The people of The Beaver State should know more about their official animal than anybody else. Alas, the years of trapping and hunting beavers for their fur reduced their numbers in Oregon greatly… and changed the landscape in the process.

Without beavers building all those dams to hold water for the dry months, things look different. We get a full beginner course in understanding the behaviors and benefits of beavers in Ben Goldfarb’s book Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter.

We return to our interview from 2018.

So you’ll need to find a station to listen on or wait until it’s over and download the program. I am very happy that they are running this again, because apparently beavers are the kind of lesson you have to hear over and over before you learn anything at all.

Meanwhile there is yet more fame for the rescue beaver. This from the Met magazine.

Rescued Baby Beaver Keeps Building “Dams” With RandomObjects From Rescuer’s House

Meet Beave, a rescue beaver who has over 700,000 TikTok followers. Beave was just three weeks old when he was found by a woman at the side of the road in May 2020. He was brought to Nancy (of Raising the Wild), a licensed wildlife rehabilitation specialist, who has committed to looking after him for at least two years. This is the amount of time it takes for adult beavers to teach their young everything they need to know to survive.

It’s exceptionally rare to find an abandoned baby beaver, as adult beavers tend to be highly protective of their young. This led Nancy to believe that Beave’s parents were likely killed by poachers. “I will be teaching Beave his basic life skills to survive after his release in two years,” Nancy tells My Modern Met. “Beave is bonded to me, so I am ‘mom’ to him.” Right now, Beave is extremely reliant on Nancy for food and comfort, and often prefers to sleep inside the house rather than outside. While he has the opportunity to swim in an outdoor pond, he often uses the “doggie door” to come inside when he feels the need to have contact.

Not poachers, Nancy. There is no wildlife park where beavers are protected and only criminals get to kill them. Every one with a piece of paper gets to kill them. The only reason you aren’t surrounded by orphans more often is that beavers are so dependent on their family that they die quickly when their families are taken away, or are adopted by siblings if any survive.

There’s lots of cuteness for you to behold, like Beave building with pillows and plungers in her living room. Click on the headline because he’s got his own youtube channel now. I’ll just leave you with this:

@beaverbabyfurryloveDam Building ##2 ##doitbold ##dialitforward ##animalsdoingthings ##HorrorTok ##fyp ##foryou♬ original sound – Beave