Nature Returns to Buick City

Gerry Godin, the creator of the excellent All Things Buick blog, sent me this photo that he took on July 15 at the old Division Street gate off Hamilton Avenue. It's hard to believe that this spot, once a congested entrance to the massive Buick factory complex, the geographic heart of Flint, is now a place where the deer (and the antelope?) play or, in this case, die.

I've written several posts about the return of wildlife in Michigan as the population declines and parts of Detroit and Flint empty out and return to nature. There was one about red foxes and another about beavers. Carriage Town resident Michael Freeman told me about deer nibbling at the lilac bushes in his side yard, the former site of 3rd Avenue Fish & Chips, when I was visiting Flint a few summers back. It shouldn't be all that surprising given how overgrown and wild parts of Flint are these days. When people leave, nature reasserts itself.

Red Foxes Return to Detroit

Need more evidence that Southeast Michigan is reverting back to nature as the human population declines? We've talked about Flint's increasingly scenic urban forests and savannas. And don't forget about the beaver that returned to the Detroit River. Of course there's the legend of the giant wolf, not to mention the Village of Wolves in Flint.

Now comes news that the elusive red fox has returned to Motown. The Seattle Times reports:

Found across all parts of the state, red foxes typically stick close to more rural areas. But Detroit's dwindling population has meant less noise and more places for foxes to hunt rats, mice, voles, pheasants, cotton tail rabbits and even pigeons.

Many neighborhoods have so few remaining houses that adjoining lots resemble small prairies and woodlands, and Detroit's extensive freeway system and old railroad connections linking the inner city to less populated areas are now serving as routes for wildlife.

"As we move out, wildlife moves in," said Matthew Walter, a fox researcher at Antioch University's New England campus in New Hampshire. "Nature heals the cuts that we've made. As long as they can survive there, and as long as they can raise young and if the hunting is good, they will stay there indefinitely."

Just to clarify, the red fox returning to Detroit should not be confused with the Machus Red Fox in Bloomfield Hills, the last place Jimmy Hoffa was seen alive.

Beaver Flees Violence...in Canada?

It appears the Detroit River beaver we've come to love may have swam over from the Canadian side of Lake St. Clair where beavers are known to hang out, according to John Hartig, the Detroit River refuge manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

"Why this beaver made the journey to the Detroit Edison intake canal is a mystery," writes John Gallagher in The Detroit Free Press. "It may have faced danger at its earlier site or simply gone in search of food. There are poplar trees at the Edison site, which happen to be a favorite source of bark for beavers."

Wait a minute. This beaver faced something so dangerous in Canada that he moved to Detroit? Man, there must been some craziness going on at the beaver lodge for this guy to give up free healthcare and the lower drinking age, eh?

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.