In most of the regions of the planet fauna and flora are being threatened with extinction, major factors being pollution, destruction of natural habitat, and other man-driven-factors.
The Cop of Sofia is part of the Bulgarian fauna and it is today’s topic in the “Extinct Species” series. Also known as Streetus Homoretardus, the Cop of Sofia prefers to live in a closed environment by hiding in either a dirty shrub, behind trees/polls, or just by pretending to be invisible behind the steering wheel.
Its habitat is misleading for the human beings. Streetus Homoretardus prefers both heavy traffic streets and deserted/low traffic places, where one would never expect to see such specimen. The most interesting part about the Cop of Sofia is the fact that it is very unusual for it to be seen either without a radar detector in its right upper limb, or without the truncheon placed somewhere on the right lower limb. In most of the cases, the Streetus Homoretardus is accompanied by at least one more member of this species. Usually they hunt in groups of 2-3, and their main capture is the Bulgarian Lev, the American Dollar, and the Euro.
Years ago, when this species was first discovered, the Streetus Homoretardus had very different traits: it used to protect the people around, to take care of the car traffic flow, to offer security during nighttime, and even to help humans when they needed it. Unfortunately, this initial behavior has changed drastically over time: the Cop of Sofia doesn’t come out during nighttime anymore (unless hunger strikes them and they go out hunt), it feels threatened by traffic jams, it gets claustrophobic in intersections, and it is badly affected by the climate change (it seeks shelter whenever it is sunny/windy/rainy).
As we could see, today’s environment seriously threatens Streetus Homoretardus to become one of the extinct species within the Bulgarian fauna. Important measures should be taken in order to bring the Cop of Sofia back to its initial behavior. Fortunately, this morning I managed to catch one specimen which was clearly showing one of the old traits.
Intersection – downtown Sofia
