A Field Guide to Campus

Though situated smack in the middle of a major metropolitan area, the 400 acres of Georgia Tech’s campus house a bevy of wildlife, from the ordinary (squirrels!) to the unexpected (fancy chickens?). Here’s a closer look at some of the most commonly sighted creatures, from the humans that know them best—campus groundskeepers and safety officers.

Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) Tech generally takes a live-and-let-live approach to squirrels (one of the most common wild species in the Southeast), but occasionally they require individual attention. Donna Chronic, a horticulturist in the Landscape Services department, once came upon a squirrel stuck in a dumpster drain hole, a la Winnie the Pooh: “Due to the quick thinking of a variety of Georgia Tech employees and a little Pam sprayed on his fur, he wriggled his way out before the big truck took the dumpster away.”

Virginia Opossum (Didelphis virginiana)
Opossums have an appetite for garbage, so groundskeepers often encounter the marsupial while changing trashcan liners. An especially voracious—and tenacious—opossum, first encountered on the Biotech Quad, was nicknamed “Peanut.” “Peanut was found in several other cans in the quad area over the following days,” says horticulturist Michael Walsh. “Plenty of head shaking around the shop resulted from Peanut. A laminated sign was even made to place on trash cans where a possum was found, informing passers-by of the potential for crossing an opossum.”

Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos)
In a matchup rivaling any tilt on Grant Field, Alumni Magazine editors have more than once witnessed a duo of scrappy mockingbirds dive-bombing East Campus’s resident bird of prey, a red tail hawk (Buteo jamaicensis).

Gray Fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus)
“We have seen foxes running around at night,” says Alex Gutierrez, a crime prevention officer with the Georgia Tech Police Department. “One was spotted during the day by the Habersham building on Marietta Street. As well, there was a small family of foxes occupying the glade area by the president’s home. They are usually scared of us more than we are of them.” When foxes are spotted, Gutierrez calls up Tech’s Environmental Health and Safety office. “Depending on the situation and animal, they will call a trapper and have it released in a forest far from campus.”

Silkie Chicken
(Gallus gallus domesticus)
Lisa Broadhurst, an environmental health and safety biosafety officer, says most calls about animals on campus come from Tech police officers like Gutierrez—including one report about five fancy chickens roosting in Burger Bowl. “They were so cute,” she says. “The guys [sent to collect them] had them all by the feet, and they weren’t saying a thing.” The birds went to live at the home of a campus groundskeeper.

Copperhead Snake
(Agkistrodon contortrix)
“We deal with the poisonous snakes because they’re a potential hazard. Non-poisonous snakes, things like that, we try to leave alone,” says Broadhurst. “We’ve only had one call for a poisonous snake, a copperhead. And in this area, that’s not surprising to me.”

Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina)
“We’ve never actually had a turtle call,” Broadhurst says. “People pretty much leave them alone—they’re used to them.”

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