The squirrels are coming, slowly but surely. And so are the pine martens. And that’s a relief for city officials the Netherlands capital Den Haag, who have been questioned for their decision nine years ago to spend €150,000 on a bridge to let them safely cross the road between two park areas.
Cameras monitor the bridge, but in the first two years traffic was so slow—only five squirrels crossed in the whole time—that only a camera could have stayed awake watching. But slowly things began to change, and last year 263 squirrels were spotted using the bridge, or about one every 36 hours, while 170 pine martens were spotted.
That’s actually a little more traffic than it sounds, because the squirrels were crossing mainly during fall nut-gathering season, while the martens crossed in winter, which is a good thing for the squirrels because the martens make meals of squirrels. Perhaps the council can now entice rabbits to take the spring months, and chickens to take turn crossing the road.
By the way, there’s science to the slow start. Esther Vogelaar, an urban ecologist, explained to local press that “Sometimes it takes a while. Animals need to get used to new situations while we humans prefer to see results yesterday. It took several years for the animals to really use the bridge, but now we can declare it a big success.”
