Long time readers (and I know you’re out there) will remember years ago when I posted about Jose the beaver discovered outside the Bronx zoo. He was written about in the audubon magazine and National Geographic and named after the politician who appropriated funds to restore the river and migration flyway. Well Jose has been waiting three years and Santa finally brought him what he asked for!
A friend!
The article works VERY hard to avoid calling this a mate, but unless that other beaver was from his original colony (Bro! How ya been!) I can’t imagine they’d hit it off and stay together. Remember beavers are territorial so if ‘jose’ were really waiting for a mate and competition came along instead there wouldn’t be a welcome party. Probably they would know that information just from the scent mounds marking the territory and wouldn’t ever need to interact. There are two reasons why this beaver would be welcomed. Either its a mate or its family. Apparently they also can recognize if they’re from the same colony. I hope there’s kits in the offing, but I guess its nice to have a helper after all those years of ‘island of the blue dolphining’ on your own.
Hot dam! The first beaver found in the city in 200 years finally has company after three years of solitude on the Bronx River. The semi-aquatic duo were spotted over the summer and photographed by a Bronx Zoo employee on a stretch of the river that runs through the zoo.
The article does a good job preparing the reader for the fact that we can’t know the gender of the new beaver, but it never mentions that we can’t know the gender of Jose either! We could be talking about Josefina! And Dietland Muler-Swarze important book says that female disperers tend to travel farther than their male conterparts, so the odds are good Jose was named after the wrong role model!
“We’ve doubled the population of beavers in New York City,” said John Calvelli of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the zoo. The second beaver now just reassures us this was not a fluke,” Serrano said. “This river is coming back to life.”Calvelli hopes it’s just the beginning. Although the gender of Jose and his new friend is unclear, environmentalists hope the beavers get busy and produce offspring. “We look for love in so many places, why not the Bronx River?” Calvelli asked.
I couldn’t have possibly said it better myself. Good luck Jose & friend! We’ll be rooting for you!
