Something Special for the Kids…

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Who's Killing Beavers Now? June 7, 2011

DOYLE DIETZ/SPECIAL PHOTO Pennsylvania Trappers Association president Brian Mohn of Hamburg teaches the positive results of trapping as a conservation tool at events such as the recent Schuylkill County Youth Field Day

Add this to the Pennsylvania WTF files:

FRIEDENSBURG – Listening to youngsters shout out answers to his questions – most of them correct – and seeing their excitement took Brian Mohn back to the first time he became exposed to trapping.

“That’s a weasel!” exclaims one youngster. “Wow, a beaver!” excitedly shouts out another. “I know what that is,” proudly says another, “it’s a mink!”

It was easy for Mohn to understand the excitement of those youngsters because he was a sixth-grade student in the Hamburg School District when he was first exposed to trapping. He was also then the same age as many of the participants at the Schuylkill County Youth Field Day who were answering his questions and identifying pelts.”

BY DOYLE DIETZ (OUTDOORS EDITOR outdoors@republicanherald.com)

Ahh to think of those bright, shiny faces learning eagerly how to set snares or body-crushing conibear traps on a sunny afternoon. It’s so important to get children away from the TV, guide them outdoors and engaged with nature. It helps them understand the world and their role in it, and besides, killing things is fun. Just ask the PTA – no not that PTA.

He believes the aggressive, proactive approach of the PTA (Pennsylvania Trappers Association) has done much to begin turning the tide with the non-sporting segment of the population in understanding how trapping methods and techniques have changed with the times and is an outdoors pursuit that can be enjoyed as a family activity.

I guess. Dad takes the kids fishing and hunting, why not take them trapping too? Why not let them stroke the soft fur of those little broken necks? Or feel the intricately webbed back toes of that crushed beaver removed from the conibear? Later you can round off the evening with some target practice, skipping stones at waterfowl, and an evening drive through town for some light race baiting and gay bashing before your much-deserved night of rest.

Parents teach their children so much.

Mohn believes some of that interest is because of new opportunities to trap provided by the Pennsylvania Game Commission for species such as bobcats and fishers. He also has seen evidence that some of the radical, fanatical charges leveled against trapping by animal rights and anti-hunting/trapping groups have been rejected by even non-sportsmen who have come to understand the positive effects of trapping in controlling wildlife.

Yes thank goodness the authorities added fishers and bobcats to the game list because there is SUCH an overpopulation of these animals You can hardly go outside anymore without seeing one darting across your lawn or crawling out from under your car. Those radical animal rights people just don’t understand our noble trapping trade. They foolishly object to forcing the coyote population to change their diet by gnawing off their own forepaws or pouring chemicals in bunny eyes to see which ones sting the worst. What’s wrong with them?

Fortunately if we get to the children young enough, we can pretty much stamp out any risk of compassion whatsoever.

Don’t worry if the PTA didn’t come to your class with body part show-and-tell, you can still catch the show at the 74th Annual Rendezvous and Convention held at the Schulylkill state fair grounds June 16-19, just in time for father’s day. Plan to attend a few of these remarkable workshops.

Seminars: Thursday – Beaver, 8 a.m.; Beaver Snaring, 9 a.m.; Woodland Fox, 10 a.m.; Beaver/Avoiding Otter, 11 a.m.; Canine Trapping, noon; Winter Coyote Trapping, 1 p.m.; Dog Proof Coon Traps, 2 p.m.; Beaver Snaring, 3 p.m.; TBA, 4 p.m.; Pennsylvania Game Commission, 5 p.m.

Friday – Canine, 8 a.m.; Beaver Snaring, 9 a.m.; Raccoon, 10 a.m.; Canine Trapping, 11 a.m.; Mink, noon; Coyote, 1 p.m.; TBA, 2 p.m.; Winter Coyote Trapping, 3 p.m.; Canine Location/Map Reading, 4 p.m.; Beaver Avoiding Otter, 5 p.m.

Saturday – Mink, 8 a.m.; Coyote 9 a.m.; Trap Preparation/Canines, 10 a.m.; Bobcat, 11 a.m.; Coyote, noon; PTA Meeting, 1 p.m.; Mink, 2 p.m.; Fox, 3 p.m.; Coyote, 4 p.m.; Q&A, 5 p.m.

I’m mildly curious. Why would you want to avoid otter anyway? They have even nicer fur and they eat all those important fish? i guess I’ll find out at the class. Do you think Josh’s aunt (who offered to make a coat of me) will be there?

A Remarkable Entrance

heidi08 Beavers June 6, 2011

Click on the Keyhole to be taken to the Scottish National Heritage Webpage, home of the famed beaver trial. This is such a fun, interactive and educational beaver introduction I almost feel jealous, although I can’t imagine our well-appreciated charm bracelet activity didn’t spark some ideas along the way. Make sure you pay attention as you go through the entrance though, because it only does it the first time you visit. You will have to delete your temporary files to get it to play again. It’s a nice introduction to a pretty complex concept, well done team beaver! I wish they specifically mentioned salmon, since that’s what all their anglers are afraid of – maybe showed a picture of one leaping over a dam – but that’s just me.

Excellent beaver festival IV planning meeting last night. This year may well be the best ever, which is good because rumor is that beaver experts from at least three states are planning to visit and get ideas for how to launch a festival of their very own in their communities.

Creative Problem Solving by Beavers

heidi08 Beavers June 5, 2011

Lee-Ann Carver is a wildlife photographer in Kenora, Ontario that just pointed me in the direction of this book. I met her after my letter about beaver trapping in the area was published in the local paper. Lee-Ann is a big beaver fan, and an occasional reader of this site, rumor is she might be persuaded to donate some original photographs to the silent auction so keep your fingers crossed. The book is the personal tale of a fish and wildlife technician working with the Ministry of Natural Resources, surrounded by a family of trappers, who winds up caring for some beaver kits and learns to unlearn everything she was taught about the animals.

This passage particularly caught my eye.

“Although beavers don’t normally actively dam until their second year, it was clear to me that even as kits they have a sense of how important it is to keep water contained. My little charges, for instance, were agitated whenever they heard the sound of running water. Once, when one of the kits accidentally pulled the plug out of the bathtub they both mewed and whined fantically. When I rushed to see what was wrong, I found one kit trying to plug the hole with his companion. When I pulled the unwilling, wiggling obstruction out of the way, the other kit managed to pull the plug back into place.”

Lil Anderson: Beavers Eh to Bea

Intrigued? You can pick up your own copy here . I’d advise folk like us skip the colorful passages about helping her “Daddy set up the conibear traps as a child”, and just savor the beavers, which are adorable. The title itself reflects her transformation, as she originally named them like lab specimens, Kit A and Kit B, but they became personalities and that transformed into Eh and Bea.

Nice.

Another reason to kill beavers…

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver News, Beavers elsewhere, Who's Killing Beavers Now? June 4, 2011

A creek in Philadelphia is the site of this new rabid beaver morality play. Apparently a couple was attacked while fishing and a child was bitten on Thursday. Rabies treatments for the people involved have begun. Officials hunted down a 35 lb beaver and it tested positive for rabies. Wikipedia tells me that the only way to confirm rabies is through looking at a slice of brain tissue after the animal is dead. Rabies is a virus that causes acute encephalitis and can be carried by any mammal, though dogs, skunks and raccoons are more common than beavers. The fact that this beaver attacked the wife unprovoked is an indication that it was already in the second “excitative” phase of the disease.

The cause of this beaver’s condition is a bite from another infected animal, and the odds are good that even a mild irritation would cause this yearling to infect anyone in his colony. At 35 lbs he could easily be a disperser, heading out on his own, but it’s likely there are other beavers around either contaminated or about to be. The sad need to eradicate whatever they find is the truly awful part of the story. Let’s hope he was a disperser and not living in a cluster of others, including new kits.

Philadelphia this is your moment to educate the public about rabies AND beavers. It’s time to talk about watching animal behavior to see when they are acting in unlikely ways. That means people need to pay attention and know something about how a beaver, for example, is supposed to act. So start your education there, and talk about the fact that beavers live in lots of urban areas, even Philadelphia, and their dams help create habitat for the smolts that couple was fishing for in the first place.

And for the biologists in the room, can someone explain to me how a beaver reacts to hydrophobia?