Istanbul’s Urban Fauna

As the sun rises from behind the eastern hills of Istanbul, the sounds of crows and seagulls cawing and mewing grows and join the chants of muezzins calling for the early prayer. This might as well be one of the ways that an istanbulites’ alarm sounds like.

Meanwhile, lazy cats and stray dogs start their daily journey looking for the generosity of those kind enough to provide them food and some friendly caring. In most cases, they might find it, as the people of Istanbul tend to be generous with four legged creatures, sometimes more than with those of two.

Doubtlessly, the presence of such animals lends an amiable face to a city that can be extremely harsh and demanding for its inhabitants, given the relentless lifestyle most of them live in.
If one has never been in Istanbul to experience it in person, “Kedi” (trailer) is a documentary movie that tells the story of how the lives of cats and men are so embroiled in this city. Through the felines’ eyes, it conveys the importance of these creatures in shaping the soul of the city and of those who live in it.

Their canine fellows also have their share of glamour by starring in ”Stray” (see the trailer here), another documentary about some of the 100.000 stray dogs that live in the streets of Istanbul.

Istanbul is located in a privileged geographical emplacement, with generally mild weather. Wedged between the Aegean, to the South, and the Black Sea in the North, its original natural landscape was mostly formed by Mediterranean and Euro-Siberian forests. The remaining flora is still amazingly rich but the fauna doesn’t stay far behind.

By night time, in the backyards of Tarabya or on the streets of Suadiye, it is easy to come across scared hedgehogs or brisk weasels. In the summer time, turtles come out of their seasonal sleep and wonder throughout the city but, in many cases, cohabit with humans and grow their families in residential gardens.

The type of animals that live close by to humans go from the friendly creatures just described to less appeasing ones like all kinds of biting insects to venomous scorpions and snakes!

Many prime time TV news in Turkey love to distract their viewers from the crude reality of the country by broadcasting daily life trivia. Unsurprisingly, some of those “news” are caught in CCTV cameras. Recently a family of wild boars was unexpectedly filmed attacking a few shops in a neighborhood in the outskirts of the city. Not so easy to be seen, whenever they are found making a visit, they easily become news.

In a recent exhibition under the theme, Past Present Istanbul at the SSM – Sakıp Sabacı Müzesi, artist Sıla Ünlü İntepe presents her piece, Animalium Istanbul. It consists of a duo-channel video artwork where the interaction between men and fauna, and the transformation of animal habitats, is registered through documentary film footage of animals and interviews with experts in the matter. It’s a document for posterity framing the ongoing impact of anthropogenic urban development and animals, resulting in a phenomenon that concurs in the awkward creation of urban wild animals.

The crude reality is that this fast growing metropolis is pushing out of their natural habitat the endemic species that once roamed freely in it. This rapid change generates a clash between two worlds apart. And we know who is going to win.

A few years ago, an expat family moved to Istanbul. They chose their house from the internet before coming. A large chalet, in the north wealthy suburbs of Sarıyer. One of the main reasons for the location choice: their biking sports habits in the forest. That region is known for the large packs of Kangal dogs (Turkish Sheppard dogs) that ramble between highways and the new luxury condos recently built there. Kangal dogs don’t like bikers. They left Istanbul one year later…