Happy New Year! Does your head hurt? I’m going to boldly assume it doesn’t and march us straight into new business. It’s time for a little Oregon news, don’t you think? Let’s talk about Jakob Shockey for a change.

The Business of Beavers: Biologist speaking about a vital animal

ASTORIA — Beaver play a critical role in riparian and wetland systems, often creating better habitat in a site than humans can construct with big money and machinery. Beaver also can cause issues when in close proximity to the built environment. Wildlife biologist Jakob Shockey will touch upon these topics in a free presentation about beaver biology and management at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 15 at the Astoria Library.

Hurray for beavers and they’re critical role! Now the picture made me briefly anxious that he has a ‘display beaver’ but the photograph says this picture was provided to the paper and probably shows a moment of successful relocation or something, since this is Oregon where its legal.

Shockey will talk about what beaver do and why they do it, their keystone role in our ecosystem and the historical context of beaver and humans in the Pacific Northwest. He will discuss tools for addressing common conflicts through natural science and design, and why predictive management of beaver at a site is worthwhile. Finally, Shockey will look at emergent trends in beaver management and strategies for partnering with beaver for habitat restoration and water resiliency.

Shockey has worked professionally in Oregon’s streams, rivers and wetlands for over seven years. He manages the restoration program for the Applegate Partnership and owns Beaver State Wildlife Solutions, a company that specializes in responding to frustrating conflicts with wildlife in a new way. He co-founded The Beaver Coalition, an organization working to address the factors that limit the return of beaver to the drying watersheds of the northern hemisphere.

The beaver coalition? Do I know about the beaver coalition? Do you? Ha, you know I just googled the phrase and the ONLY place I can see it used is on that Crazy website. You know the one, But I’m sure it’s a good thing and I’m sure he didn’t snag the name from our headline. (To be fair, I  have written a headline every day 350 times a year for more than a decade so that’s 3850 titles that mathematically just must be the name of someone’s nonprofit). I sure do wish I knew more this coalition! I will write Jakob and ask him to fill us in.

The funny thing is I got an email two days ago from some folks who said they worked with the Corvalis Beaver Strike Team and wanted to get in touch with someone named Rob Walton, who I didn’t now. For the record, I didn’t know about the strike team either. Here’s their website:

The Beaver Strike Team is a local volunteer citizen action group composed of federal, state, and university biologists, experts in beaver-human conflict resolution, watershed council and wildlife center staff, and other wildlife advocates.

They work with cities to install flow devices, protect trees and educate. How did we not know about them? Cool huh? I don’t know how, but somehow they knew about us, thank goodness. When I went looking for their missing contact I found this: and then they reminded me that I actually wrote about Rob already. One day before the beaver festival so no wonder I forgot.