Brace yourselves. I’m about to show you something really, really adorable. Something that even if I hadn’t devoted the last 11 years of my life to beavers might make me stop dead in my tracks and say “My god, I love this animal! How can I help?” I realize that just because you visit this website doesn’t mean you read every word or watch every video. We all have important things to do every day. BUT WATCH THIS. This is the best, most engaging beaver video I have ever seen and its only 20 seconds long. Watch it with the sound turned up, watch it again to make sure you saw it, and then when you’re done laughing we’ll talk about it later.
First of all, if your sound was turned up you know that that kit fell into water, so he wasn’t hurt and it’s okay for us to talk about this cheerfully. This was posted on November 7 by the Pacific Southwest Fish and Wildlife Facebook page. So thanks for this.
Struck so profoundly by the fall, it took me a while to notice that 
in the beginning of the film he’s climbing his way to the chewed space in the tree carrying mud and sticks to lay on the notch. Like that little kit Art filmed this year he clearly thinks he’s helping build the ‘dam”. Then he climbs into the notch (dam) and reaches around to the side with his foot to feel his way.
But because it’s not actually a dam there’s a huge drop off which he won’t go down. He reaches around a little to find his way, and by using his foot to reach he loses that anchor for balance (claws are holding on the tree supporting him) and thus falls off sideways.
Here it is again for the play by play. You can actually slow it down if you click on the cog and set the speed to .5.
What we know is that this kit watched the parent work here for hours, and was irresistibly drawn to the site to help. He just wasn’t sure how. Think about your own children, they watch you do the same tasks for them every day over and over (pouring cereal, packing lunches, squeezing toothpaste on the brush, washing their hair in the bath) that when they decide to help they sometimes get mixed up in the details.
Pouring cheerios in their lunchbox or squeezing toothpaste on their hair. It happens.
If you aren’t sure whether you believe me, let’s rewatch the video from Art Wolinsky earlier this year. This kind of mistaken help must happen all the time in the beaver kingdom. We just never realized it before.
For beavers, work is irresistible. They just can’t wait to help. There are lots of things to learn and lots of wires. Sometimes they get crossed. Which makes beavers the very coolest animal. Ever.
Also, just in case this went without saying, beavers fall exactly like muppets.
