Someday it’s a great day to be a beaver-believer. This article combining Ben Golfarb’s excellent book with the recent struggles at Warner Park in Madison Wisconsin makes me proud to be a member of the club.
‘Dam It! WI Is a Backward Beaver State’
In April 2017, a quiet war was being waged over Warner Park’s resident beavers. Apart from a handful of local news articles, the dispute came and went free from the public eye.
Beavers — not exactly known to fit the human definition of orderly — made their presence evident at the park by damaging and felling trees. The city’s Parks Division contracted a trapper, reasoning the flooding risk posed by the beavers’ dam outweighed their benefits.
Unaware of the city’s plan and outraged at the prospect of beavers being removed, citizens decided to take traps into their own hands. The safety risk posed to those doing so forced the Madison Parks Division to remove the remaining traps.
While the traps are gone, whether or not the issue has been resolved is subject to debate. The positives and negatives of living with, or without, beavers have not been discussed on a city-wide scale.
However, Ben Goldfarb, the author of “Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter,” has offered a framework for doing so.
Ta-daa! Hi Ben, I am SO happy your book was written and you are willing to trot about the countryside and remind people why beavers matter.
Goldfarb, an award-winning environmental journalist, visited Madison’s Olbrich Botanical Gardens on Feb. 20 to speak about beavers and their ability to solve a range of environmental issues.
The problems Madison lakes face are products of land management and infrastructure choices, UW-Limnology wrote. Chemical run-off, chiefly nitrogen and phosphorus, is creating “unsightly and unsafe” lake conditions.
Beavers are the “landscape Swiss Army knives,” as Goldfarb refers to them, that can fix all of the above. Their dams slow water — creating wetlands — which can sequester pollution, prevent erosion and slow flooding.
Goldfarb and other self-proclaimed “Beaver Believers” not only trust in the rodents’ capacity to “tackle just about any ecological dilemma” but recognize compromise may be a part of doing so. The passionate, eclectic group supports coexistence efforts rather than removal.
Flow devices are one of the many tools being used to moderate conflicts between humans and their paddle-tailed neighbors, Goldfarb said. Most flow devices — including Skip Lisle’s Beaver Deceiver and Mike Callahan’s Pond Leveler system — consist of a water outlet and fencing.
“A passionate, eclectic group.” Aww shucks, you’ll make me blush. Yup that’s us. It takes a village. We’re a mixed bag, A heterogeneous bunch of grapes if you will.
Goldfarb concluded with the words of fellow Beaver Believer Kent Woodruff, which capture the essence of beaver belief.
“We’re not smart enough to know what a fully functional ecosystem looks like. But they are.”
Ohh be still my heart! I just love this beaver club we’re in. Don’t you? Excellent work, Ben. Sometimes I get the feeling a tide is turning.
The gentleman from South Carolina who wrote me about the beaver living under his house noticed that it had an injury so I suggested taking it to rehab. Yesterday Carolina Wildlife Care came and trapped and took it away . Maybe you have some pocket change you can send their way to thank them and help pay for its treatment and board?
