Yesterday I had a long conversation with one of the many women watching out for beavers in Orchard park New York. It made me think of all the similar conversations I have had with women over the years I’ve been doing this. She introduced herself as good at research and didn’t really like to talk to strangers and her background wasn’t in beavers or the environment. She hadn’t read Ben’s book or seen the PBS documentary. She just really liked them and the way that they carried mud and sticks with their paws. Did I think her lack of knowledge would be a problem?
I smiled broadly and thought of a certain woman I knew well that had a Ph.D. in child psychology and once upon a time couldn’t tell an otter from a muskrat photo and didn’t know words like “riparian” or “flood plain” lo those many years ago and I said, “Not at all. You’ll be great“.
I thought of Caitlin in Mountainhouse and Robin in Napa and Judy in Port Moody and Leda in Maine and Virginia in Fairfield and Sherry in Lake Tahoe and Audrey in San Luis Obispo and Laurie in Rocklin and Rachel in Illinois an Jeanette in Auburn and so many other urgent conversations I had had over the years with women who found themselves caring about beavers for no reason they could rightly explain and thrust into the role of advocate when they had never done anything like this before a day before in their lives.
And I was grateful for every single one of them. Because it takes an army to save beavers. As you know.
