[wordup] Beaver spotted in NYC for the first time in 200 years

[Adam Shand]

Via:
http://www.viridiandesign.org/2007/02/viridian-note-00491-massive-green.html
Source: http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/40503/story.htm

US: February 26, 2007

NEW YORK - A beaver has been spotted in New York City for the first time
in more than 200 years, marking the return of an animal once vital to
the city's economy and then nearly hunted to extinction.

Biologists with the Wildlife Conservation Society in recent days have
photographed a North American beaver they named "Jose" in the Bronx
River, a once-filthy waterway that runs through the Bronx Zoo and has
since been cleaned up.

"There has not been a sighting of a beaver lodge or a beaver in New York
City for over 200 years. It sounds fantastic, but one of the messages
that comes out of this is if you give wildlife a chance it will come
back," said John Calvelli, a spokesman for the Wildlife Conservation
Society, which operates the Bronx Zoo.

The Bronx was once synonymous with urban decay and by the 1970s the
Bronx River was used as a dumping ground that was virtually choked off
with refuse.

But residents and the city government began to clean it up, an effort
aided by US$14.6 million in federal funding secured since 2000 by US
Rep. Jose Serrano of the Bronx.

Biologists named the beaver Jose in Serrano's honor, Calvelli said on
Friday.

Beaver pelts drove the economy of the former New Amsterdam, when New
York City was a Dutch trading post full of trappers. The animal appears
on the city seal, which in turn appears on the city flag.

Records show the Dutch purchased 7,246 beaver pelts in 1626 and that by
1671 the renamed New York of British rule traded more than 80,000 pelts
a year, Calvelli said.

By 1800, beavers were no longer seen east of the Mississippi River and
they were nearly extinct by 1930. Today the species has recovered so
much that it has returned to its traditional range, Calvelli said.

Story by Daniel Trotta

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