PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Penn Treaty Park in Fishtown is welcoming a new resident. Evidence of a beaver in the park has sparked excitement and led to efforts to keep the critter around.
The beaver was first spotted several months ago, according to Bonnie Schmonsees, a member of the Friends of Penn Treaty Park.
"Having chew sign from a beaver is a very obvious statement that we are not in this just as human beings on this waterfront," Schmonsees said.
Since then, a surveillance camera has been installed.
“We've been lucky enough to be working with Meredith Nutting, who is a documentary nature photographer and producer, and she has set up hidden trail cam, so we are working on getting high-resolution, clear shots and images of the beaver in the water," she said.
Schmonsees says the beaver has gnawed a couple willow trees, and the Friends are now organizing planting days to install dozens more trees and native plants to provide cover and food for the beaver and other wildlife. (To get involved, email info@penntreatypark.org.)
Schmonsees says the planting days include live staking, putting fresh cut branches directly into the soil.
“A densely populated waterfront with willow, so there’s enough for the beavers, enough for our enjoyment, and habitat and hiding places for all sorts of animals."
Dr. James Church, ecology and wildlife biology professor at LaSalle University, says Penn Treaty is probably not the critter’s final stop.
“This might be a stop-over place where it came to get some resources as it’s continuing to disperse to its new home, where it can build its own lodge, and start its own colony,” Church said.
He says young beavers leave their family home in the spring and “disperse” or travel to other areas to stake out their own turf, and he believes Penn Treaty Park is too small.
"I don’t think there’s gonna be enough vegetation for that beaver to maintain residence for an extended period of time," he said, adding beavers need at least 2 miles of streamside vegetation to live.
Church says the beaver's home base might be nearby, though.
"There’s an island off the middle of the Delaware River, Petty Island. Looks like that has a lot of forest, and that may be where it came from."
He says that other beaver-friendly, forested areas nearby could include Palmyra Nature Cove Park, a couple miles upriver on the New Jersey side. Even Graffiti Park and Pebble Beach, just north of Penn Treaty Park, on the Pennsylvania side of the river, have enough trees and vegetation to support a beaver colony.