are still linger today. One of the reasons why white tail deer now are such a problem is that Wolves where one of the primary predators of deer, and with them gone the deer population has been able to explode with no natural predators able to kill them. Coyotes can take out young but are not able to take on full grown adults like Grey Wolves can. Coyotes though are now also exploding in population for the same reason as deer, since Grey Wolves and Coyotes used to compete for territory many Wolves would end up killing the Coyotes in order to have a larger area for themselves. On the land I live on there is a pack of coyotes that comes through and are especially active and loud at night. Here is a video of a coyote pack howling.