Jose the Beaver, who became a symbol of the borough’s renewal last year as the first of his kind to return to the Bronx River in 200 years, has something in common with those 1970s icons of Manhattan city life - “The Odd Couple.”
It seems the renowned river rodent has taken up residence with a muskrat - a large aquatic rodent - in his waterfront lodge.
Jose became a sensation after being spotted on the grounds of the Bronx Zoo in early 2007.
It was Julie Larsen Maher, a photographer for the Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the zoo, who snapped the first paparazzo shot of the pair together in the spring of that year, when she feared high water levels had washed away Jose’s dam.
“I thought he was gone,” Maher said, “but later I zoomed in on one of the photos and there was the beaver and his friend sitting on top of the lodge.”
The interspecies roommates apparently stayed together even when Jose relocated his lodge from near the zoo parking lot to the New York Botanical Garden upstream, where the curious living arrangement burst on the national scene.
Travel writer Eric Hansen staked out the new lodge overnight, observing Jose and his house guest with night-vision goggles to confirm the odd couple for a story in last month’s Outside magazine.
His piece raised the possibility of “muskrat love,” questioning whether the borough’s symbol of urban environmentalism could be a mascot for civil unions. Read more..
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