{"id":14962,"date":"2016-08-10T17:27:05","date_gmt":"2016-08-10T21:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=14962"},"modified":"2016-08-10T17:27:05","modified_gmt":"2016-08-10T21:27:05","slug":"inside-aurora-critter-crossing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/inside-aurora-critter-crossing\/","title":{"rendered":"INSIDE AURORA: Critter Crossing"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019re fortunate to have such a varied array of wildlife living here with us in Aurora.
\nI realize you may question that when hornets take up residence in the soffit above your front door, but in general, it\u2019s relaxing to see the groundhogs, ducks, chipmunks, cardinals and all manner of other critters that call our Town home.
\nOf course, with the abundance of wildlife it is necessary to watch for it when out driving. As cute as a bunny can be, one prefers to see them with their insides on the inside, so to speak.
\nTo prevent excess roadkill, the Town has helpfully installed cautionary animal-related warning signs in some areas. There may be other species represented, but I\u2019ve seen them for turtles, ducks and geese.
\nAs suggested by the signs I\u2019ve seen, these usually these appear near water, but there\u2019s a lot of water in Town in the form of creeks and ponds, and there are not signs at all of the adjacent roads. It got me thinking how they decide where signs should go.
\nPresumably they\u2019re located along stretches of road that see regular animal crossings. However, there is a sign in my neighbourhood showing a trio of geese.
\nI\u2019ve lived in this area many years and pass through that spot probably a hundred times a month at all times of the day in all seasons. In all of the probably couple thousand times I\u2019ve been through there, I\u2019ve never once seen a goose.
\nPerhaps this is reminiscent of a situation that occurred on my in-laws rural street some time ago. There was herd of deer in the area, and one seemed to be hit by a car every week or so.
\nEventually, the municipality relented to all the calls for a deer crossing sign and installed one along that stretch of road. To my knowledge there were never any deer hit after that, but no one saw them in the area anymore either, so I think that \u201csuccess\u201d may be more based on the fact that by that stage there weren\u2019t any deer left to hit, than due to the effectiveness of the sign.
\nPerhaps that\u2019s what\u2019s happened near me with the geese. Maybe at one point there were some, but they all got picked off, and by the time the sign was installed, that local population was extinct.
\nEither that, or they have developed some sort of avian cloaking technology.
\nApart from sign location, I\u2019m also curious about what critters go on a sign. There is no end of wildlife in York Region, and most of it must cross a road at some point.
\nWhy don\u2019t we see signs for squirrel crossing, or for toads, or other animals we see in Town? Certainly, raccoons seem to be the most common casualties, so should warrant a sign or two. Perhaps ducks and geese have better lobby groups?
\nBut I guess there are other implications. If we had signs for every potential species, you\u2019d never see any scenery when driving other than a solid wall of orange hazard signs.
\nAs for the cost to produce, install and maintain so many signs, that would be a big budget item for the Town right up there with funds allocated to lawsuits, and studies for Library Square.
\n Bottom line; there can\u2019t be signs everywhere, and not every species can be represented, so you may not be aware that wildlife is prone to running out along certain stretches of road.
\nWhile that may not cause too much concern if it\u2019s a chipmunk, it could be something that has a greater physical impact, like a deer, or a skunk.
\nSo keep an eye out.<\/p>\n

Feel free to e-mail Scott at: machellscorners@gmail.com
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston We\u2019re fortunate to have such a varied array of wildlife living here with us in Aurora. I realize you may question that when hornets take up residence in the soffit above your front door, but in general, it\u2019s relaxing to see the groundhogs, ducks, chipmunks, cardinals and all manner of other critters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3Tk","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-31 21:21:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}