ew Yorl Of all the visitors to New York City in recent years, one of the most which showed up one surprising was a beaver Nobody knows morning in 2007. came from and exactly where the beaver explains that, although ecologist Eric Sanderson beavers used to be common in the area in the 17th century, there haven't been any for more than 200 years. For Sanderson, the beaver's appearance was symbolic. For ten years, he's been leading a project to visualise what the area used to look like before the city transformed it. As Sanderson says, 'There are views in this city where you cannot see, except for a person, another living thing. Not a tree or a plant. How did a place become like that? In fact, long before the skyscrapers came to dominate the view, this place was a pristine wilderness where animals like beavers, bears