Alligators have been dragged from abandoned swimming pools. Foxes had to be removed from the airport. Coyotes are stalking rabbits and nutria a sort of countrified rat in city streets. And armadillos are undermining air conditioning units.

In the year since Hurricane Katrina drove out many of the people of New Orleans, wild animals have been moving in. Some were blown in by the winds or redistributed by the floodwaters. Others were drawn by the piles of rotting garbage and by the shelter afforded by all the abandoned homes and tall weeds.

The influx of wildlife was something Rick Atkinson, curator of swamp exhibit at Audubon Zoo, predicted even before the floodwaters receded.

“The three things wild animals need is food, water and cover,” Atkinson said. “We’ve always had food and water, but now, there are no people, so the animals have all the cover they want.”

Complaints about rats have soared.

“They have more to eat than before the storm. Just look at all the piles of garbage, the stuff lying around, the empty buildings. This is a rat’s paradise,” Erick Kinchke, owner of Audubon Pest Control.

[Read](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15251721/ “Read the Story”) (AP via MSNBC)