"Urban Nasty Critters" Group

"Urban Nasty Critters" Group

The "Urban Nasty Critters" group conducts research on animals that are disliked or unwanted in cities.

Urban nature and the biodiversity it contains are generally perceived as beneficial and desirable. However, in cities, certain species can provoke less positive emotions and reactions.

This research group focuses on this other side of urban nature—one that is, at first glance, not well appreciated: rats, pigeons, bedbugs, mosquitoes, cockroaches, and all kinds of organisms considered undesirable. These are species commonly found in cities, yet they are rarely immediately associated with urban nature and its benefits.

Far from a virtuous and well-ordered natural ideal, these unwanted urban animals reveal a still underexplored facet of the urban world: one that is both familiar and hostile, made up of multiple species that are often ignored, sometimes disturbing or repulsive, and that can also harm quality of life and the health of city dwellers. Anyone who has experienced a bedbug infestation knows how severely these small insects can disrupt life at home.

Urban nature is multiple and complex, it cannot be reduced to the virtues usually attributed to it. These unwanted animals are an integral part of how cities function. Rather than representing a city "against nature," they instead embody one of the most obvious expressions of the city as a natural habitat.

The "Urban Nasty Critters" Group aims to better understand how unwanted or undesired animals inhabit the city, and to study the full range of relationships that develop between them and urban residents.

The main questions addressed include:

Species: Which species are not desired in cities? What kinds of relationships do they form with humans? What imaginaries and perceptions are associated with them?
Spaces: What ways of inhabiting the city and its spaces do they adopt?
Practices: What regulation practices are implemented?

The methods we use are drawn from the social sciences (interviews, textual analysis, focus groups, participant observation), while also being inspired by and connected to the life sciences (ethology, parasitology, urban ecology).

Projects

Integrated Monitoring of Parasites in Changing Environments (IMPACT),Biodiversa + project : 2024-2026

Hirondelle de fenêtre : une espèce phare pour développer l'intégration des approches biologiques, sociales et participatives dans les politiques en faveur de la biodiversité dans le Canton de Vaud, un projet Unil INTERFACE : 2025-2026.

Promoting Biodiversity by Addressing Environmental Disvalue Narratives, FNS PNR 82

De becs et d'ongles – Étude des relations dynamiques entre les humains et les oiseaux dits « problématiques » en milieu urbain, thèse en cours de Lazare Duval: 2024 -

Past Projects

"Indésirables !? Les animaux mal-aimés de la ville" SNF 2020-2022 : an Exposition at the Natureum Lausanne (presentation), a cartoon and a book.

Members of the "Urban Nuisance Critters" Group

Joëlle Salomon Cavin (Professor)
Hugo Rochard (Postdoc, 2024–2026)
Amaranta Fontcuberta (Postdoc, 2025–2026)
Lazare Duval (PhD candidate, 2024–)
Ariane Boy de la Tour (PhD candidate, 2026–)

Former Member(s)

Maud Chalmandrier (former PhD student and postdoctoral researcher)