When Brock was rooting for farming truffles, he unearthed this amazing report from ODFW (Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife). Allow me to preface by saying that the states display increasing amounts of beaver-stupid as you move farther down the pacific coast, so Oregon is smarter than California, but not as good as Washington. In what used to be called schizophrenogenic parenting, Oregon beaver are protected on public lands and listed as a predator so they can be killed without paperwork on private lands. There is clearly strife among the policy makers because that compromise is making no one happy. Oregon recently changed their policy to allow beaver relocation but they were frustrated that no one seemed to be doing it – (mind you it requires such things as getting permission from the neighboring property owners 6 miles up and down stream!) But still, they wanted to learn more about the attitudes towards beavers.
Many fish and wildlife biologists and land managers understand the critical role that beavers play in improving aquatic and floodplain functions, and have initiated reintroduction efforts to restore beavers to many areas in Oregon. Beavers are beneficial because their dams help to create wetlands and habitat for fisheries recovery, and some people enjoy the aesthetic value of seeing beavers. To realize these benefits of beavers, there is an urgent need to address current and potential future conflicts between landowners and this species. This is important if measures are sought to reintroduce beavers into unoccupied areas, especially on private lands.
Mark D. Needham, Ph.D. & Anita T. Morzillo, Ph.D. Landowner Incentives and Tolerances for Managing Beaver Impacts in OregonSo Oregon wanted to know how Oregon felt about beavers and they brought in Dr.’s Needham and Morzillo to do a massive survey and report on landowners. They sent 5200 questionnaires to all 4 regions of the state and received back 1512. (Which, if you were a grad student doing your dissertation, is a response rate you’d be pretty thankful about.) They asked questions about attitudes towards beaver, experience with beaver, problems with beaver, feelings about beaver and knowledge about beaver. Apparently people in Oregon on the whole feel better about beaver than people on our city council, because their general attitude seemed remarkably tolerant, even when it came to questions about what kind of problems justified lethal action.
Pretty remarkable considering the news I cover about beavers every day. There were things in this paper I hadn’t ever considered, mainly that there’s a whole division of wildlife ecology that has to do with peoples attitudes towards wildlife. Whoa! Psychology and Ecology Combined! Maybe my life will make sense after all. Of course they also wanted to know who had seen one:
I don’t know about you but I’ll eat a BUG if 43% of the 432 Eastern region folks saw beaver more than 10 times in their lives. That’s 185 people. For comparison, I’d bet there aren’t 185 people in all of Martinez that saw the beavers more than 10 times, and our beavers are the most visible creatures that ever ate willow. I have met a host of people that THOUGHT they saw a beaver when they actually saw a muskrat, or an otter or a turtle. I’m willing to believe 185 landowners in Eastern Oregon thought they saw a beaver more than 10 times. Does that count?
Interestingly the East had the most experience with beaver and historic damage from them. The glowing feel-good of Portland’s “hypothetical” beavers seems to give way when they were talking about “actual” beavers who gnaw trees and flood properties.
I’m just guessing but I believe these numbers would look very different in California. “Beaver damage is major” would probably top 70 percent in some areas, certainly 525 Henrietta St. It does seem like people are predisposed to ‘like’ beavers, from story books and cartoons and only find out they dislike them later when they cause problems. Hmm, that’s worth thinking about. Oh, and find me those three fellas that are afraid of beavers because we need to talk.
This is an interesting piece of the puzzle. I think the concerns to property are lower than they should be and the concerns for disease and pets are higher than they should be. People don’t really know what they’re dealing with do they? Beavers can cause serious problems. Look it up. People need to know what to worry about with beavers so they know what to do to prevent it. And they need to stop wasting time with stupid concerns.
An abysmal number of people have taken preventative action with beavers and an even fewer number have done so humanely. This was a stunning chart that must have made ODFW bristle. Note that they didn’t include “Shot the beavers” as an option I guess because that’s illegal and people might not want to get in trouble or feel spied on. But you know it happens.
Okay this is my favorite part of the whole survey.
Ahhh basic beaver 101. The authors called this “knowledgeable” about beavers. So 38% of these folks who have never wrapped a tree or seen a beaver, believe that beavers eat fish. Of course they do. Heck nearly HALF of the Portland population does!
Well, I guess it’s not so surprising. Shh, and brace yourselves, but I went to school for a long, long time and when the beavers first came to Martinez I can remember a conversation with Jon on the bridge where I speculated they must eat fish sometimes. I can barely remember thinking it, and I quickly learned otherwise, but it just seemed impossible they would spend all that time making “hatcheries” and never reap the rewards.
Well, beavers don’t eat fish. They don’t catch fish. They don’t have the stomachs to digest fish. I have sat on this video a long time because I don’t want to confuse anyone. But today you’re ready. You can remember that they are vegetarians BUT they aren’t stupid and some deals are too good to pass up.
