Well this is a head-scratcher. I am trying to imagine what on earth would make a man say beavers haven’t been present since 5000 years ago and I’m drawing a blank. It’s worse than California saying there were never beavers at all. It’s just dumbfounding.
Lubbock Texas is in the middle left of the state in an area known as the High Planes of Texas. It’s dry and now very very populated, It used to have prairie dogs and long before that the Teyas indians made a living off that buffalo and we know what happened to them.
It’s Not Exactly a Dinosaur, but NRM Doctoral Candidate Makes Historic Discovery
On his own time, on his own dime, completely unrelated to his dissertation and many times in the dead of night, Department of Natural Resources Management (NRM) doctoral candidate Garret D. Langlois treks through the wooded area and cattails along the waters on the southwest side of Mae Simmons Park in East Lubbock.
He’s not there clearing his head or spending time alone with his thoughts. No, there is a purpose to Langlois’ passion, and it has led to a discovery that not many in Lubbock or the South Plains would have considered possible.
There, among the cattails, lies the proof: a worn swimming path near the bank where the water creature turns around and goes back into hiding. Deep in the woods is evidence the creature has constructed nesting areas and dug tunnels to remain hidden. Near the tunnels, spiky stumps erupt from the ground – the remains of small trees that were cut by large incisors.
Yes, the evidence is clear. There are beavers living in Lubbock’s Canyon Lakes.
I’m sure it’s spontaneous generation. Like they theorized about fruit flies long ago. They couldn’t possibly descended from other beavers that were in the neighborhood. They must have just materialized after 5000 years. I’m sure that’s it.
Through pictures and video taken by night-vision trail cameras and submitted to a peer-reviewed journal by researchers in the College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources at Texas Tech University, Langlois has confirmed the presence of a species that has been absent from this area of the U.S. for more than 5,000 years.
“I remember the day Garret brought me down here the first time and all this was fresh then,” said Phil S. Gipson, the Kleberg Professor in NRM. “I said, ‘Oh my God, there are beavers here.’ It was absolutely amazing.”
It was confirmation of a suspicion that had eaten at Langlois for awhile.
Pioneering westward
Langlois hypothesizes that the North American Beavers previously believed to not occur on the Brazos River west of Knox County have been colonizing upstream for well over a decade, eventually arriving in the Canyon Lakes during the uncommonly heavy summer rains of 2015. In early May of that year, flooding rains fell on Lubbock and the South Plains, and particularly along the North Fork of the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos River, which connects to Dunbar Historical Lake running through Mae Simmons Park.
But it wasn’t until a beaver carcass was found in November of that year that Langlois’ curiosity on the subject kicked into high gear.
His interest was intensified by a practical joke during his undergraduate days at the University of Vermont.
“We helped build a roadkill database,” Langlois said. “One day, I think it was some Texan who wanted to play a joke on some Yankees or something, we picked up an armadillo carcass. Maybe somebody threw it in the back of their truck and made the drive from Texas. So, if we update wildlife range maps based solely on a carcass, armadillo live in Vermont now, except they don’t.”
I mean your a doctoral candidate so you must know that your state was swarming with beaver trappers at one time who marched right down the waterline and picked off every pelt they could find. And you must be familiar with R. Grace Morgan’s work before that and know all about how important beaver were to the plains indians, right? Beavers mean water.. And if you live in the high plains you know that water really really matters, Right?
All involved in the project agree that having beavers in the Canyon Lakes is good not only for the species but for the city as well. The wooded area provides terrific protection from predators, and even the Black-crowned Night-Herons that roost there provide an early warning alarm system for the beavers if any predators or humans come into the area.
And given that the beavers have proven to be pretty low maintenance, there’s not much citizens need to do to preserve their existence, other than just letting them be.
“It’s good news if we can be accepting of them,” Langlois said. “Right now, many of the problems that typically emerge with having beavers, we likely won’t see as much. Sometimes people don’t like the dams because they promote flooding, but right now, in this area, it’s already dammed and we already built them. Sometimes people might not like beaver lodges, but these beaver den in tunnels. They don’t need to take down many trees for a winter food cache because we have a very warm climate.
Well that’s good news anyway, And apparently he’s checking the culverts and feeling good about keeping them on his radar. I read something about Lubbock lake being the site of a giant watering hole during prehistoric times which has been the subject of many archeological digs since them I suppose that’s were the 5000 figure comes from. But I still think has plenty of native, trapping, and historical research to do before saying these are the first in five milleniums.
