Good News

Every now and then people surprise you. This morning I received an email from the Supervisor of Animal Services in Brampton praising our efforts to save beavers and assuring us that they have used beaver bafflers in the area successfully. I forwarded her email to Tyler and hopeful they can sit down and work out a plan to take care of the beavers at Maitland Park. Nice.

Then last night, (after honoring a ‘beaver tour commitment’ for the silent auction at earth day, I saw this posted on the Beaver Management Forum Facebook page. Aside from being a heartwarming, compassionate example of men using their brains and effort instead of reflexively hiring a trapper, his presentation is technologically impressive and frankly adorable. (I’m thinking that condo has more than a couple newly retired engineers?) Click on the square to see the presentation from Art Wolinsky of Sherwood Glen Condominiums in New Hampshire.

Don’t you wish they were your neighbors? Nice work, Art. I couldn’t understand WHY the beavers would bother building a dam along the road if they could get the same effect by just plugging four culverts. Art explained the road and culverts are new, so that made a little more sense. I am sure this group will figure out a solution in no time.

Oh and this made me smile last night. You might enjoy it too.

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Alaska, apparently, but we had hard rain long enough to top both dams yesterday and make things a little more tenuous at the beaver ponds. This morning I saw ‘Reed’ slathering mud on the secondary and his sibling coming languidly back from downstream to check if he was done yet. Also a raccoon doing the breast stroke and a muskrat swimming in a manner I can only describe as ‘anxious’ out of the bank hole as soon as the beaver came back.

The pipe isn’t plugged NOW at any rate! The primary looks fairly robust, but the secondary showed some wear. It held up better than I expected. Obviously its not ALL made of reeds.

Well there’s no rest for the weary. Sigh. I received several emails yesterday containing only swear words from many a beaver lover who knows how hard these kids have worked on their dams, but honestly the beavers seemed to take it in stride. There are some problems beavers can’t fix. They can’t stop people from telling lies about them and they can’t prove that their relatives used to live in the Sierras. They can’t show family pictures of salmon comfortably leaping over their dams. They can’t publish a dissertation about how raising the watertable actually expands the riparian border even when they remove trees. Our beavers relied on us to stop the city, to keep away the trappers, and to limit the sheetpile.

But this one they can handle on their own.

Oh and for the record, rain on your wedding day is just inconvenient – not ironic. A divorce on your wedding day would be ironic. Or rain on the day you just installed a sprinkler system.

Just saying.