Home for the Holidays

After a year-long hiatus, New York’s most famous beaver has come home. José, the first wild beaver to return to the City in at least 200 years, is setting up a new lodge at the Bronx Zoo. He’s even chomped down his own Christmas tree.

José the beaver was initially spotted in a lodge on Bronx Zoo grounds in early 2007. When summer came, he moved upriver to the New York Botanical Garden. He lived there for several months before vanishing to parts unknown. Then last week, he was again spotted at the zoo, nibbling on a large tree he had just cut down along the Bronx River.

Beavers were once widespread throughout the region, until fur trappers wiped them out. The return of José is testimony to the extensive efforts to clean up the Bronx River, spearheaded by his namesake, Congressman José E. Serrano, along with the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Bronx River Alliance, and other local groups. Since 2001, Congressman Serrano has helped secure $14.5 million in federal grants for river restoration and education efforts.

“José the Beaver may have started out in life as an upstater,” said Congressman Serrano, “But he’s turning into a Bronxite like the rest of us—tough as nails. Instead of heading to Florida for the winter, he’s coming home to the Bronx River. Like his neighbors, no matter what life throws at him, he keeps on going. Now let’s hope that he finds a mate and starts a family.”

The beaver is best known as one of nature’s great engineers, able to alter its environment by felling large trees with its powerful gnawing teeth to construct dams and lodges. These structures provide additional habitat for other species and help purify running water through the removal of silt.

In pre-colonial times, North American beavers were thought to number more than 60 million. Historically, the beaver was central to the founding of New Amsterdam (now New York City), where beaver skins were the chief commodity and export. In 1626, when the Dutch purchased the island of Manhattan from Native Americans, traders shipped 7,246 beaver pelts back to the Netherlands. By 1671, that number climbed to 80,000 annually. The pelts were even used as currency, with a single beaver skin representing about 16 guilders.

While beavers are commemorated on New York City’s official seal and on a street sign in Manhattan, one block south of the New York Stock Exchange, they haven’t lived here in centuries. By 1800, beavers had completely vanished in the U.S. east of the Mississippi, and by 1930, they were near extinction and in need of protection. Today, the beaver has rebounded in much of its traditional range, but José is the first of his kind to take a bite out of the Big Apple.

Updated: 12/16/2008