So yesterday’s planning meeting was excellent, and I’m still a little shell shocked.  At the last moment Joe Wheaton realized his mountain time lunch wouldn’t work with our pacific time meeting and couldn’t attend. I was too busy being stunned that people were there and committed to the idea to really notice much. Folks wanted this to happen. They wanted to be part of the planning and execution. Emily suggested making space for her students “lightening presentations” which was an idea that I love. People agreed that two half days was probably the best and agency folks steered us away from weekends because they thought it would be better attended during the week. So two half days in April seem to be the consensus, although people are still up in the air about whether its a summit, a forum or a colloquium.

It’s really going to happen. I keep pinching myself.

Now you might think, after such an idyllic and momentous meeting where so many smart people demonstrated their passion for helping people understand the very good things people do, you would think a day like that means the world is changing. And that people everywhere are getting smarter about beavers and the gifts they bring.

But you’d be wrong.

Take this article from Vancouver Island listing the amazing things volunteers can do to help wetlands.

Help protect local wetlands: Make a difference for today … and tomorrow

Wetlands are an incredibly important ecosystem to our planet. They’re home to numerous species of flora and fauna, and with 80 per cent of coastal wetlands altered or destroyed, conserving them is critical.

Recognizing the significance of these wetlands, specifically when it comes to waterfowl, Oceanside Ducks Unlimited works to conserve and protect these vital areas – and they need your help!

Locally, conservation programs are geared specifically around eight wetlands here in our own backyard, such as the Nanoose wetland, where volunteers removed invasive species such as yellow flag iris and removed beaver dam debris to allow water flow through the control structure.

So the article is boasting the volunteer group like;s wetlands SO MUCH that they ripped out a beaver dam because it was a bunch of debris – you know, sticks and mud – just blocking the water. Now that its gone the water can flow freely.

That hurts my whole brain. Protecting wetlands from beavers. Who knew?

How this article from North Dakota lamenting the efforts made to recover the beaver population after the fur trade.

Beavers as pests, 1916

November 24, 2020 — The most important animal in North America in the 1700s was not the mighty grizzly bear, nor was it the stampeding buffalo. Instead, the most-important animal in colonial America was the lowly beaver.

Laws of Dakota Territory in 1887 prohibited killing or trapping beavers because cattle ranchers wanted beavers to make dams on streams as convenient watering places for cattle, saving stockmen the expense of building dams. The protection continued after North Dakota became a state two years later. Violators of the state game laws were subject to a one-hundred-dollar fine and imprisonment.

Well that starts off good. Stopping trapping before the end of the century to leave water on the land for cattle. How long did that last?

Unfortunately, protection of beavers worked too well and beavers proliferated, becoming a serious “pest in the Missouri Valley.” It became a choice … having beavers or having trees along waterways. Farmers became furious when beavers chewed-down groves of trees and beaver-dams flooded fields in the bottomlands. They demanded that lawmakers change beaver protection laws. And stockmen found windmill pumps to be more reliable than beaver-ponds, especially considering that cattle would sometimes drown amid beaver-dam debris.

Accordingly, on this date in 1916, the Bismarck Tribune reported on efforts to control the beaver population. The state Game and Fish Commission hired professional trappers to eradicate these so-called “evil … varmints” along the Missouri Slope and allowed additional trappers to buy licenses to harvest beaver pelts.

Wow. So in 29 years beavers were demoted from valuable savers of water to evil varmints. Gosh, As rotten as that is it’s still better than California, where the brief beaver killing moratorium only lasted 15 years.

In South Carolina even the wildlife photographers complaIn about them.

Tom Poland: Nature’s engineers

Yes, it’s hard to sneak up on these secretive creatures, but evidence of their presence is irrefutable and to many landowners highly annoying. .But? Is it all that bad? Do beavers provide environmental benefits? Read on.

Okay, so beavers really do good things for the environment. Their dams store water that proves handy during droughts. Beaver dams’ freshwater wetlands provide happy-home habitat for birds, amphibians, and other animals. Their dams help with water quality and groundwater recharge. But this coin has two sides.

Landowners, got beavers on your property? Want to be busy as a beaver? Try to get rid of them but check with your Department of Natural Resources first. Meanwhile, beavers are busy as, well beavers. It’s a lot of work to keep a lodge/dam in top condition. And then there’s the family side of things. Beavers have a litter of kits in late spring and early summer. After spending two years with their parents, they set out to — you guessed it — build dams and lodges of their own. You may get rid of your beavers, but leave it to beavers, the new kits on the block, to come your way yet again, and the cycle goes on anew.

i guess that’s the nicest article of the three but it’s not exactly a loveletter. He says beavers are akin to rats an never let themselves be photographed. Hmm okay.

Obviously our work here is not yet done.