Earlier this week I showed you the pair of turkeys lurking in my neighbourhood. I was quite annoyed with them, they blocked my car from getting to my driveway when I really needed to get inside ASAP. These birds yelled at me after I parked, rude. I considered them a pest, a major annoyance to me. My neighbour on the other hand was so excited to see these two back in our neighbourhood. They caused a ruckus the week prior by going onto the freeway down the street (again, major pest vibes in my book).
Later in the week, I spotted this coyote frantically crossing the street back and forth. 
In my neighbourhood, these are considered a pest since they attack the turkeys and small pets. But not everyone considers them pests (I don’t).
So what makes a pest a pest?
Pests aren’t just organisms that people consider annoying. They usually have some sort of human health issue or mess with the local ecosystem.
I have worked on a “real” pest before, the Western black widow spider. These spiders not only have high abundances in urban areas, but they also pose a threat to human health because of their toxic venom. As a pest, you’d want to get rid of these spiders, but they do help control other pest populations like cockroaches which are a hefty meal for them. But we also move spiders between cities on our cars, so we aren’t doing a great job keeping them under control.
What organisms do you consider pests that others may not? Or what organisms do others consider pests that you think are just fine?
I am interested in urban ecology and evolution. Urbanization can have drastic impacts on local ecosystems, both negative and positive, and creates a new environment for organisms to experience. To understand the impacts that urbanization plays on organisms, I look through the lense of population genetics and molecular evolution.
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