Some Freeper found this story, about the return of the beaver to New York City, after two hundred years. As one of the commenters notes, the jokes just tell themselves.

They named it "Jose." As another commenter notes, it must be building dams, and doing the work that American beavers just won't do.

OK, so we have beavers in the NYC river, we have edible fish in the NYC rivers, we have hawks living and thriving in NYC. I've seen similar stories about wild animals adapting to other uber-urban environments.

I live in the Raleigh-Durham area, not NYC but not the country any more either. Here in NC we have coyotes that have evidently used the interstate to wander east to live. There are several groups of bald eagles living around a lake near my home. Everyone I know is seeing more animals locally. Wild birds, small predators, deer, even a few reports of boar down east.

If even 50% of these reports are true nationally, and we have physical evidence that they are true, can we PLEASE back off the whole man encroaching on nature harping. 50 years ago it may have been true that animals were moving to the country, but with cleaner air, cleaner water, more urban greenways, more parks and what not, it looks to me like the furry animals are doing fine.

Listen, in NYC there rats running a Taco Bell / KFC franchise. That's both wildlife and upwardly mobile. Can it get any better?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su0U37w2tws

'"It had to happen because beaver populations are expanding, and their habitats are shrinking," said Dietland Muller-Schwarze, a beaver expert at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse. "We're probably going to see more of them in the future."'

Doesn't all of this mean that beaver habitat is in fact expanding? The BX River was beaver habitat, then was not, and now is again. And we'll be seeing more of them in the future. This "expert" spouts weird panic language that's both self-contradictory and contrary to the facts that supposedly underpin it, I'd say.