What if you could stand on this platform, overlooking the historic Allegheny River in Pennslyvania, and watch beaver. How happy would you be?
Beaver makes home in Harrison Hills pond
Park officials in Harrison Township plan to let the beavers be so visitors can glimpse into the lives of these secretive mammals.
Allegheny County Parks is hosting two other beavers in North Park in McCandless, according to Allegheny County Parks Director Andrew Baechle.
“It’s a tremendous educational opportunity,” he said. “And with the bird blind at Harrison Hills, it’s a great place for people to easily view the animals.”
But there hasn’t always been such enthusiasm for beavers.
In the past, Harrison Hills park management removed the occasional beaver setting up shop at the pond because they build their dams and lodges at vital drainage points — potentially wreaking havoc on water levels, according to Patrick Kopnicky, a member of the volunteer group, the Friends of Harrison Hills.
But now, the animal is actually doing the park a service, he said.
“I’m so happy he is taking out those Russian olive trees,” Kopnicky said surveying the pond and pesky invasives that have crowded out its banks.
“It’s going to make fishing easier,” he said.
It isn’t every day you open your paper and read that Pennsylvania is appreciating beavers. Especially urban beavers. I kept reading this article with my fingers over my eyes, like watching a horror film, ready to cover them at any moment. But it’s good and has many of the key ingredients of success. Photographers, people watching, news reporters, and a temporary lull in the beaver trapping routine. So far so good. This is the river where he grew up, before hiking up to the pond.
A volunteer at the park, Dennis Johns, 64, of Harrison has been photographing the new visitor. “I hope it stays because you don’t get to see them every day,” he said.
The park plans to monitor the animals’ handiwork to make sure it doesn’t damage the earthen dam at the pond and cause flooding. Johns believes that the beaver is likely a youngster from last year’s litter.
“Mama probably kicked him out and he came up the creek to here.”
The animal made a long climb — about 2,200 lineal feet — up the steep bluff from the Allegheny River, according to Kopnicky. Tom Fazi, information and education supervisor in the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s southwest region office in Bolivar, said, “It’s one of the coolest mammals we have in the state.
“I don’t know if it gets the attention it deserves,” he said. “It has so many different adaptations.
The best times to see beavers are in the early morning and late evening, according to Fazi. “Sit quietly with binoculars near a pond where there are beavers, and sooner or later, they’ll show up,” he said. “You’ll see them swimming, and you might be lucky to see them on the tree.”
Ohh be still my heart. Encouraging the public to actually watch the animal they usually pay to kill. This is the beginning of something beautiful. I can almost
take my fingers down entirely. Apreciative volunteers: Check. An interested media: Check. And a momentary lull in trapping by the officials: Check. This could actually work out well for that little beaver. Lots of food surrounding that little pond for this disperser, shown on google earth.
There’s just one wee little problem with this charming article, and its the very last line.
Beaver trapping season runs from Dec. 26 through March 31.
Speaking of depredation, the noble Robin Ellison of Napa has just received a big stack of permits for her PRA request of 2014. Bless her heart she already tackled the spreadsheet. But this should keep me busy for a while. 48 new permission slips to kill beaver.
