Posted: Nov. 21, 2009
Beaver has company at power plant
Critter near power plant said to have family as Detroit River continues eco-comeback
BY JOHN GALLAGHER
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER
The beaver is back, and now it's got a family.
A beaver that built a lodge at Detroit Edison's Conners Creek power plant about a year ago, then evidently moved on during the summer, appears to have returned with a family.
Jason Cousino, a wildlife habitat coordinator for Detroit Edison, has set up a trail camera and caught video of two young beavers nibbling away at bark, leaves and twigs. The presence of the two young shows an adult male and female must be present, too.
"There's got to be a mating pair," Cousino said this week.
The presence of beaver is significant because wildlife experts say beaver were so thoroughly trapped by early settlers of Detroit that no beaver lodge had been found in the city for decades, perhaps as long as a century. The return of the beaver indicates that the Detroit River ecosystem is growing cleaner.
The video evidence isn't the only sign of the beavers at work. The lodge that a beaver constructed about a year ago along a canal on Edison's property now appears about twice the size that it was a few months ago. Perhaps it indicates that beaver, like humans, do home remodeling as the family grows.
Visiting the site this week, Cousino pointed to the new shoots branching off from the root system of trees that the beaver had chopped down earlier. "These are like little tender victuals for them," he said.
Given that the site is on Edison's private, fenced property, with plenty of trees to nibble on, there's no telling how long the beaver family will stay.
Contact JOHN GALLAGHER: 313-222-5173 or
gallagher@freepress.com
