The Creatures of Upper Campus
Get to know your furry and not-so-furry friends
The stairway to hell. The Whittier death march. The climb of a thousand steps. There are a quite a few different ways to describe the walk from lower campus to upper campus. Whether it’s from Hoover to Turner, or from the Campus Inn to Harris, you’re in for a hike.
Students walk the different paths multiple times everyday. You can go straight through the center, walking behind Wardman over the cracked and unused asphalt road, or you can go to the sides, walking up the staircases, looking at all the dusty plants that make up the empty space. No matter where you go, other little critters are watching from the brush. There are tiny lizards soaking up the sun on the heated steps, and rabbits of varying sizes running from bush to bush, trying to avoid the plethora of students. And just maybe, if you live in Turner and Harris, you can hear the howling of the coyotes deep into the night.
The lizards, which you’ve probably scene if you live in the Upper Campus, could be of three possible types. According to Cheryl Swift, a Professor of Biology and Environmental Science at Whittier College, the three possible lizard types you might see in upper campus are side blotched lizards, western fence lizards, and alligator lizards. You can most often find these critters sunbathing on the steps to the upper campus. You can take a quick look at them from a distance, but the moment you get close, they bolt away into the brush. All three types of lizards are very common to the desert and urban areas of Southern California, with the alligator lizards stretching all the way up to Washington. If they aren’t basking in the sun, and if the day is particularly dry, you could try and find the lizards near a source of water.
When the lizards aren’t chilling in the sun, they are probably in their nests or homes. According the Swift, the lizards that live near and around campus don’t burrow into the ground to live, but they do indeed burrow to lay their eggs. In the picture below, you can see a little hole in the ground slightly obscured by a dry branch. On the walk up the the Harris Dorms, I could see some dirt in the distance being flung out of the ground. Thinking it was going to be a small gopher of some sort, I walked to get a bit of a closer look. To my surprise, a small lizard poked her head out, looked around, then continued shoveling dirt out.
Rabbits. They’re small, cute, cuddly and you can often find them running across the Turner lawn or through the bushes next to the Turner and Harris dorms. The rabbits that live with us are called Cottontails, the most widely distributed type of rabbit to exist in the United States. You may be lucky to see one during the day, but unlike the lizards, if you really wanted to lookout for one you should keep your eyes peeled when the sun goes down. Cottontails like to eat at night, mainly on different grasses and herbs. The front lawn of turner is a small grassy field, which is why you will often find two or more rabbits there at night.
Cottontails live in and around the brush between buildings just like the lizards do. According to Swift, they will either live in nests/dens that they construct themselves, or they will move into burrows created by other animals. If you’ve ever seen a rabbit on campus, turn to tell your friend, then they’re gone the next second, they probably just ran away. Cottontail’s can run up to speeds of 18 miles per hour!
If you go to Whittier, but don’t live in the upper campus area, then you probably haven’t heard the wails of the coyotes at night. If you live in Harris, chances are you’ve heard the eerie howls of the coyotes before. The coyotes of Whittier normally live off campus, but come onto campus for various reasons, most of the time they are probably scavenging.
The wailing we hear during the nights can mean a few different things. If the coyotes are howling from different directions, it means they are marking their territory. The male coyotes are telling other males to stay away and welcoming the females to come in. If they howl away from each other, they are setting boundaries across their environment. Other sounds we can hear are yelping sounds, associated with coyotes playing, and a barking sound, associated with coyotes protecting their home, family or food.
The one trait that all of these animals living in the upper campus of Whittier have in common is that they adapt well to living in human-controlled environments.
“These [lizards, rabbits, and coyotes] are generalists that can switch from one resource to another very easily.” — Cheryl Swift
The one trait that all of these animals living aroundWhittier’s upper campus have in common is that they can adapt. In the picture to the left, we see a young rabbit right next to a very large storage container. The container has been there for four-plus years, and as far as I know, doesn’t serve a purpose right now. However, the rabbit was easily able to hide under it when I tried to approach it for more pictures. It could very well have it’s home there, for it’s just the right size for rabbits, but too small for any predators to get into.
Being able to adapt is one of the most effective ways to survive in our global pollution crisis. According to an article in the L.A times published in 2016, the nations of the world generate about 1.3 billion tons of garbage and waste, and that number is expected to rise to 4 billion by the year 2100. The top five countries that produce this waste are Germany, Japan, Brazil, China, and the United States coming in at number one.
Trash pollution is a major problem, but climate change is a problem we’re only just beginning to understand and feel the effects of. The arctic ice is melting at a rate of 13.2% every 10 years, sea levels rise every single year, and the global temperature has gone up 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880. That may seem like a small number, but according to NASA’s official climate change website, the IPCC (Panel on Climate Change) estimates that the global temperature could very well rise another 2.5 to 10 more degrees over the upcoming century.
When asked about the effects climate change and pollution could have on the Whittier creatures, Professor Swift said:
“They’re so adapted to our environment… Obviously, if climate change changes the vegetation, that would have a negative effect. The thing about animals like the rabbits next to campus and the lizards on campus, is that these are animals that have learned to co-exist with humans, so they adapt to change. The animals that are going to be impacted by climate change are animals that have really narrow resource requirements, and those resources disappear. These are generalists that can switch from one resource to another very easily.”
These animals are here to stay, and for some students, that’s a good thing. Charlie Newman, a student who frequents the upper campus more than most students, says that he sees a bunch of bunnies, especially at night, behind Harris where humans don’t frequently walk. He has not however seen a coyote up near the Harris dorms yet. Newman then said “I like seeing the bunnies. I have a lot of bunnies back at Pennsylvania, where I’m from, and it reminds me of home each time I see one here.”
