Rebuilding dams in Manhattan
Newsflash! There are rodents in New York. No, not the two foot long sewer rats living beneath the third base dugout at Yankee Stadium. I speak of beavers, those water-bound rodents that build dams and helped Lucy escape the White Witch in the Chronicles of Narnia. According to this CNN article:
Biologists videotaped a beaver swimming up the Bronx River on Wednesday. Its twig-and-mud lodge had been spotted earlier on the river bank, but the tape confirmed the presence of the animal itself.
But why is this sighting so significant? Well the beaver, once a prominent resident in the New York area, have been hunted and trapped to such an extent that they have not been seen in the city since the early nineteenth century.
But is it all good news for the animal? The reaction is mixed.
“It had to happen because beaver populations are expanding, and their habitats are shrinking,” said Dietland Muller-Schwarze, a beaver expert at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse.
Either way the cleanup of the Bronx River championed by U.S. Rep. Jose Serrano has made the return of the beaver possible, and we're likely to see more of them in the future. So, please New York, if you see one of these rodents padding along, don't try to step on it.
Thanks to this snapshooter for the photo
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