Wildlife is taking over deserted New Orleans

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2006:
new Orleans–Louisiana SPCA executive director Laura Maloney
and Audubon Zoo staff warned in repeated media statements, beginning
on January 23, 2006, that food left by dog and cat rescuers in
communities hit by Hurricane Katrina could help cause an urban
wildlife crisis. And it did.
“In 20 years of trapping animals here, I’ve never seen
anything like it,” nuisance wildlife trapper Greg duTreil told
Associated Press in mid-October 2006.
Alligators, armadillos, coyotes, foxes, nutria, rabbits,
raccoons, and especially rats are reportedly abundant as never
before in the Riverbend and Uptown districts of New Orleans, still
deserted more than a year after the early September 2005 flooding.
“They have more to eat than before the storm. Just look at
the garbage, the stuff lying around, the empty buildings. This is a
rat’s paradise,” Audubon Pest Control owner Erick Kinchke confirmed.
The Humane Society of the U.S. responded to the Associated
Press coverage by recommending removal of food sources from locations
where wild animals are problematic.

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