Good lord. Windows 10 is a terror. I feel like a lost child flailing through empty corridors looking for something familiar. I’m sure it will get easier. At least the website looks vaguely familiar at the moment. And there’s a fun new review of Ben Goldfarb’s awesome book. (Mind you, Ben’s a nice chap and all, but I’m honestly mostly happy about what it means for BEAVERS – not book sales!) This review is from Judy Isacaoff – this time in Massachusetts.

NATURE’S TURN: A fresh look at neighboring beaver ponds

When long saplings were found heaped across a narrows close to the man-made cement dam and spillway at the far end of the original pond, our neighbor was alarmed. His solution to preventing the water level from rising and possibly overpowering the cement dam was to have the beavers trapped and removed. This is the usual practice. In the absence of an alternative plan, the beavers were killed. The exquisitely constructed dam at the upper, new pond was broken and dismantled. The vast expanse — about 15 acres of mostly open water — that we had come to appreciate as a vibrant part of the natural landscape became a mud flat. It seems an invitation to invasive species. Kingfisher and heron sightings have dwindled.

I tell this story now because it is a common one that, I have just learned, could have ended differently. That story is told in the publication this month of “Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter.” Environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb relates: “In researching “Eager,” I traveled just about everywhere that beavers can be found, from the slickrock deserts of Utah to the hardwood forests of Vermont to a highwayside canal in Napa, California. I met beavers on farms and beavers in forests, beavers in raging rivers and beavers in irrigation ditches, beavers in wilderness areas and beavers in Walmart parking lots.” Mr. Goldfarb also travels through the history of the formative years of our country and introduces us to problem-solving farmers, scientists, naturalists and conservationists past and present. “Most of all,” he writes, “ ‘Eager’ is about the mightiest theme I know: how we can learn to coexist and thrive alongside our fellow travelers on this planet.”*

Nice work Judy. I’m so glad to be here and watch this all unfurl, and it’s nice to see something positive out beavers coming out of the bay state. What I’m waiting for now is a mention from some bay area treasure like the SF chronicle or bay nature.

Tick tock people. There are beavers to save!