Beaver friend Matt Stoecker of Beyond Searsville Dam sent me this lovely article from the High Country News and Patagonia’s Adventure Journal. Here’s an excerpt but you really should go read the rest for yourself:
In the mountainous West, swift, cold, snow-melt streams such as Pennock Creek support relatively little aquatic life, and fish are usually few and small. The calm, warmer waters of beaver ponds are biologically richer and support more and larger fish, although global warming may be changing this.
Studies in Washington’s Puget Sound Basin by Michael Pollock of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that in streams populated by beavers, Coho salmon are larger and more plentiful than in streams without beavers. Pollock believes restoring salmon runs will require restoring beaver populations.
Beaver-salmon- beaver- salmon- beaver- salmon….what will it take until people get the connection?
I like Chuck’s article almost entirely, although he gets a little passive at the end.
What if they flooded my bottomland or cut down my trees? Would I still yell, “Go, Beavers!” as I do at Oregon State football games? Not likely.
What if your puppy got hit by a car in your front yard? Does that mean that neighborhoods shouldn’t allow driving anymore? Or that we shouldn’t build houses near streets? Or people shouldn’t be allowed to have pets? Hmmm, how about you wrap the trees and install a flow device to solve your problem because you realize these inconvenient beavers are fixing problems we’re not even prepared to tackle. Then you can keep yelling “go beavers” all you like.
Radio interview with Susan Allen of Open Range this week, I’ll keep you posted.
