See that squirrel in the foreground?
This is an artist's view of what the "Cinquantenaire" park in Brussels might look like, in the winning architects' vision for a renovation project in Brussels. It's clearly photoshopped in, but that's not the issue. As your squirrel connoisseur extraordinaire, I'm sure many of you don't even realise there is something off with that lovely little critter in the picture, and I'm here to tell you all about it.
A few weeks ago, De Standaard, one of the Belgian national newspapers, published a piece about the renovation of the "Cinquantenaire" park - a space that was designed to celebrate Belgium's fiftieth birthday. (We gained independence from the Netherlands in 1830.) The site has a bit of history to it, and with the arrival of King Car, a big roadway was pulled in a tunnel underneath. Well, not entirely underneath: a skylight of some sorts is cut out, so the park has one of the arteries of Brussels traffic exposed to open air right in the middle of it, as you can see on this satellite image.
"How can we improve this park?" "Oh, here's a briliant idea! Let's pull a motorway right through it!"
There was a contest to redesign the entire area of the park, and it looks like the tunnel may finally be capped off. It will create a much nicer environment for people and wildlife: without a major motorway bisecting the park, we can all roam around freely, humans and critters alike.
The winners' design board includes some nice touches like a heron (ubiquitous in Flanders' fields) hiding on the edge of the pond, and that squirrel on the lawn. But it's the wrong squirrel! In most of the European mainland the so-called red squirrel, or European Squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) dominates, and on the picture we clearly have a Grey, or American Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) which you won't find here! Under EU law, our little grey friend is actually an "invasive alien species" and you can't even import him anymore because the law says he has "an adverse impact on native species." In any case, greys are extremely rare in Belgium with only three registered observations the past year.
All this to say: next time you want to add some wildlife to jazz up your images, don't forget to check you've got the right species! What we need is the little lass below photoshopped in, perhaps with a little portion of frites and mayo in hand, to evoke the true Belgian squirrel.
