Nonhuman animals are part of the dynamism that typifies cities, yet prior research has obscured this condition by focusing upon a limited subset of animals and the privatized spaces that contain them. Consequently, previous research provides little guidance in developing a post-human conception of cities. This paper redresses this deficiency by redefining conceptions of “the public” and analyzing data from San Diego's Dead Animal Removal Program (DARP). Commensurate with modern political conceptions, “the public” is defined simultaneously as a spatial formation and (akin to democracies) a quantitative body of bodies. The DARP data indicate the pervasive presence of nonhuman animals in urban environments and the difficulties they face. As a nexus, the DARP illustrates how urban practices and bureaucratic systems reinstantiate “the public” in humanized form through the death and disposal of nonhumans. These hybrid relations challenge geographic methods.
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