Start 2020 off right with an excellent interview with Steve Mirsky from Scientific American and our own Ben Goldfarb. i like everything about this interview except maybe the nutria photo it’s promoted with. This from Getty Images by a photographer who also features a pic of a Capybara. JFC when are people going to learn?
A Breakdown of Beavers
Environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb talks about his book Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter.
The best part is the unfolding fascination in Steve’s voice. You an tell he is totally hooked by the interview. Ben said it happened over a year ago but I’m glad it aired eventually. Good advertising for our favorite ecosystem hero.
Lots of beaver fans out there around new years. This from Illinois
2020: The Year of the Beavers
The year 2020 brought, relentlessly, the pandemic, and then the presidential election. But first, it brought a record-high Lake Michigan lake level and fierce waves. In a wild January storm, Lake Michigan invaded the Clark Street Beach Bird Sanctuary (CSBBS) and knocked down the lakeside fence.
Almost immediately, the beavers, which have lived in the Northwestern lagoon off and on for 25 years, took advantage of the high water. They swam under the bridge, around the Sailing Center, and took down several cottonwoods in what had been CSBBS.
It’s always fun to see how surprise people are to get beavers. Even when they should have been expecting them all along.
Up to then, volunteers at Clark Street Beach Bird Sanctuary (of which this writer is one) knew little about beaver life. It was time to learn how they live, and how we could learn to live with them. Volunteers fenced off the cottonwood habitat and put four-foot high hardware cloth around 100 individual trees to protect them, leaving most of the area south of the beach house for beaver foraging.
Interest in beaver reintroduction has accelerated, particularly in the Northwest U.S. Often thought to be freshwater mammals, researchers have found they do well in brackish water coastal areas and their ponds can be safe havens for salmon fry.
Can introducing beaver to arid land where fires are frequent create ponds that will serve as firebreaks? Scientists think this idea holds promise. But predicting good habitats for relocating beavers is an art; the beavers have the last word.
Yes that’s true. But we don’t need “Reintroduction” to see it happen. We just need to get out of their friggin way when they reintroduce themselves.
Illinois’ largest rodents are in city lagoons, rivers and streams. Now, they’re on Instagram.
Among the more humble recipients of our longer walks and affinity for nature during the pandemic: beavers.
On recent mornings, shortly before and after sunrise, small groups of people have traveled to a bridge on the Northwestern University campus in Evanston. Some leave willow branches. For the beavers.
“They’ve got this whole following,” said Tamar Selch, who stops by regularly with her husband, Zach. “They’re very cute. And how often do you really get to see beavers out there?”
I love stories where ordinary people are touched by discovering beavers close to home and just start watching them because they’re ‘neat’. It reminds me so much of the old days.
“It’s just going to be transformative,” Frisbie said. “People’s perception of it is it’s just this foul place. But if you went there right now you would find wildlife.”
YUP.
On a late December morning in Evanston, as the sun rose above an unsettled Lake Michigan, a beaver that was perched under a bridge gnawed a twig, swam toward a thin layer of ice cracked by its tail and disappeared under the water. Multiple people stopped by to ask if the family was out. Felicia Brown stopped to watch.
“It became a source of inspiration,” Brown said. “I was going out there once or twice a week, then I was going out there four times a week. And everybody was comparing notes.”
Uh oh Felicia. If I was you I’d be very very careful. Or you might fall down a rabbit hole and find your life completely upended, your home unrecognizable, your free time consumed, and wind up like me.
Shh.
