A single beaver lodge has been discovered in an intake canal at Detroit Edison’s Conners Creek power plant
on Detroit’s east riverfront. Edison workers using motion-sensitive cameras caught photographs and video of the beaver in November.
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, possibly as long ago as a century. Their return signals that a multiyear effort to clean up the river has paid off.
Lets hear it for the efforts to clean up Detroit’s East Riverfront! They were rewarded with a beaver!!!!! (the article says a single but I doubt they’d build a lodge if there wasn’t a mate) The first beaver in Detroit since Hoover was president.
There’s something naively sweet about the article, which was sent to me by three people within five minutes of each other last night: like a child finding a toad moved into the “fairy house” in the garden overnight. All hail the clean-up affirming beaver! Living proof that we have done our jobs and improved the habitat!
Is it just me or is there also something chilling? Imagine the same article written about a robin. Or a butterfly. Or an earthworm. “Scientists say it is the first butterfly spotted in the state since 2009, but they didn’t want to give away the location in case people harmed it in their rush to see this flutter from the past”. Yeow. If we aren’t very careful, someday in the not too distant future any of our species could become the “Loch Ness monsters” of tomorrow.
“Oooh Daddy, were they really in the garden when you were a boy? What happened to them?”
Sigh. In the meantime lets enjoy this beaver-y success and tap our feet impatiently for more. Remember Detroit that this beaver will bring you richer soil, better bugs, better fish and better wildlife. Take good care of the treasure you have, and it will take good care of you.
You think that river is cleaner now? Wait till the beaver’s been there a while. You ain’t seen nothing yet!
