Toward An Interspecies Etiquette For The Multispecies City

Urban wildlife navigate an unspoken interspecies code of conduct that often positions animals as either too bold or too timid, too numerous, or simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. This plenary talk examines human-wildlife relations from the perspective of municipal hunters in Sweden, who play a role in managing “problem” wildlife in urban environments. Rationales for removing wildlife include reparative, sacrificial, situational, categorical, aesthetic, goodwill, and practical justifications. Contrasting Sweden's utilitarian approach to practices in other cultural contexts, I discuss international variations in tolerance thresholds and intervention strategies. These hunters confront ethical dilemmas in their multifaceted roles as eco-facilitators, garbage collectors, and enforcers of coexistence norms, often mediating between public expectations and ecological realities. However, I also argue that urban environments, characterized by their emergent and fluid norms on wildlife, offer unique opportunities for fostering coexistence through adaptive management.