Claim beavers made Alyth flooding worse

A row has broken out over whether beavers are partly to blame for exacerbating Friday’s devastating flood in Alyth.

The Scottish Association for Country Sports (SACS) said several members have contacted them claiming debris washed through the town showed clear signs of having been chewed by the aquatic rodents.

Others have claimed that felled trees left lying in a bid to encourage biodiversity also aggravated the raging torrent.

However, beaver supporters have leapt to the animals’ defence, refuting claims that material from dams upstream of the town were brought down by the floodwater.

Louise and Paul were worried about this being used unfairly, and they were right. Is there a better example of the misunderstanding of cause and effect? We saw some beaver chewed sticks floating in the flood so  that means it was caused by beavers? We saw some felled trees taken in the flooding so it was caused by beavers?  That’s like saying we noticed jewels missing after the robbery so we think the jewels did it! Or a whole grove of trees were burned in the fire so they must have started it!

Paul Ramsay, who owns the Bamff estate where some beavers live, said it was a “ridiculous exaggeration” to blame the animals.  He said: “There could conceivably have been a twig or two that had come from beavers, I wouldn’t deny that was a possibility, but the catchment area of the Alyth Burn covers about 36 sq km.

 “The contribution from Bamff to that is tiny.

 “As for the debris, as the water flowed down through the Den of Alyth it picked up an enormous amount of wood. It is exaggerated out of all proportion.”

Honestly, burning witches at the stake is starting to make more sense.

OF COURSE beaver chewed sticks were washed out during the flooding. So did  dog-chewed sticks. Gardening sticks and walking sticks. So were tires and benches and rolls of toilet paper rolls. That doesn’t men they CAUSED the flooding you silly scottish beaver-phobes. This is bad even by their standards.

Honestly people never miss the opportunity to blame a problem on their favorite enemy do they? It’s like Pat Robertson saying hurricane Katrina was caused by the gays.

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Here in beaver festival preparation land  things are humming along. We received the lovely brochures from the printers yesterday which look amazing. Did two interviews yesterday morning and finished the signs for display. Also an accidental delivery from Weavers coffee lead to a big donation, and great conversation about the evils of Peet’s and bird-killing rat poison, meaning that wildlife lovers need to find new sources and the auction was a great way to do that.

More importantly we made a beaver discovery that I’m very happy about.

It all starts with a fairytale of sorts and a literary reference. In Hope Ryden’s beautiful beaver book “Lily pond” she often notes that when beavers disperse or get sick they go away to the “Upper ponds”. I was obviously worrying about not seeing mom and dad beaver the last time we went to watch, so I dreamed reassuringly of them being in the “upper ponds”. It was only when I woke up that I realized Martinez doesn’t have any upper ponds. Darn.

But then I thought, we may not have an upper pond, but we DO have Ward street? So last night at 8 pm Jon went creeping to ward street bridge where he blissfully saw Mom, Dad and a two year old browsing about on the brambles and happy as you please. When you think about it, since ward street has no dam to tend or mud to move, it must like their vacation home.We had seen Jr and the other two year old at the footbridge the night before.

So that means our family of 5 is all happy and accounted for. Hurray!