“And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.
If there are any regular readers of this site besides my mother, you might remember that way back in 2016 there was a case where a girls school in New Mexico was restoring their creek to make it nice for some beavers and a crabby old rancher complained they were mucking up his water. He even stomped over and shot one and ripped out the dams with grappling hooks. Ringing any bells?
Well, let’s just say sometimes justice gets served.
New Mexico court ruling seen as win for beavers
Lawrence Gallegos, the New Mexico landowner representative for the nonprofit Western Landowners Alliance, who has a background in ranching, was a witness in the ongoing civil case, filed in 2016 by landowner Ed Sc
eery against the Santa Fe Girls’ School. The lawsuit sought a court order for the school to remove beaver dams on its property or to “otherwise abate the flooding” on his land.
The Girls’ School had intentionally made its land “more attractive and amenable” to beavers, Sceery argued, which he claimed were causing flooding that prevented him from accessing parts of his 46-acre property and made it impossible to graze cattle, forcing him to sell some of his livestock.
Then-state District Judge David Thomson, who is now a New Mexico Supreme Court justice, decided in the school’s favor on key issues in the lawsuit, saying the school was not responsible for the impacts beavers have had on Sceery’s land in La Cieneguilla, a tiny community fed by flows from the Santa Fe River.
An upright judge, a learnèd judge! A Daniel! A second Daniel!
Hoo Hoo HOOO! What a nice thing for a judge to say! I think all of New Mexico is going to get lucky with this kind of thinking! What a great way for this case to fall and a fabulous teaching moment for every one of those girls.
Environmentalists, a Santa Fe attorney and Gallegos — whose two daughters attended the Girls’ School — recently praised the ruling, saying it recognized beavers as an important species for the state’s ecosystem and affirmed precedent protecting landowners from being sued over the behavior of wild animals.
Michael Dax, New Mexico representative for the environmental advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife, said he hopes the decision will set a precedent for the protection of beavers going forward.
“As we here in New Mexico and across the Southwest are looking at a future where drought is going to become more common, we need policies that are going to promote recovery of beavers and the water conservation benefits that they create,” he said.
And we here in California are looking with awe and respect. Well done. Excellent well done, we say. We should ALL be marching to court to protect beavers!
Lee Lewin, founder and program director of the Girls’ School, declined to elaborate on the lawsuit, referring questions to Egolf. But she did say the school is “very satisfied with the judge’s order, and we feel as if the species, the ecology, the habitat [of the area] is going to continue to thrive.”
“This decision reinforces what I think most New Mexicans believe, which is that native species — especially those that are mitigating the effects of drought and climate change — belong on our landscape,” he said, “and they need to be protected on our landscapes.”
Cue the processional music! This is a major victory for beavers everywhere! Well done and well argued and a path forward for everyone to follow. You know what they say. The arc of just is long, but it bends towards beavers!
And what do we have to celebrate? Well that would be two LOVELY new beaver kits in Napa Creek photographed by Rusty Cohn last night.
Ohh what a beautiful sight! The only thing better than an adorable beaver kit at the end of July is TWO adorable beavers kits in July! Or heck, I’d love to see 12 but lets not be greedy. Here’s a closer peek of one.
