I received an Email this morning from Michael Pollock who says the salmonid conference was abuzz with beavers and people excited about doing more with less. He’s on his way home after a very popular weekend, but didn’t get in until Thursday so he missed my talk. I think I’ll send him one of these….No more standing in front of the closet wondering what to wear on November 1st.
If one more person sends me the film “How wolves change rivers” I may do something drastic. Local author Jennifer Viegas puts it all in perspective in her smart new article on Wolves and public opinion. Jennifer is a writer for the Discovery Channel and, as it happens, a long-time friend to the Martinez Beavers. Yesterday she sent a recent article where she managed to slip in some of the rich credit beavers deserve.
From fairy tales to phrases like “lone-wolf terrorist,” wolves are vilified in our culture, and yet a fact check finds that a person is more likely to be killed by lightning, ATVs, dogs, cows, and even elevators than by a wolf.
Nevertheless, the myth that wolves pose a major threat to people persists, and at a time when their future is uncertain. Wolves used to be abundant in the United States from coast to coast, but unregulated hunting and habitat loss dramatically reduced their numbers. In 1974, the gray wolf became officially protected by the Endangered Species Act, which rescued the carnivores from the brink of extinction.
Because the presence of wolves affects where grazing animals feed, trees and plants in valleys and gorges at Yellowstone where deer and elk previously had collected are now regenerating, according to the research. Smith and colleagues’ research is documented in the short film “How Wolves Change Rivers.” Songbirds and beavers are returning. Because beavers help to provide habitat for other animals — such as muskrats, ducks, fish, reptiles and amphibians — these animals also got an indirect boost from the reintroduction of wolves.
Ahhh thank you, Jennifer. It’s good to have beaver friends in widely read places. I’m full of compassion for the plight of the wolves, mind you. But they can’t get all the praise in this matter. If there weren’t beavers to restore those rivers the Yellowstone wolves are protecting, all that would happen when wolves threatened browsing elk is the occasional dead elk. That wouldn’t make a very exciting film or a very rewarding research project, would it?
I heard from Jennifer last night because I sent her this article, which a friend from England sent in my direction. It’s a much richer read then we have time for, but it’s Sunday and honestly, this is the best possible day to go savor it in its entirety. You might want to get the book too. It’s that good. There are a few short sections I wanted to share, to whet your appetite.
The same summer I was on Lewis, a new edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary was published. A sharp-eyed reader noticed that there had been a culling of words concerning nature. Under pressure, Oxford University Press revealed a list of the entries it no longer felt to be relevant to a modern-day childhood. The deletions included acorn, adder, ash, beech, bluebell, buttercup, catkin, conker, cowslip, cygnet, dandelion, fern, hazel, heather, heron, ivy, kingfisher, lark, mistletoe, nectar, newt, otter, pasture and willow. The words taking their places in the new edition included attachment, block-graph, blog, broadband, bullet-point, celebrity, chatroom, committee, cut-and-paste, MP3 player and voice-mail.
Eight years ago, in the coastal township of Shawbost on the Outer Hebridean island of Lewis, I was given an extraordinary document. It was entitled “Some Lewis Moorland Terms: A Peat Glossary”, and it listed Gaelic words and phrases for aspects of the tawny moorland that fills Lewis’s interior. Reading the glossary, I was amazed by the compressive elegance of its lexis, and its capacity for fine discrimination: a caochan, for instance, is “a slender moor-stream obscured by vegetation such that it is virtually hidden from sight”, while a feadan is “a small stream running from a moorland loch”, and a fèith is “a fine vein-like watercourse running through peat, often dry in the summer”. Other terms were striking for their visual poetry: rionnach maoim means “the shadows cast on the moorland by clouds moving across the sky on a bright and windy day”; èit refers to “the practice of placing quartz stones in streams so that they sparkle in moonlight and thereby attract salmon to them in the late summer and autumn”, and teine biorach is “the flame or will-o’-the-wisp that runs on top of heather when the moor burns during the summer”.
Even if you aren’t immediately enchanted remebering the caochan’s you have passed or wondering if Eit’s really attract salmon, I assume readers of this website will be outraged that the OED for children once removed acorn, otter, and kingfisher! It immediately makes me think of the beaver words we have lost over the years. How thick with experience of them we must have been at one time, and then how nearly fully we extincted them. The phrase ‘beavering away’ for example, was once as common as OMG, and visible in every single historic paper I reviewed for our prevalence research. I know I miss a word for the sound kits make. Mewing just doesn’t communicate how purposeful it is. And whining sounds to negative.
Hey, I have an idea. Let’s make up our own beaver lexicon. We talk about them more than anyone has since the fur trade I’m sure. And I’ve written close to 3000 columns on the subject. Why not make up some words to describe what we’ve seen?
If you’re feeling a case of Deja Vu, you’re not the only one. Honestly, how long will people act like this is suddenly news? OPB did an entire program on the subject 5 years ago, and now they just now ‘discovered’ it?
Oregon Public Broadcasting
They may be our state animal, but many people think beavers are a nuisance. They can cause flooding to parks, backyards, and farmland, and it was long believed that salmon couldn’t pass through beaver dams. But now some scientists have found that beaver dams actually create a good habitat for young salmon.
Not that we’re not thrilled to people finally reading the writing on their own walls. But it would be nice if the jury decision showed any sign of sticking. It seems to wash away over night. This story originally appeared in 2010.
Stay tuned! Because in five years this is going to be a very exciting headline again!
But the best news this morning is from Devon, England. Where the beavers have all passed their test with flying colors and are ready to be released. Really.
Devon’s wild beavers will be allowed to stay on the River Otter after being found clear of a disease.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed the beavers were free of tapeworm.
Devon Wildlife Trust won a five-year licence to look after the beavers as long as they were free of the parasitic disease which is harmful to humans.
Whooo hooo! After being bagged, tagged, poked and prodded the beavers are free! (And just three days after you read it HERE FIRST it appears in the BBC!) I couldn’t be happier for these new citizens. Congratulations to all the farmers, teachers and shop keepers who talked to their neighbors and shared the news to pressure DEFRA into allowing this. Congratulations to the Devon Wildlife Trust for making it happen, and congratulations to the beavers themselves, who obviously let themselves be seen in the first place.
Just like we saw here in Martinez, sometimes beavers can be protected by the opposite of camouflage.
Campaigners are waiting with bated breath for the results of testing which will determine the future of Britain’s wild beaver colony.
Four adult beavers from the River Otter group have successfully been captured and tested for a range of diseases which will dictate whether they can remain in their North Devon habitat.
The tests were carried out on Monday and initial examinations have confirmed that the animals are free of Echinococcus multilocularis (EM) – a disease which has the potential to be harmful to humans.
Although the results of further mandatory tests have not yet come back, a spokesman for the Devon Wildlife Ttrust said they expect them to be returned “very soon”.
I love the flower-child picture. It’s perfect for the occasion. This news just sparkles to me, like sunlight on the water. It means not only did the residents of Devon successfully FORCE DEFRA to change course on the beavers, but the farmers also kept their whereabouts hidden until they did so, and now the beavers are successfully found, trapped and tested as if by magic! The inevitability of beavers in England is looming closer and closer. And to top it off I received this Email from Derek Gow this morning:
Hi Heidi – sorry away for the last few days. Basically the situation is this – 5 beavers captured 2 pairs plus a single kit from a litter of three with one pair. The other pair has a remaining single kit on the river. There are another 2 known kits on the river plus a 2 year old which has not been captured so total is 4 adults, 1 2 year old and 4 kits. The adults were screened for EM on Monday and don’t have it. We now have permission for their rerelease and are waiting for a final blood test for Bovine TB prior to releasing them back into their territories.
We are assembling another 2 unrelated pairs now for release in the summer to bolster this population. So all so far so good. One of the senior govt chaps who we had a big fight with a year ago came with his wife on Saturday and said how pleased he was now that this project which he thinks could make a real difference in now proceeding. Its all therefore pretty cheerful at the moment.
I was going to get in touch to thank you again Heidi for inviting us to what turned out to be a remarkable conference. We are really looking seriously at having a beaver festival in Ottery this year to celebrate their return. Would there be any chance you could send me your presentation with if poss an explanation of what you did as I would like to show it to the folk who may help ?
BW and thanks again !!! Derek
In my years as beaver cheerleader I’ve helped many cities push towards a new way of thinking on beavers, and even inspired some beaver festivals in Utah, Maine, Colorado and Canada. But this is THE BEST NEWS i’ve ever had the joy of contributing to. Beavers ready for release and cheerful good will from the officials is the best possible outcome. And I cannot WAIT to put together a slide show that Derek can share with folks in Devon to think about a beaver festival in Ottery.
Wouldn’t you want to go?
This good news follows hard on the heels of a very successful talk at the Salmonid conference yesterday. The water-defenders gathered there were all creek champions of the highest order, folks boldly understanding what it means to both compromise and challenge for 20 years at a time, turning concrete trapezoidal channels into living streams and looking at the world like an intricate patchwork quilt identifiable by watersheds.
They had all accomplished a lot and knew a lot and knew enough to look forward to beavers. The new Contra Costa flood control fellow (replacing the one who had served on the beaver subcommittee) was actually presenting at the conference, and got to hear my talk as well! Riley’s role in the workshop was such that she was both revered by everyone and enthusiastically glad I was there so I had every possible platform to start from. And my talk was very well received with more laughter, oohs and ahhs in more places than I have run into yet. There were eager questions, happy praise and one fellow promised to trade off two adult salmon for a pair of adult beavers. The man after me began his talk by bemoaning his fate at being put on the schedule having to follow “the best presentation of the day”.
I was very happy. We pretty much beamed our way home.
It was a successful but fairly exhausting day, and I’m looking forward to a very, very quiet weekend. Here’s hoping that any more good news about beavers decides to wait a day or two before jumping into the pile. I think I need the rest.
The lead photo and suffusing good mood just call for this soundtrack. Change the lyrics to “They call me Eager Beaver” and you have a eco-hit just waiting to happen.
