Cemetery Animals
A vole, in de Veluwe. Photo by Peter Janse, used without permission
Almost sounds like Cemetery Pet, but some animals who call graveyard grounds home are considered a right plague by Amsterdam cemetery clients.
Rabbits, heron, moles and voles….I spoke today with the personnel working at Noorderbegraafplaats in Amsterdam Noord who tell me that they have quite a few voles (hamster-like creatures), which is most probably the Bank Vole (Rosse woelmuis). The vole gnaws through the roots of graveyard plants, digs burrows and quite elaborate tunnels into the graves and making their nest inside the coffins! Rob, one of the buitendienst staff who takes care of the cemetery landscape explained that the little voles are not a problem to them, but it is difficult to communicate this to the dear ones of deceased. The cemetries themselves are not allowed to kill animals, they take measures by covering up the burrows to discourage the creatures, but some people who visit the graves of their beloved ones sprinkle poison in the entrances of the creature’s burrows, or at least they threaten to.
Rob explains further about other surplus animal inhabitants of the graveyard, such as the grey heron, or the rabbit which became a real problem several years ago. Hundreds if not thousands of bunnies eating grave plants and knocking over flower pots, digging holes and disrespecting the rest in peace. The Noorderbegraafplaats resolved this with a large scale action to shoo the rabbits beyond their cemetery grounds.
Perhaps the rabbits migrated east, towards the Nieuwe Ooster cemetery in Amsterdam East which is the Amsterdam cemetery trying to cope with the rabbit population boom. Since recently it is the only cemetery with a rabbit culling permit, thanks in part to Tjeerd Rinsma, a wildlife manager (fauna beheerder) and hunter who has been campaigning nationally for more effective measure to control the rabbit population in cemeteries together with the national Dutch Organisation for Cemeteries — Landelijke Organisatie Begraafplaatsen. Rinsma argues that cemeteries ought to have a shooting permit for controlling the explosive graveyard rabbit populations. Rabbits, like the vole do not have many natural predators in the cemetery, and they can fully enjoy the comfort and secure sanctuary that cemeteries provide, and for the vole this means snuggling safely inside the relative warmth of a coffin amid the mineral decomposition of a corpse.
In all, however, cemeteries especially in the conurbanized Netherlands really are a rich micro-climate of bio-dibersity in urban zones, a serene Umwelt inhabited by a community of creatures and vegetation that, outside of the noise and atmospheric pollution of cities can live in peace.