From Salvage Yard to Beaver Marsh

From Salvage Yard to Beaver Marsh. Cuyahoga Valley National Park. , Follow the Towpath Trail ahead to Beaver Marsh – one of the best places to view wildlife in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Only a quarter-mile north, a boardwalk crosses this 70-acre wetland, transformed from an old salvage yard., Humans and beavers turned this site back into a marsh in the 1980s. Volunteers organized by a local Sierra Club removed cars and materials from the former business site. About the same time beavers flooded the area by building a dam across the Ohio and Erie Canal. The waters awakened long-dormant seeds of wetland plants – a stunning example of nature recovering an area if given a chance., You may see a beave nibbling on a willow branch, turtles sunning themselves on logs, and, if you are fortunate, otters at play. In spring and summer, frogs and songbirds sing in an exuberant chorus., [Captions:] , Burrell Tonkin’s auto repair shop and salvage yard were full of car bumpers, tires, and other auto parts., Great blue herons were uncommon in the Cuyahoga Valley until the river and its wetlands started to recover in recent decades., By 1830 there were no beavers left in Ohio because of heavy trapping. In the past few decades, the population has rebounded. Beavers are much larger than muskrats and have a paddle-shaped tail., Ohio started reintroducing river otters in 1986. Since then they have spread, taking advantage of better water quality., Volunteers monitor the marsh’s health by studying population changes of birds and amphibians.