By David Figura/The Post-Standard
May 16, 2010, 6:00AM
Ever heard of a beaver doing its business in a cemetery? I hadn’t until earlier this week when I received an email from Jim Aiello of Syracuse.
“ My wife and I were in the Oakwood Cemetery (near Syracuse University) on Monday evening around 6 p.m. and observed a beaver. There was another couple walking their dog and the husband took a photo with his cell,” Aiello said.
“ By the time I climbed out of my car and got my cell ready to also take a photo of the animal, it disappeared. By the way, the animal was pretty nonchalant with all of us, including the dog. It was just standing there.
“I went out yesterday afternoon and took a number of photos of the site and the surrounding area with a real camera; walking around to see if the animal’s handiwork could be found. I sent some of my photos to a friend of mine at SUNY ESF and he said that this is the first time in the 31 years he has been here that a beaver has been seen in the cemetery.
“You would expect to see one in the Erie (Canal) corridor — but in the cemetery?”
“In any case, my wife and I plan to go to the site to observe at dawn and dusk to see if the animal continues to ‘work’ the area because, as you know, this would be the best times for the animal to be above ground.”
The interesting part about Aiello’s account is that there’s no natural stream, marsh or waterway in the immediate area.
“The animal was (last) seen going into a drainage system,” he wrote.
Aiello, 66, at one time worked as the curator of education at the Burnet Park Zoo. He said it’s amazing how much wildlife lives in the city.
“I’ve been beaver off of Bridge Street. There’s a fox I see every morning on the way to the gym off Thompson Road by LeMoyne College,” he said. “And there’s deer all over the place.”
It was funny, he said, when he worked at the zoo, there was always people who’d call him after they’d seen a deer on the city’s west side.
“Oh, you have a deer loose,” they’d say.
Aiello said if you look at an aerial photo of the city, there’s a ribbon of green that wraps its way through it. That’s home to all sorts of animals, he said.
As for the beaver in the cemetery, Aiello promised to send me a photo once he snaps it.
MEMORABLE MOOSE
Schuyler Hellings, of Fayetteville, sent me the following account of a moose he saw recently in the Adirondacks:
“ I just wanted to relay a great experience while heading up to an annual canoe trip this year at Lake Lila with some high school buddies on April 29.
“We had stopped at one of the guy’s hunting camp outside of Speculator to check on it as we were nearby,” he wrote. “Pulling off of the dirt road onto Route 30 north from the camp to resume our trip, to all of our amazement was a moose standing in the middle of the highway!
“While I figured that I would see one sooner or later in my life, I thought it would be on a hunting trip in the Adirondacks or on the canoe trip we take every year in the ADK Park. While it was a good 60 to 75 yards away from the truck, we could see that the head clearly was taller than that of the cab of the truck (2005 Chevrolet K2500 4x4 pickup) and the shoulder higher than the hood.
“When the moose saw our truck, it loped into the woods but we were able to observe it for another five minutes or so.
“Murphy’s Law was at its finest as my cell phone camera decided to inform me then there was no more memory for pictures and another buddy who had dug out his digital camera got the dead battery light as he lined up a picture.
“My best estimate was that it was a cow. There were no nubs visible for antlers starting. I’ve hunted for a little over 11 years now. I spend a lot of time in the woods scouting for deer pre-season and do a fair amount of grouse hunting through post-deer season until February.
“I have seen many interesting and unusual things offered by Mother Nature. The sighting of this moose and watching it move among the hardwoods is clearly Number One in my book.”
http://blog.syracuse.com/outdoors/2010/05/outdoor_tales_a_beaver_in_a_ci.html
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