Citizen complaint of the day: Masked varmint prowling a South End alley

Always report squirrels. Every time you see one.

There are a couple of problems with your last assertion. They weren't all here before us; possums didn't arrive in New England until a century or two ago, and coyotes are a more recent arrival. More to the point, while I hope all these residents will outlast me, and even you too, I know well enough that the Human Plague has been brutally effective in reducing the number of species in almost any environment it invades. The main exceptions are those species that have adapted to live off of human refuse, but that is a precarious existence, because the nature of that refuse keeps changing. Can racoons live on Soylent Green?

Fisher cat. Right in downtown Boston. Not a big animal, but damn, that thing had a convincing “leave me alone or I’ll eff up your day” look. Pretty much the whole front half of the animal was teeth. Turns out their diet includes porcupines, which they capture and subdue with great violence. I don’t know where it took a wrong turn to end up on my street but I wished it a safe and speedy return home...