City living sure can be nuts.<\/p>\n
Dozens of Manhattan squirrels were forced to run for their lives and left \u201cstarving to death\u201d when the city chopped down trees at an East Village park last month \u2013 and were only rescued after locals sounded alarms over the forgotten animals.<\/p>\n
The squirrels\u2019 longtime tree habitats at John V. Lindsay East River Park were razed in September as part of the ongoing shoreline resiliency project, leaving the critters trapped inside a concrete construction site without food, water or shelter \u2013 right in view of predatory hawks, fuming activists told The Post.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s certain death\u201d for the creatures without city intervention, said Michelle Ashkin, founder and president of Voices for Urban Wildlife, who helped to organize a meeting with upset locals, activists and the mayor\u2019s office on Monday.<\/p>\n
The construction at John V. Lindsay East River Park has displaced dozens of hungry squirrels, activists say. Facebook\/Anthony Donovan<\/p>\n
A squirrel at the East River site before the tree removal. Facebook\/Anthony Donovan<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ll die of starvation, stress, heat exhaustion: there\u2019s no food, water, shelter or place to hide,\u201d she added. \u201cThey\u2019re New Yorkers and people love them: Nobody wants to see wildlife suffer through starvation, human negligence or lack of appropriate planning.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the city\u2019s Department of Design and Construction, confirmed that, as a result of the ruckus, a licensed animal management company has humanely trapped over a dozen squirrels at the site since Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The traps will remain in place until the remaining squirrels are captured or \u201cdisperse,\u201d according to the department. The squirrels \u2014 14 of which have been captured so far \u2014 will be transferred to a wildlife rehabilitator at the Wildlife Freedom Foundation.<\/p>\n
\u201cDDC is rebuilding East River Park at a higher elevation as part of the flood protection being provided by the $1.45 billion East Side Coastal Resiliency project,\u201d the city rep said, \u201cwhich will protect over 100,000 New Yorkers from sea level rise and coastal flooding.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 1,800 new trees will also be planted in the new East River Park and more than 1,000 will be planted in surrounding communities upon the project\u2019s completion, the rep added.<\/p>\n
The city began \u201csquirrel relocation\u201d this week after activists sounded alarms over the animals\u2019 welfare. Facebook\/Anthony Donovan<\/p>\n
Ashkin called the resolution to the week-long dispute the \u201cbest case scenario\u201d for the animals \u2013 but feared it only happened due to the public outcry, which also included the Urban Wildlife Alliance.<\/p>\n
Longtime East Village resident Anthony Donovan said he filed a pair of 311 complaints last month regarding squirrels at the site \u2014 which were both quickly closed without action, according to a Post review of public records. Calls were also made to Parks and the NYPD about the alleged \u201canimal abuse\u201d taking place.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThey removed the only refuge that these squirrels had left. That to me is the crime,\u201d Donovan, a 73-year-old hospice nurse, said. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor these squirrels, this has been Gaza: there\u2019s been piles of concrete, they\u2019ve\u00a0been going from home to home, moving from tree to tree up north, and now they\u2019re surrounded in this little area.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ashkin called the resolution to the week-long dispute the \u201cbest case scenario\u201d for the animals \u2013 but feared it only happened due to the public outcry. Facebook\/Anthony Donovan<\/p>\n
Other New Yorkers appeared to be similarly disturbed by the squirrels\u2019 plight.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey should at least take the precautions to safeguard\u00a0the animals that are there, whether it\u2019s the squirrels or chipmunks or the ducks that you occasionally see in the East River,\u201d said Adrian Betancourt, a 60-year-old Lower East Side resident.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t appreciate them messing with the squirrel\u2019s home, and they could probably go around it,\u201d said 28-year-old Gregory Venable, also of the Lower East Side, \u201cor they could improve the environment for them instead of them just trying to do things to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI do wonder where the squirrels are going to live and why they\u2019re doing this to their environment,\u201d said Marianni Cuello Batista, 14. \u201cA precaution could be just to leave the trees alone and just let them be there. I don\u2019t know why they have to chop down.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Activists say the conundrum underscores the larger issue of city officials overlooking impacts to animals during large construction projects.<\/p>\n
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Ashkin noted the environmental impact statement drafted \u2013 which is supposed to point out a project\u2019s significant impacts to wildlife \u2013 lacked any plan to save the squirrels.<\/p>\n
Wildlife observed in the study area consisted mostly of common or \u201cdisturbance-tolerant\u201d species, according to the impact statement \u2013 though Ashkin argued the squirrels can\u2019t escape the park\u2019s barriers, flee to the East River or survive at the barren site.<\/p>\n
Construction taking place at East River Park. Robert Miller<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to have an environmental impact statement that includes something about wildlife,\u201d Ashkin said. \u201cThere was either an unintended consequence, an unanticipated consequence or they didn\u2019t involve the right experts \u2026 [the squirrels] were supposed to have some sort of egress to navigate out of the construction site.\u201d<\/p>\n
She hopes this will be a lesson for future city projects that affect New York\u2019s urban wildlife, as now the squirrels are frightened due to the lack of trees and therefore may be harder to catch.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must include the safety of urban wildlife in our projects moving forward, and it has to be accurate and specific to the site,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n
\u201cWildlife is not collateral damage.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City living sure can be nuts. Dozens of Manhattan squirrels were forced to run for their lives and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":274942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,3425,29876,26307,5249,5248,405,403,7619,5226,5225,5228,5227,5312,20529,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-274941","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-animals","10":"tag-east-river","11":"tag-east-village","12":"tag-manhattan","13":"tag-metro","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-new-york-city-life","17":"tag-newyork","18":"tag-newyorkcity","19":"tag-ny","20":"tag-nyc","21":"tag-parks","22":"tag-squirrels","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-united-states-of-america","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-us-news","29":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115311087871490552","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}