After 75 Years, Beavers Return To Detroit - Lodge Located In ConEd Intake Canal AFP

[hatrack]

beaver has been spotted in Detroit, following a 75 year absence from the city, ecologists say.

The Detroit Free Press reported Monday that a single beaver lodge has been discovered in an intake canal at Detroit Edison's Conners Creek power plant on the city's east riverfront.

John Hartig, the Detroit River refuge manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said beavers were last spotted in the Detroit River at least 75 years ago. He said the beaver habitat shows that river cleanup efforts are working.

"It's part of that larger story of ecological recovery," Hartig said.

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Beaver_spotted_in_Detroit_after_75_years_999.html

[Hell Hath No Fury]

1. Beavers are so cool!

My sister has rehabbed them in the past -- I know they can wreak a hit of havoc on their surrounding woods, but I still think they are pretty amazing creatures. Good for Detroit!

[Sal Minella]

2. But then the areas cleared by beaver become grazing grounds for deer.

It's all wheels within wheels and we don't really understand how it works, but we pretend we do. (We have "improved" our own country with kudzu and the English sparrow and the starling, for instance, and we've "improved" Australia with the cane toad and the rabbit, etc. ad nauseam).

[Hell Hath No Fury]

3. I am all about the beavers doing what they do.

My sister is in Texas, where it is mostly about property rights and "the damn beavers are messing with my creek" stuff -- she gets calls to move them all the time. :( It never made much sense to me -- Nature has been at this a heck of a lot longer than we have. I would totally dig having beavers on my property. :)

[Sal Minella]

4. I've had a hunch for a long time that beaver dams (& beaver ponds) have a terrifically

ecologically beneficial effect on the local ecology and forest, both short-run and long-run. Fish spawning redds would be one thing assisted by beaver ponds working as settling basins.....etc. A water supply for local critters at times of low streamflow etc.

I read something long ago about the sequence and diversity of tree species being affected too, but that's lost in the mists of time.

I always want to scream when reading about buffalo "wandering outside the park" -- they're migratory ferchrissake!!! (pls excuse yelling, I am not yelling at you, obviously). We don't speak of retired dentists "wandering" into Palm Beach from New York in the winter, do we.

*sputter* *fume* pls excuse rant......./rant .....x(

I live near a rocky point in a lake -- wild mink live in the rocks (got a positive ID from a naturalist -- couldn't believe what I was seeing) -- one winter day a huge snowy owl came gliding silently from behind and sailed over my head into the distance like a thought -- just stunning.

It's a mystery to me how anyone can fail to value these things.
Homo ignoramus hubrisus is a blight on the face of the earth imo.

[One_Life_To_Give]

5. When you loose your house to a beaver pond

When you loose your house to a beaver pond you might have a different impression.

It may be what Beavers do. But when the pond they create includes the land upon which your house has stood for the last 20 years or more? They have been raising cain with the central MA power lines as well. Now maybe if we had some predators to keep their numbers in check? At least of the ponds were charted into the zoning maps, etc. unsuspecting home buyers might not loose their lifes investment.