One of the things I hope makes an impression at the beaver summit is the powerful relationship between beavers and fire resilience. It seems like people learn to appreciate this animal only when the issue they care about is at stake. So since we all care about fire we could all care about beavers. I really enjoyed this article by Lenya Quinn-Davidson.
If Fire Were an Animal, it Would Be a Beaver
What if I told you there was a force so big it affected millions of acres for thousands of years across North America? Something that altered the landscape on a grand scale, creating a cascade of habitat and biodiversity values. Something that sometimes killed trees, but from that death, gave life to a multitude of plants, creatures and habitats. Something that for millennia shaped North American landscapes, only to be removed in recent centuries by newcomers—people who didn’t understand the very agents by which their beloved “nature” was shaped and maintained. People who didn’t understand that their future in this place was inextricably tied to the natural processes and cultures through which the places were created. People who couldn’t accept the discomfort of not being in control—of not knowing what might happen next. People who clearly couldn’t coexist with beavers.
Gee if you told me all that and more I’d nod enthusiastically and say “Yup”. That’s pretty much the what. Of course I deal in beavers, she hadn’t really considered their impact until a friend gave her Ben Goldfarb’s book to read.
I have to say the scale of the beaver’s influence had never really occurred to me, although I think about the scale of fire all the time. California’s first recorded “gigafire”—the August Complex—was uncomfortably close to my hometown this summer.
Like fire, beavers provide a cascade of benefits to other plants and animals. As an example: my friend Damon Goodman, about whom I wrote a blog earlier this year, is one of the lead lamprey biologists in the west coast. His work on lamprey has in recent years found him with beavers, who moved into a set of human-made sediment storage ponds in the upper Trinity River watershed east of where we live. The beavers built dams on the outlets of the ponds, causing a political ruckus but also creating incredible habitat for the lamprey, who thrive in the fine, silty sediment trapped by the dams. Based on samples they took in the beaver ponds, Damon and his colleague Steward Reid found an average of 17 juvenile lamprey (and a maximum of 81) in every square meter of pond, and they estimate that there are more than 60 thousand lamprey in the 3,500 square meter pond complex. Likewise, the ponds support three different species of lamprey and 10 native species of fish, including life history strategies that are very rare in the Trinity River. Mammals like mountain lions, deer and raccoons are using the dams as crossings, and a wide range of hawks, birds and amphibians are also making use of the ponds. Like fire, beavers leverage disturbance to unleash life.
Hmm I’ve been thinking about the inconvenience of beavers in the context of how much we need them. But I’m not sure fire is the right metaphor. It is a little too hated and destructive and god knows people don’t need any more reason to dislike them.
No. I was thinking of the metaphor of RAIN. Beavers are like RAIN. They can sometimes inconvenient and they can ruin your plans or even cause flooding but we NEED them so MUCH in California.
In Goldfarb’s book, he says some people use “beaver” as a verb; he cites Brock Dolman, a California “beaver believer,” who says that the word beaver can be used to “see the organism as an actor, as a manipulator, as an entity affecting processes over an unfolding continuum of space and time” (p. 59). While I find this usage grammatically awkward, I love the concept, and it makes me wonder: do we need to reframe the way we see fire?
And let’s face it: if fire were an animal, it would be a beaver.
Well I’m interested in the regenerative powers of fire, and I’ve seen it in real life after their devastation of point reyes. But I am still not sure we should make people any more afraid of beavers than they already are.
