Why is wildlife invading Park City?

Gradually and over the past ten years we’ve seen a notable increase of wildlife around our Park City home. When we first came in 1985, the entire place was both barren and treeless and there was no way for us to observe much wildlife, except for ground-squirrels in the spring, magpies year-round and robins in the summer.

In the meantime, the small trees began their growth and in the last decade, they’ve created a true urban forest, producing its own life-sustaining environment and encouraging the settlement of pigeons, regular squirrels and occasionally, inviting a visit from the local coyote.

At the same time, in addition to aspen and fir trees, more decorative trees were planted, bushes of all kinds began to populate most gardens and with automatic irrigation, our town turned into an irresistible oasis of fresh, edible vegetation for deer, moose and elk.

And this abundance of fresh food and forest-like environment worked like a magnet on attracting all this wildlife, huge and small. The lack of natural predators (except for motorized vehicles) played also a huge role in this wildlife population explosion. But the idea that the poor creatures have been forced out of their habitat by our sprawling town just doesn’t wash.

Call it an urban legend if you will...