Wow, last month dolphins were spotted swimming in the Bronx River for the first time in over five years! Check out the video tweeted by NYC Parks below.
The Bronx River is the only freshwater river in NYC and used to be a thriving, abundantly diverse ecosystem. In the 1840s, the New York Central Railroad was built, connecting the downstate region to Albany and to Western New York. A consequence of this railway system was the intense pollution of the Bronx River, which also became a dumping ground for industrial waste in the following decades. The ongoing pollution of the river drove away many of its resident species. Since the 1970s, there have been massive improvements in the health of this habitat through clean-ups and the reintroduction of native species. NYC Parks annually restocks the river with fish, such as alewife, with the hopes of bringing back locally extinct species. The Bronx River Alliance & the NYC Parks Department work tirelessly to restore the river’s ecosystem and return it to its original diversity, which appears to be working!
In May 2021, there were also dolphins seen swimming in the East River! Let’s hope that with continued restoration efforts, all NYC waters will become clean enough again to welcome back a wide diversity of aquatic creatures!
Make sure to follow @BxRiverAlliance on Twitter to keep up to date with their restoration efforts!
Do you have a photo or video of an urban species doing something unusual? What about a rare plant or animal that you were surprised to find in a city? If so, Tweet at us, and you could be featured as a future observation of the week!
Featured image: © Charlotte Kirchner, some rights reserved (CC-BY)
References
About the Bronx River. Bronx River Alliance. (2021, July 29). Retrieved February 13, 2023, from https://bronxriver.org/restoration-access/about-the-river
American Museum of Natural History. Bronx River Restoration. Retrieved February 13, 2023, from https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/ecology-disrupted/winter-roads/lesson-plans/ecology-disrupted/bronx-river-restoration
Sottile, Z. (2023, January 23). Dolphins make a splash in New York City’s Bronx River. CNN. Retrieved February 13, 2023, from https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/21/us/nyc-dolphins-bronx-river-scn-trnd/index.html#:~:text=Dolphins%20were%20spotted%20in%20the%20East%20River%20as%20recently%20as,the%20sightings%20on%20social%20media
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