Looks like yesterday’s review helped Ben Golfarb’s book a bit on the old Amazon-meter, which is excellent for beavers. I also learned that he will be interviewed on National Geographic Books in July, now we just need him to get some June gigs so we can promote the festival a bit!
In the meantime there’s plenty to keep our attention. Starting with something I never thought I’d see: A watch-out-for-beavers-in-traffic report from Tulsa Oklahoma.
Of course beavers are notoriously low to the ground and dispersers are extremely prone to getting hit by cars, but I’ve never ever seen articles warning about this, and I certainly never expected one from Oklahoma, where they hate beavers so much they go out of their way to kill them whenever they can.
Not that this article is exactly kind towards them either…
Why a beaver crosses the road, and other car-thumping wonders of spring
While driving along local roadways this time of year, it’s not uncommon to see a brown furry animal walking near the road, possibly lying on it or off to the side, preferably not running in front of your headlights.
You might wonder about these animals normally seen in or near the water and ask, “Why did a beaver cross a road?”Answer: Because it just couldn’t stick around any longer.
Terry Ball, director of streets and stormwater for city of Tulsa, knows about beavers dispersing and building new homes. It picks up in the spring, but keeping tabs on beaver construction is actually a year-round chore, he said.
“The creeks are the biggest issue,” he said. “They can dam up a creek pretty quickly, and it can flood a neighborhood.”
Flood-control ponds are another issue.“On a retention pond they might change how it flows, and we don’t want them to do anything to change how that pond is supposed to work,” Ball said.
Beavers live in colonies, but as it comes time for a new batch of young ones, the older 2- and 3-year-olds in the group take the hint and hit the road, and sometimes they get hit on the road instead.
Huh, that’s actually true, although if I ever get a beaver publicist alone in a room I’m going to demand to know why on EARTH anyone first said that beaver live in “Colonies”. That makes it sound like hundreds grouped together. Like penquins on the shores of Antartica. When of course we all know that the word colony when applied to beavers just means FAMILY, which is a helluva lot less scary sounding.
Anyway, its Oklahoma so trust them to make beavers sound pretty bad.
Older, larger beavers sometimes get displaced by construction or flood events and may be on the move as well as the younger ones. If you come across a big adult, you best hit the brakes. “We had someone that reported harvesting a 69-pound beaver caught this year,” Davis said. “That’s a big, dominant critter.”
New cars aren’t built for hitting those critters, he said.
“Any of the new cars sit so low to the ground — anything you hit, it’s rolling up under there and tearing that plastic up. … That’s just the way cars are constructed these days.”
“Especially the smaller new vehicles, they’ll damage the car or cause a bigger accident,” Murray said. “They’re stout — nothing but muscle. It’d be like hitting a fuzzy concrete block.”
Huh?
He’s right about one thing. Beavers are LOW to the ground. I’ve often thought of that beavers need those tall flags that we used to put on the back of kids bicycles when I was younger, just to make them really obvious in traffic,
And I’m sure beavers are quite flattered to hear that he thinks they’re nothing but muscle. They take so much teasing at the gym for that classic waddle and stored fat to live off in snowy winters.
“But, hey,” they’ll say now, “it’s all solid muscle!”
When I was a teenager my father was the oversight supervisor for the first major windmill built in Northern California. It was a towering structure with a single blade longer than a football field. It stood atop a barren hill in Cordelia where the wind was sometimes so strong it could hold you upright if you leaned out into it. Standing under it was like being below a giant scythe at harvest that swept by again and again just missing you every time. Years after it was built my father loved to bring guests to its strange wonder, proud of his role in its launch. I remember one of the things I was most struck by at that time was learning that PGE had to hire biologists to identify any birds that were killed by that giant blade and report them. I remember thinking that counting dead birds was a very strange way to make a living.
Think about that a moment. Since the end of WWI we have agreed with many other countries that killing birds was a big deal. MBTA has enjoyed such broad support in so many regions of the world that I admit even I was surprised by this. (I’ve been known to watch jealously as birders made friends with politicians because of the luxuries afforded by that standard.) Saving birds is usually much easier than saving beavers. Both sides of the aisle have often acted like a friend to birds. I guess birds don’t build dams and they usually fly somewhere else before they get too annoying. Audubon has never been the Sierra Club – nor had to be. They are polite and mind their manners working with industry and big business to help winged creatures they care about. 
Announcing that business has a permanent ‘open season’ on birds is a huge deal for birds AND humans. I have to say I’m curious how this will affect the ‘polite’ birders of the world. Maybe they’ll get a little more noisy and start to sound more like the people who protect beavers or coyotes.
Which makes enormous sense because if the Martinez beavers symbolize nothing else, they surely represent a sense of community! With glowing eyes, I immediately suggested a million jobs for which they could be wonderfully appreciated, and maybe they had a flag or shirts with their logo and wanted to run in the parade? I know Jon would be VERY happy about any cheerful worker who wanted to help set up or take down the event! This is the kind of thing that makes the beaver festival seem imminently possible. Here they are gathered for their coffee run in May.
When we found the beaver family near Beauly, we spoke with Scottish Natural Heritage and proposed engaging with local people to discuss whether these animals could be allowed to stay where they are or look at other options that could work well for both the animals and the community. But shortly after the news reached the Scottish Government, Ms Cunningham announced that the beavers are to be trapped and removed. She is determined to avoid a repeat of the experience on Tayside, where arable farmers have seen crops damaged by an unauthorised beaver release with no measures in place to manage the impacts the species can have on farming. This is understandable – but we disagree with the idea that this should drive a decision to remove a beaver family in a completely different area.
Trees for Life said a mother and at least two kits have been observed on a river near Beauly. It has asked that the mammals be allowed to remain where they are or be relocated.
