A Beaver In New York City

A BEAVER IN NEW YORK CITY
By Mona Maclean

    New York City is an exciting place where people come from all over the world to visit or live.
Billions of animals and birds live there too.
    But there is one animal who has not set foot there in 200 years -- the beaver.
    Until now.
    An adventurous beaver has found his way to the city and settled in at the Bronx zoo.
He wasn't brought there like the other zoo animals to live in a cage. He swam down the
Bronx river on his own and picked out a spot to build his home. His name is Jose. As the
one and only beaver in New York, Jose is a lone adventurer and explorer.
His great-great-great grandparents left New York when the great river became
filled with junk, old cars, and trash. The happy, busy beavers did not want to make
their homes in a trash dump, so they moved to the country and to other states
where the rivers were clean.
    Then some caring New Yorkers started working hard to clean up the junky Bronx river.
They worked for many years, led by a man named Jose Serrano, until its waters
began to flow pure again. Then one brave young beaver swam and walked for
miles to build a house in the mighty city.
    He decided the zoo looked like a good place, and began cutting down
willow trees with his big, long front teeth.He stacked the logs and built a fine house called a lodge.
It was the middle of winter, and he needed to hurry and get his house finished so he could
have shelter from the snow and ice.
    One day, when his house was complete, he celebrated by gleefully
paddling around in the river just near the banks. He then saw two men standing
talking on the river bank and their eyes grew very wide when they spotted him.
    "Oh my goodness!" the tall man said. "That's a beaver!"
    "What?! Nah," said the shorter man. "There's no beavers in New York City."
    "Then what do you call that guy?" said the tall man. The shorter man looked
closely and suddenly became very excited. "Well  I think I'll call him Jose The Beaver!
How did he get here?!"
    As the men watched in amazement, Jose began to slap his tail against
the surface of the water. "Slap, slap, slap" sounded his warning. The men said,
"I think we'd better leave him alone for now," and left.
    The beaver, having overheard the conversation, said to himself, "Jose...Jose...hmm.
I like it. I AM JOSE!" he said, and flapped his tail.
    Jose scurried back to his lodge and snuggled cozily inside, proud of the house he
had worked so hard to build. As he drifted off to sleep, he dreamed of swimming back
upstream and convincing all his beaver friends to come to New York and be his neighbors. 
    "Maybe I will even start a family of my own," he smiled, as he fell sound asleep.

                    ANOTHER JOSE ADVENTURE TO FOLLOW SOON.