NY Times, AP: A wild beaver in the Bronx. It’s been a long, long time.

It looks like the NYTimes‘s Anahad O’Connor has the scoop on this one, and the AP is sending it all over. For the first time in perhaps 200 years a beaver lives wild in New York City. (If somebody else had it first, let us know). Its lodge in the Bronx River is almost in the shadow of the Bronx Zoo, not far from busy roads, O’Connor reports. There had been rumors of this fellow’s presence for some time but it took an organized photo-ambush to get proof. High res of the pic is here.

This marks, O’Connor adds, the revival of a watercourse that for decades was a sorry dump. Zoo beaver experts say more seem certain to follow. There is even a political pork angle, one infers. Biologists named it Jose after a local congressman who has steered millions of dollars to the river’s cleanup. That sounds like earmarks — not all are bridges to nowhere. This lot looks well spent.