Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Critters Return to Detroit

Photo courtesy of Detroit Edison.

Jobs may be disappearing and the population plummeting, but at least beavers are returning to Detroit.

CBC News reports:

For the first time in perhaps a century, a beaver has been discovered living in Michigan's Detroit River.

Workers at Detroit Edison's Conners Creek power plant on Detroit's east riverfront caught images of the animal in November, using motion-sensitive cameras, the Detroit Free Press reported Monday.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services authorities say it's been between 75 and 100 years since a beaver was last seen in the river.

"It's part of that larger story of ecological recovery," John Hartig, the Detroit River refuge manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told the paper.



9 comments:

  1. ((insert obvious beaver joke here))

    There. I saved you the agony.

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  2. Thanks Andy, I'm glad we got that over with quickly and painlessly.

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  3. well, in colonial times, and the staff at Fort Michillimacinac and Williamsburg will back me on this, a popular tune was called "Cock up Your Beaver". it was in reference to a so called tri-corn hat(which it wasn't called til the 19th century), not a Georgina Spelvin film...C'mon Gordy, I dbl.dog dare Yas to post this!

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  4. So now that the people are fleeing the animals can come back? (Well, yes, I suppose that was rather cynical of me...)

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  5. So does this mean we cannot make any beaver sitings on the WINDSOR side of the river jokes?

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  6. Hey Gordie,

    i sent you a link for another beaver video from the canadian side

    maybe it got lost in spam...if it did let me know

    slick

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  7. Bravo Gy! Bravo! You have w/Honors, won the DDD!
    that beaver probably dammed up there, because there are so few wetland places left for him to use. Don't ever try to get a beaver to change direction in his travels. it is impossible, I promise. You will wear yourself out trying, and he'll just hiss and go right back where he wanted. It has always amazed me that that rodent was, unknowingly,the vehicle for irrevocable change and genocide in this country, from the first time a 'explorer' or settler started showing the 'noble red man' benefits of civilization.

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  8. That beaver is perhaps the most adorable creature I have ever seen. Flint needs more cute critters- groundhogs, woodchucks, black squirrels, chipmunks, bunnies, you name it.

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  9. You're right, WW - they're just so roly-poly and cute :)

    And Bustdup, did you just pull that out of your hat (no pun intended, really!); I mean, how is it that you're familiar with popular revolutionary-era song titles? I don't think they had WTAC top-40 lists back then...

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.