So much has been happening that I was forgetting to think about the VERY biggest thing of all. The thing that will happen in the middle of June and run about 304 pages. I’m talking of course about the publication of Ben Goldfarb’s book. The author reviews are up on Amazon and I especially loved this one.

“This witty, engrossing book will be a classic from the day it is published. No one who loves the landscape of America will ever look at it quite the same way after understanding just how profoundly it has been shaped by the beaver. And even the most pessimistic among us will feel strong hope at the prospect that so much damage can be so easily repaired if we learn to live with this most remarkable of creatures.”―Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

You can obviously see why this is my favorite, but go read them all for a little thrill of anticipation. Then come back and feast your eyes on the latest example of why his smart writing will make a permanent difference.

Can Wildlife Services Learn to Believe in Beavers?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture killed more than 23,000 beavers last year. There’s a better way to manage our ecosystem engineers.

It’s no wonder Wildlife Services is particularly vexed by beavers, a species whose penchant for modifying its surroundings is surpassed only by our own. These relentless engineers gnaw down valuable timber, clog culverts, plug irrigation ditches, wash out roads, flood homes and even chew through fiberoptic cables. One 1983 study suggested that annual beaver damage approaches $100 million per year, a figure that has almost certainly continued to climb as Castor canadensis’s numbers have grown over the past several decades.

Whatever destruction beavers inflict, however, is far outweighed by their immense ecological value. In the course of reporting my book, Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, I’ve witnessed these miraculous mammals helping people tackle just about every environmental problem under the sun. In droughty Nevada beaver ponds are raising water tables, sub-irrigating pastures and helping ranchers feed their cattle. In Washington they’re storing water to compensate for declining snowpack. In Rhode Island they’re filtering out agricultural pollution. According to one report, restoring beavers to a single river basin, Utah’s Escalante, would provide tens of millions of dollars in benefits each year.

And beavers don’t just furnish us with ecosystem services — they also sustain a vast menagerie. From wood frogs to warblers, mink to mergansers, sage grouse to salmon, there’s hardly a creature in North America that doesn’t seek sustenance in beaver-built ponds, marshes or meadows. In North Carolina biologists are even mimicking beavers to create habitat for the St. Francis satyr (Neonympha mitchellii francisci), an endangered butterfly whose preferred sedges flourish only in sunlit, beaver-sculpted wetlands.

Ahh you can tell you need that coffee cup filled again just so you can read every single word of this delicious article again and again. Click on the head line to go to the original. I’ve always said that there are two things folks need to learn about beavers: and they’re of equal importance. Why to live with them and HOW to live with them. This smart article offers a close up of both.

The conundrum, then, is this: What will it take to square beavers’ proclivity for nurturing life with their tendency to damage infrastructure? How do we reap their benefits without incurring their costs?

Last week I traveled to the town of Agawam, Mass., for some hands-on training in castorid coexistence. My companion for the day was Mike Callahan, founder of the nonprofit Beaver Institute. Since 1999 Callahan has installed more than 1,300 flow devices — pipe-and-fence contraptions that control beaver flooding without requiring trappers to kill the offending rodents. If you appreciate having beavers in your backyard but aren’t keen on snorkeling through your basement, a flow device might just be the solution you’re looking for.

Gosh, when Ben posted those pictures on facebook last week I thought he was just helping a buddy and having fun. I didn’t even realize he was researching an article! He marches through the installation and follows with the research showing why these devices save money. Then runs his finger along Jimmy Taylor’s review paper as if checking for dust.

Even Wildlife Services, beavers’ bete noire, shows fitful signs of coming around. In a 2013 review of various flow device models, Wildlife Services biologists acknowledged that “tools and techniques are currently available to integrate non-lethal beaver management into landscape-scale management plans.” Although the agency’s trappers have been notably slow to apply flow devices in the field, there’s reason to hope that future springs will bring lower kill counts.

“To keep every cog and wheel,” wrote Aldo Leopold, “is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.” Beavers, the animals who double as ecosystems, are among our most important cogs, fundamental to the conservation of North America’s water, wetlands and wildlife. Here’s hoping our tinkering gets more intelligent in the years to come.

Yep that’s how you do it. End with the quote of a well-worshiped naturalist and link it squarely to beavers. Ahh Ben I’m so impressed with what your writing can do and eager to see it change the lives of beavers. I literally can not wait for this book to be on every shelf. I’m suddenly remembering that passage on the bible about John the Baptist. He’s been doing his best with his meager tools but knows full well that even though his work matters it’s nothing compared to the voice of Him that’s coming soon.