Alan Gofinski

15 minutes?

Yeah, they're like a magical animal.

Yeah, they're just incredible.

Pretty epic hiding place.

Now, hundreds of years ago, in the time of Jose's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, the woods of North America was full of beavers.

Making dams and ponds everywhere, even in New York City.

There would have been beavers all over New York City.

That's right.

The Big Apple was once the Beaver City.

And the beavers of Beaver City would wake up every evening, that's right, beavers are mostly nocturnal, in their beaver homes and hit the road, or the stream, I guess, and get to work.

Hauling stones and sticks and redirecting water and finishing off each day with a nightcap of sweet wood juice.

But about 400 years ago, all of that would change because of the arrival of Europeans and their insatiable desire for hats.

Made of beaver fur.

Sorry, guys.

They killed them off by the millions for the fur trade.

And as the beavers began to be killed off, the land and waterways began to change.

Pretty dramatically.

Like, take the river that slides through the northern part of New York City, winding beside train tracks and beneath highways today.

It's called the Bronx River.

That's Christian Murphy.