NYCkayaker What's up in the Bronx?

[Richard Clifford]

 From the news today. What is going on in the Bronx? The new Hunts' 
Point market? Could it be? Richard Clifford


  Beavers return to New York City after 200 years


        Story Highlights

. Beaver dam spotted first, then animal tapped in Bronx River
. Animal appears on city's official seal, but trapped to extinction in 
city in early 1800s
. Biologists say beaver population increasing, animals looking for new 
habitat

*NEW YORK* (AP) -- Beavers grace New York City's official seal. But the 
industrious rodents have not been seen in the flesh here for as many as 
200 years -- until this week.

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. (Watch beaver swim 
in Bronx River 
<javascript:cnnVideo('play','/video/us/2007/02/23/von.nyc.beaver.return.affl','2007/03/09');>)

"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. "We're probably going to see more of them in the 
future."

Beavers gnawed out a prominent place in the city's early days as a 
European settlement, attracting fur traders to a nascent Manhattan. The 
animal appears in the city seal to symbolize a Dutch trading company 
that factored in the city's colonial beginnings, according to the city's 
Web site.

But amid heavy trapping, beavers disappeared from the city in the early 
1800s, according to the city Parks & Recreation Department.

The beaver that has made its way to the Bronx appears to be a male, 
several feet long and 2 or 3 years old, said Patrick Thomas, the mammals 
curator at the nearby Bronx Zoo.

Biologists have nicknamed the animal "Jose," as a tribute to U.S. Rep. 
Jose Serrano's work to revive the river. The Bronx Democrat lined up 
federal money for a cleanup.

"But I don't know to what extent I imagined things living in it again," 
he said.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/23/beaver.bronx.ap/index.html

-- 

Richard C. Clifford, Esq.
Attorney at Law
1890 Palmer Avenue, Suite 302
Larchmont, NY 10538

Tel: (914) 834-0100 -or- 0757
Cell: (917) 854-5824
Fax: (914) 834-0888

RichardClifford at earthlink.net 
RichardClifford at NYSBar.com



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