Oh lets read an article about someone who enjoins seeing beavers coming back to their city for a change. Anyone?

Natural Selections: News flash: Beavers in Roxborough!

One of the feel-good stories on the environmental scene is the rewilding of large cities like Philadelphia, where suddenly peregrine falcons nest in church steeples and on Delaware River bridges, bald eagles pull large fish out of the Schuylkill River, and coyotes amble down Domino Lane.

In that vein, members of the Roxborough-Manayunk Conservancy were somewhat startled to discover that the restoration plantings they’ve doggedly placed along the Schuylkill River have been devoured by… beavers! Wait, beavers in Roxborough?

Once extirpated– a fancy word meaning locally extinct – across Pennsylvania, hunted because their fur was remarkably valuable and because we did not appreciate their ability to rearrange landscapes to their own ends. But beavers have been returning to our state over the last century, and have been seen along Tacony and Pennypack Creeks since about 2008. And now they have taken up residence in the Schuylkill River and Manayunk Canal around Flat Rock Dam.

Now that’s what I’m talking about. Beaver perserverance and recovery where nobody would have suspected.And here they are, washing up on the Schuylkill River. Just in case you didn’t know lots of East Coast river names end in ‘kill’ because Kille is middle dutch for river. Got that?

“I first noticed beavers and their lodge in the winter of 2018,” observed Suzanne Hagner, Roxborough resident and member of the Roxborough-Manayunk Conservancy, “as I rode out the Schuylkill River Trail towards Shawmont. I could see where they had worn down a path into the woods on the far side of the trail and I guessed that was where they were going for food.” The lodge was near Flat Rock Dam, and they have been spotted– and photographed – as far down as Lock Street and as far up as past Shawmont Avenue, both in the canal and along the river.

Suzanne has become a regular reader and poster on this very blog. She recently met up with our other PA beaver friend to learn about protecting those trees the group is replanting. Because all roads lead to Rome.

They famously cut down saplings and trees with their chisel-like teeth, building dams and lodges with the branches, chewing the inner bark of trees as their favored food source. That tree-cutting, of course, can sometimes interfere with our own good work.

“Beavers have good taste in trees,” Tom added, tongue in cheek. “They ate over 60 trees we planted along the canal last year. But we adjusted. Last spring, we painted the uneaten trees with latex paint mixed with a lot of sand,” the grit distasteful to the large rodents. “Many of the damaged trees grew out again this summer,” he continued. “We wrapped those trees in cages this fall. We installed 130 cages along the canal near both sides of Fountain Street.”

Yup. That’s what happens. Someone who cares about the trees plants trees and someone who tends the creek eats them. It’s the way of the world.

The Conservancy recently hosted a walk-through of the area with a self-described “beaver believer” they brought in from central PA, and their takeaway was similar. “The other approach which I believe we will have to do,” continued Kay, “is to rethink our plantings. We need to put in more herbaceous plants on the impacted banks and see if we can add things like willows to the upper wetland areas to keep them in that area, which is better suited for them and for us.”

Yes please. Bring in willow. Because they are used to regrowing after beaver nibbles. And have done so for centuries.

Suzanne Hagner has been reading up on beaver, passing books along to Conservancy members. “They are amazingly skilled at creating waterways and irrigation systems that lead to ecological health,” she said. “Our consultant offered that the return of the beavers was a very good sign in our area, as the beaver is an ecological system in itself. I had lived in Washington state, and had heard that beavers were being reintroduced in eastern Washington to help curb the arid areas that are prone to wildfires.”

Anything else you’re reading, ahem, Suzanne? That helps you learn why beavers matter? I’m happy that there are more believers in Mayayunk and am looking forward to the people they persuade and educate in tern.

Pass it on.