The beavers at Northwestern are some of the most famous in the world. They’ve been showing up on an off for 20 years now fairly predictable reactions from the student body and the administrators. coming of the heels of the midwestern beaver summit this time might just be different.
Beaver spotted at Northwestern’s lagoon
Beavers appear to have returned to Northwestern University’s lagoon, longtime Evanston resident Geri Joy discovered recently during one of her morning walks.
Joy spotted one on Nov. 12 by the bridge that runs over the lagoon and connects the campus to the lakefront. She captured the moment on her phone and even had the presence of mind to shoot a short video, which she later posted on Facebook.
“He did that little somersault for me,” she said, talking about the beaver sighting later. “He was quite the performer.”
Joy’s was the first documented sighting of a beaver in the lagoon since three beavers were found dead in that body of water on July 17, 2021.
At the time, community members told the RoundTable they were heartbroken over the deaths, with some saying the university should have worked with the county more rapidly to get a necropsy (autopsy for animals), which might have determined the cause.
As a woman who drove several dead bodies of beaver in her subaru to the animal necropsy facility at UC Davis allow me to say I understand the inclination but I’d start my search with a FOIA request and look backwards from there.
The most likely cause of beaver death is human in nature.
Joy said she was walking her dog, Bella, when she reached the Northwestern lagoon bridge, where she typically looks to both sides.
“I saw this long brown thing that I thought was a log until I watched it and realized it was the beaver,” she said.
Joy, retired from the Allstate Insurance Company and a resident of Evanston since 1972, had her phone with her.
“I take pictures every morning when I walk, but I don’t usually see beavers,” she said.
“I’m not quite sure where it came from,” she said of the beaver. “It’s probably two and a half miles there from the canal.”
Two and a half whole miles! A beaver would have to have webbed feet and waterproof fur to swim that far. Oh wait. It does!
She remembered seeing beavers in the area 20 years ago, and Northwestern putting up a metal mesh around all their trees after the animals had gnawed a very mature willow tree to a stump.
Beavers might take one of a number of paths that end up at the lagoon, said Chris Anchor, wildlife specialist for Cook County. Anchor said he had offered to help arrange the necropsy after the dead beavers were discovered in 2021, but the bodies had not been preserved in ice and were too degraded for the procedure.
He said recent research has shown the role they play in increasing climate resilience, improving water quality, increasing biodiversity and creating floodwater storage capacity.
Two authors have explored their contributions and rich history in recent books that have won acclaim: Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter by Ben Goldfarb and Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America by Leila Philip.
Both Goldfarb and Philip were presenters in September in a virtual summit presented by the Illinois Beaver Alliance that drew more than 700 people.
“The summit is a first step toward putting together a network of Midwestern stakeholders to spread the word about the incredible ecological importance of beavers and the modern tools for managing human-beaver conflicts nonlethally,” said Margaret Frisbie, executive director of the Friends of the Chicago River, which co-hosted the summit. “Beavers deserve our support, protection, attention and respect, which are all the more important today in the face of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss.”
Whooo hoo hoo. You just can’t put that genie back in the bottle. Once the beaver summit comes to town there are just too many people who care about the things beavers do to slide things past them. People like Rachel.
“Beavers are the original nature-based solution,” said Northwestern University graduate Rachel Schick Siegel, who formed a nonprofit group called the Illinois Beaver Alliance, which advocates for beavers and educates the public about the ecosystem they represent. “They purify water and they cull out the phosphorus and nitrogen, which, of course, in our agricultural state is a big deal.”
She and other neighbors formed a Glenview Beavers Fan Club a few years ago after beavers found living in a retention pond were threatened. She said steps can be taken to protect specimen trees in areas where beavers lodge by planting willow and dogwood trees in the area, “so that you give them a decoy.”
“Beavers are really incredible,” she said. “They are so adaptable. They don’t have to migrate seasonally to find food because they store their own food cache. … In Colorado, the beavers were cleaning mine runoff out of an abandoned mine.”
I’m curious how this chapter will play out. Her cell video which I can’t embed shows a fairly youngish beaver. I doubt very much that he’s on his own.
They’ve got to get it right eventually. Maybe this time…
