The city of Ottawa spent nearly $700,000 last year responding to animal complaints, according to an email response from Roger Chapman, the city’s chief bylaw officer.

In total, officers responded to 11,697 calls, or roughly 30 calls a day.

Complaints about barking dogs and those without a license make up the largest portion of the calls, 4,700, says Chapman, while unattended pets left in vehicles and wandering livestock – yes, wandering livestock – are amongst the least complained about items.

“Data indicates that each one of these animal calls costs, on average, $57 to complete,” says Chapman, noting that while the time and number of officers needed to respond to any one particular complaint varies greatly, bylaw officers are nonetheless required to respond to each and every call.

Still, last year’s numbers are significantly better than previous years.  In 2010, for example, the city received almost 14,000 animal complaints. At an average of $57 a piece, that’s a difference of nearly $140,000 a year when compared to last year’s figures.

“The reduction in calls,” says Chapman, “can be directly attributed to additional public awareness and community outreach work that our officers have provided.”

This includes installing fenced-in areas at local parks, putting up better and more clearly labeled signs so that dog owners know exactly where, and where not, to remove their animal’s leach, as well as the city’s Stoop and Scoop campaign, an effort to encourage dog owners to either pick up after their pets or face stiff fines.

The city has also worked closely with the Ottawa Humane Society and local veterinarian clinics to ensure that as many animals as possible are fitted with microchip implants so that lost pets can be quickly identified and returned to their owners.

“We’ve seen a steady decline in the number of dogs and cats brought in over the last few years,” says Sarah Oswald, a senor manager and admissions specialist at the Humane Society. “Of course, we’d like to see even less animals have to be brought in by bylaws services, but we’re happy with any improvement.”

For Oswald, the most important thing dog and cat owners can do to reduces the number of complaints received each year is to make sure their pets are either spayed or neutered.

“The more animals that are spayed and neutered, the less that will come in through our doors,” says Oswald. “Officers come in on a daily basis – it’s not that we don’t like to see them – but maybe we could see them less.”

Oswald also stresses the importance of having animals fitted with microchips.

“The sooner we can identify an animal, the sooner we can have it back to its home,” says Oswald. “That might mean one less night here, one less night of a family spent worrying, or one less night of a dog wondering, ‘Hey, why am I not going home?’”

Problems persist

Kevin Smith, a graduate student at Carleton University, walks home through Brewer Park every night. Smith suffers from an acute fear of large dogs, and says that despite the city’s efforts to make improvements to signs and fences, enough has not yet been done to prevent dog owners from allowing their animals to run freely in undesignated areas.

“I’ve never called the city to complain about an animal, but I’ve thought about calling to complain about some of their signs,” says Smith. “They’re just not clear enough. There’s an arrow pointing this way, and an arrow pointing that way, it’s really not clear where they’re supposed to go.”

Gloucester-South Nepean may be on its way to becoming an emerging hub for Ottawa’s graffiti complaints.

Or maybe not.

Data from the City of Ottawa show that the number of graffiti complaints from the ward more than doubled between 2014 and 2015. The percentage increase in complaints peaked those of other wards at 172 per cent.

“I have not heard much from residents or business on this,” Coun. Michael Qaqish of Gloucester-South Nepean wrote in an email response.

That’s because the real numbers are not so staggering.

The map shows the number of graffiti complaints from all  wards in Ottawa from 2014 to 2015. 

Source: City of Ottawa 3-1-1 dataset

In 2014, the ward had 11 people making 3-1-1 calls to report graffiti. That number accelerated to 30 last year. At the same time, the number of requests to get graffiti cleaned up was at an all-time low. Last year, only two requests were made from the ward.

Staff Sgt. Sam Fawaz of the Ottawa Police Service explained that the difference in numbers results from residents who sometimes make 3-1-1 complaints about graffiti on city property but do not call the police or by-law services to request a clean up.

In other cases, owners of private property do not bother complaining. They just call the city to make requests.

Rideau-Vanier and Somerset retained top spots on the list of wards producing most of the complaints and requests in the city.

(Click on the annotation to see the entire document)

“It’s an inner city neighbourhood,” said Alex Lauren, a graffiti artist who has painted in Ottawa for 18 years. “Graffiti thrives in the city centre not in the suburbs.”

There are three legal graffiti walls sprinkled around the city. Lauren says only two of these are an ideal location for talented graffiti artists, the third wall in Orléans has no appeal.  

“You can scribble there if you want, but you can’t really create any good quality artwork at that spot,” Lauren said. “You can’t even stand up to paint.”

Lauren says the city may have to build at least three more walls to reduce the number of graffiti vandalism cases in the city.

Graffiti vandals get  busy between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m, tagging private and city property. Lauren says the culprits are usually up and coming artists who do not want to be painted over at the few legal walls.

“Graffiti is pretty much a popularity contest,” Lauren said. “There are different ways of become popular, by writing your name in a million places so people can’t go anywhere without seeing it.”

Ottawa’s graffiti complaints experienced an 18 percent dwindle, from 910 in 2014 to 746 last year. The number of by-law services requests also plunged by 39 per cent.

Fawaz says there’s no way to pinpoint the cause of this decline. He said community police officers have been visiting schools to educate individuals about graffiti.

“Some people do works of art, they are beautiful but unfortunately, they are not on their property,” Fawaz said.

“We understand your freedom of expression. If you want to express yourself and you do it on somebody else’s property, it is a violation of the Criminal Code of Canada and you will be charged with mischief.”

The City of Ottawa charges people caught placing graffiti on private or public property a $615 fine.

(Click the annotation for the full document)  

Lauren thinks in the future graffiti will not stir as much attention as it presently does.

“There’s a lot of baby boomers that just can’t understand the point of it,” Lauren said. “If you talk to someone in their 30s, they don’t care or they are inquisitive. They want to know about it.”

(Click on annotation to see the entire document)

Geese glide across the water like a scene from a post card. People take out their cameras and smartphones, children feed them hunks of bread.

Below the water’s surface though, it’s a literal shit show. Each Canada goose generates about 1.5 lbs, or more than half a kilogram, of droppings per day.

“Take a pound of butter. Take two of them. Then cut them up into little pieces. Then take it and throw it all over a piece of grass,” said Steve Wambolt, the creator of the Goosebuster drone. “And then do that times 1,000.”

At Petrie Island’s beaches, favourite spots for geese, people can step around the feces on land. But when a flock floats in the water nearby, the poop dissolves and creates a dirty, messy soup just offshore.

In response, the City of Ottawa put Wambolt on the payroll. Since 2013, he’s flown noisy drones with flashing lights to scare geese away from the island’s two beaches.

“I go down there at two o’clock in the morning and fly my drone around this pitch black island,” he said. “You see this cool thing buzzing around—no one has a clue what I’m doing—it’s chirping and making sounds.” He does this for about half an hour. The geese coming up the Ottawa River hear the sound of the drone and see the flashing lights. Then they pass Petrie Island by and head further upstream.

Since he started flying his drones there, there have been fewer high-level E. coli days during the summer.

No one wants to swim in nature’s toilet. People can get sick from bacteria in goose droppings, because where there’s poop, there’s E. coli. Measuring it is a good way to know if other dangerous bacteria, like salmonella, are in the water, because they tend to live under similar conditions.

The city measures bacteria levels at beaches every day in the summer. Health Canada recommends closing a beach when the levels get to 200 E. coli colonies in 100 ml of water. Ontario is stricter, so Ottawa closes beaches at a level of 100.

Rainy days tend to stir things up, but goose turds are one of biggest reasons for increased bacteria at public beaches, according to Allan Crowe, a scientist formerly with Environment Canada.

In 2012, Petrie Island Bay beach had 18 days of levels more than 100 and Petrie Island River beach had 10.

In 2013, after Wambolt started operating the drones, the Bay beach had four days of levels more than 100, while the River beach had nine.

Wambolt said the beach staff who clean up the poop on land reported less droppings since he’s been flying his drones. Beachgoers also said they noticed less poop.

Geese at beaches is a widespread problem. In the early 20th century, conservationists were afraid Canada geese were doing to die out. The government protected them. By the end of the century, their population boomed. But so did E. Coli levels at beaches.

There are guides to getting rid of geese on government websites, like Environment and Climate Change Canada. There are also organizations like Geese Peace that specialize in conflict management between geese and people.

Cities and businesses across North America have tried to get rid of geese by poisoning their eggs, installing strobe lights and noisemakers or spraying the ground with scents geese aren’t supposed to like. These methods either don’t work or only for a short time.

Wambolt’s Goosebuster drones are effective and they’re beginning to be in demand across the continent. For example, he’s set up chicken and shrimp farmers with drones to keep geese and other birds from contaminating the farms with their droppings.

“There are millions of birds in the world—they’re going to poop. We can’t control that. What we can control is where they poop.”

Among Canadian cities, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan has the fourth highest homicide rate. Still, on a global scale, it is a comparatively safe place. Contrast this with Saskatoon’s inner-city. Five core neighbourhoods in Saskatoon have a homicide rate that is 35 percent higher than Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the most murderous countries on earth. How bad is it there? The Government of Canada presently recommends avoiding non-essential travel to the Congo.

After eight homicides in 2014, Statistics Canada reported Saskatoon’s homicide rate to be 2.61 per 100,000. Seven of these deaths were in the neighbourhoods of Caswell Hill, King George, Meadowgreen, Mount Royal, and Pleasant Hill. Using only the population of these inner-city neighbourhoods, the homicide rate is 38.46 per 100,000. If inner-city Saskatoon were a country, it would be the seventh most homicidal nation on earth, just ahead of Jamaica and just behind El Salvador.

[This map shows the location of all eight homicides in Saskatoon in 2014. It also highlights the five inner city neighbourhoods being examined.]

“For years and years my neighbourhood was a sheltered little area,” says Owen Woytowich who lives in Saskatoon’s Mount Royal. “Now I see it everywhere. You can actually feel it at night. They can put a man safely on the moon. I don’t feel safe walking in my neighbourhood at night.”

Woytowich, 32, grew up in Mount Royal just down the street from where he now lives with his pregnant wife and two-year-old son. The baby is expected any day. “The neighbourhood has changed a lot in the last ten years,” he says. “The inner-city is getting bigger. It’s crazy.”

Tammy Morrison now lives near Woytowich in Mount Royal, she used to live in Pleasant Hill. “That was intimidating,” she says. “I think living in a city one has to be aware of their surroundings. No matter the size.”

Woytowich and Morrison’s neighbourhood is among the oldest and poorest parts of the city. The average household income in Mount Royal is $53,554 per year. The other four inner-city neighbourhoods are similar. Morrison’s old neighbourhood, Pleasant Hill, occupies the lowest spot at just over $36,000 per year. It is no surprise that locals often refer to it as, “Not so Pleasant Hill.” All five inner-city neighbourhoods are well below the city’s average household income of $82,543 per year.

“Poverty is the biggest predictor of violence,” says Dr. Maria Tcherni-Buzzeo. “The higher the poverty rate, the higher the homicide rate. Homicides tend to be highly clustered in the inner cities.”

Tcherni-Buzzeo is an assistant professor in the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences, University of New Haven. She studies the causes of violence. “There are many correlations to poverty, violence is just one. Divorce rate is another.” Tcherni-Buzzeo’s research has found that addressing the mental health of youth reduces delinquency.

“One of the high correlations to poverty is the mental health of children,” she says. “Prescribing psychotropic medication to children with psychiatric conditions clearly decreases delinquency.” She does not advocate overmedicating. Rather, she simply notes that a whole host of problems come with poverty and some of them, possibly including the mental health of young people, create circumstances which increase homicide rates in the long term.

“You see kids wandering around at all hours with no supervision,” Woytowich says. “If they had something to do maybe they wouldn’t get into trouble.”