Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. (Well, slightly exaggerated anyway.) 20 days ago I fell while doing something very unimpressive and broke both the bones in my calf and some in my ankle. I wish I could tell you I was doing something brave or exotic at the time, like rescuing a kitten from a flash flood event, but alas no. I was just getting ready to sit down at my desk and, big surprise, write about beavers. But fate had other plans for me.
With all the breaking I was referred for surgery but not right away because everything needed to stop swelling, so I was in brace for two weeks and then went for some bionic surgery where many pieces of hardware were used to put Humpty Dumpty together again. Two weeks later I had healed enough to be fit with a cast which allowed partial weight bearing. And that was Wednesday. No walking until May 1st.
Jon and Bodie
So I am currently practicing standing and pivoting and transferring From bed to chair. It is harder work than it should be and all the stormy weather means my skilled nursing facility has lost power three nights. Jon and Bodie have both come to visit and I have my iPad to stay up on beaver news of course.
Thank goodness Rusty and Bob have stepped in and so valiantly filled in for me. There is so much going on we need to know about. Thanks guys, thanks patient reader(s), and god willing I’ll be back in my own home in a week or so and see you all at the beaver festival.
For a bit of Martinez Beaver Festival nostalgia I offer this clip from when my wife Jane and I visited in 2015.
People don’t tend to be great at imagining a beaver’s life. We tend to describe their actions and intentions in human terms, or with only a dim understanding of why they do it. In terms of an internal monologue one of the pieces I found most enjoyable about watching beavers was that they were mercifully free of one. They Acted. Or chewed. Or worked. They didn’t seem to think and dwell about it much.
Still I find this writing utterly charming. You might too…
As the morning sun rises over the rocky horizon, you find yourself cuddled up with your family. Mom, Dad, and siblings all stretch into the new day, but you being the baby of the family, you get a few more minutes of shut-eye. You are a baby beaver, a kit, huddled against the cold frost that tries to permeate the den you call home. It’s going to be a long day, but your family will show you the ropes and care for you every step of the way.
The first thing all baby beavers need to know is that Mom and Dad are committed to the family. You have been able to see their devotion to one another ever since you were born, with eyes wide open, ready to take on the pond. Your parents share responsibility for you and your siblings, putting in equal effort to nurture and provide for the colony. The parents are going to be busy today, so your older siblings, the yearlings, will take care of you. It is important that you spend as much time as possible learning from them since next year they will leave the den in search of starting their own families. Your oldest brother, Brother Beaver, will take you out first.
It’s funny but I can see footage in my mind that tracks with every one of her observations. Older Sibling did take them out of the lodge at first, we have lovely film of them spinning the kit in the water to make sure he could dive and swim. Except for the first year when there were no siblings, then it was Dad who did that.
Brother is all about playtime and he says having fun is the best way for beavers to learn about the world around them. You chase each other around until reaching the underwater stockpile of sticks that have been stored beneath the layer of ice above you. Using your hands you are able to carry enough for breakfast and Brother teaches you that your body was specially designed for the water. By closing a special flap in your mouth, you learn to carry even more sticks between your teeth without having water rush into your mouth. This will certainly come in handy next time the dam requires repairs.
Once you arrive back at the den, your older sister starts to groom you. She grooms you every day so you know how to take the oils you secrete and use them to waterproof your coat. After waterproofing, she takes your paw and whisks you away.Sister is the brains of the family, a real gnaw-it-all, and she thinks you have not been keeping your teeth down.
“As the largest rodent in North America,” she explains, “our teeth grow especially long and they never stop growing. We always need to find wood to gnaw on to maintain our teeth.”
You two swim to the edge of the bank to her favorite log to chew on and the swim there helps you practice holding your breath underwater. One day you will be able to make the entire 15-minute swim without stopping for a breath, but today you surface the water before joining her again.
I actually love how accurate this is. I’m inclined to say we never saw any difference between the sexes but we never knew for sure who was who except for being able to identify mom. She definitely was the more trusting one. But since we had two moms to compare with over the years we learned how different they were. Mom 2 was much more protective and wary of the kids than Mom 1.
mated pair bonding
Back at the den, Mom and Dad are waiting for the kids. Dad warns about the dangers of predators on land. Mom is a bit more “go with the flow” — she wants you all to know that the work we do each day is not just for our own benefit. She says, “We are a keystone species and we create habitat for many kinds of creatures like birds, bugs, and toads. We have a duty to protect our family because we make life possible for so many others.”
Any beaver is lucky to have such a loving family dynamic. It is important to soak up the messages from your family because next year, you will be teaching, playing with, grooming, and snuggling new sibling kits.
Well if you could say all that without actual words or having to say anything at all. I agree, that’s exactly what beavers would say. Family is important. Work is important. Safety is important. Food is important.
I am always reminded of the difference between talking/thinking and being when I consider beavers. It is kind of like the story told by Marilyn from Northern exposure in the episode I re-watched last night.
The Eagle wasn’t always the Eagle. The Eagle, before he became the Eagle, was Yucatangee, the Talker. Yucatangee talked and talked. It talked so much it heard only itself. Not the river, not the wind, not even the Wolf. The Raven came and said “The Wolf is hungry. If you stop talking, you’ll hear him. The wind too. And when you hear the wind, you’ll fly.”
So he stopped talking. And became its nature, the Eagle. The Eagle soared, and its flight said all it needed to say
Well Monday night the city council in Belleville Ontario revisited the beaver issue and got an earful from its residents demanding the city stop their failed trapping program. I heard from Doug that they were adamant there were no other alternatives and can see from this article that it was a frustrating repeat of prior efforts.
It’s been written countless times, “You can’t fight City Hall.”
Local beavers who can’t read unwittingly lived and died the adage in 2022 the hard way.
According to a new city report submitted to city council Monday, 18 nuisance beavers were trapped by the City of Belleville this year before the animals could do any more shoreline damage or flood wetland areas near city homes.
There was no official confirmation at the council meeting that all of the creatures met their demise although city officials indirectly said there was unfortunately no way to properly relocate them long term to safety after trapping.
The report by Joe Reid, city general manager of transit and operations, follows several years of attempts by Members of Friends of Bell Creek to lobby the city to deploy alternative ways of saving beavers through new methods without killing them.
Well sure we tried but you know how it is with old habits. They’re hard to break. You might be calling for change. But we’ve blocked your number, have a nice day.
New measures such as flow pipes to de-flood beaver dams were brought in by the city to save the animals after international headlines condemned Belleville municipality in 2018 for not doing enough to prevent euthanizing of trapped beavers.
Pressed by city councillors Monday if all beavers trapped this year were euthanized, Reid did not confirm all were disposed of after conventional trapping and removal.
Instead, he informed council mitigating measures introduced by the city in response to Members of Friends of Bell Creek concerns in 2019 to release water from flooded wetlands was a failed exercise despite best intentions to save the animals.
“What is the policy on our removal of beavers? Are they to be euthanized and relocated and if relocated where do they go?” queried Coun. Lisa Ann Chatten.
Yes I have a few questions about that too,
Reid replied, “through best practices that were provided as a guideline through the Ministry of Natural Resources, unfortunately beavers can only be relocated up to one kilometre in distance. So, they are very territorial. What happens is that if they are moved to another beaver’s area, they are unfortunately going to fight to the death.”
In remote areas where there is no flood concerns of built-up area, Reid said the city can sometimes leave the beavers in peace “and let Mother Nature take its course. But there are other places that unfortunately we can’t.”
For example, at South George Street along the Bayshore Trail, Reid said beavers were “cutting down trees and so forth. We did try to put some fence up to try and mitigate that. It was becoming quite hazardous, trees were falling. We were worried about somebody walking and using the trail and a tree coming down on them.”
So you wrapped the trees with wire to protect them and the trees were still falling down on peoples heads even though they were protected? Did new trees grow in the interim or did beavers use pliers to cut through the wire? Or are you maybe lying and wrapped on or two and then had to do something else and forget about it?
It sounds very hazardous.
“Unfortunately, it got to the point it was unmanageable,” Reid said, and the beavers had to be removed from the area.
Reid said beavers were also removed this year from Stanley Park Marsh, 502 College Street West, Mudcat Lane and Harmony Road.
Naturalists in the city say the city is not living up to its wildlife policy that prescribes the municipality take a hands-off approach to animals such as beavers unless last-resort measures such as trapping are needed.
Heavy criticism of the city has been ongoing since September 2018 when residents Doug and Carolyn Knutson and Chris and Susan Finkle appeared in a delegation to city council to present a video of their July 2018 rescue of a beaver in a leg-hold trap set by the city.
Oh those crazy naturalists with their nature demands. You know how they are. Always asking cities to do the right thing even though it takes 5 minutes more than doing the wrong thing over and over. They are so demanding.
At the time, the residents said beavers in Stanley Park Marsh were being trapped inhumanely and drowned triggering a www.change.org petition that garnered more than 70,000 signatures internationally.
In 2019, the city approved its revised wildlife policy to end indiscriminate trapping to save beavers.
Documentary filmmaker Doug Knutson and friends penned a letter to city council ahead of Monday’s meeting expressing concerns more beavers are being killed.
“The report claims that, ‘Over the last year, 18 beavers were humanely trapped and moved.’ We very concerned about what ‘moved’ actually means. Where were these beavers moved to – and what happened to them once there? Moving beavers at certain times of the year or at certain ages can be very detrimental to beavers. Besides, Ontario law prohibits moving beavers more than 1 km away – so a pointless effort. We believe that the fate of these “moved” beavers is far more grim,” the friends wrote.
Okay. You got us. We didn’t actually mean removed. We meant killed. You finally got the truth out of us. Feel better now?
“We highly suspect that “moved” simply means taken to some location and killed. What does “humanely euthanized” mean? These are difficult things to consider but they are being done continuously on our behalf. Adding 18 beavers trapped (killed) this year to the 10 beavers trapped (killed) in the previous two years, gives a total of 28 beavers trapped (most likely killed) since the policy was adopted! It’s hard to conceive how this could be construed as a success story – rather it is a mark of shame on Belleville’s reputation,” wrote the friends.
“We call on you to look again at the Humane Wildlife Conflict Policy/ Trapping of Nuisance Animals policy. We feel that it needs a complete overhaul with input from experts being considered. The issue is NOT (sic) going away and killing our way out of it is NOT (sic) acceptable. Belleville can do better. Belleville NEEDS (sic) to do better!” Knutson and friends said.
Oh Doug and everyone. You are doing SUCH a great job of keeping the pressure on. I know it is beyond frustrating and you feel demoralized and enraged every time you limp off the field. We’ve been there. I have left city meetings where it felt that my entire mouth and throat was filled with ashes. It is hard soul draining work. But just you remember this.
First they ignore you Then they laugh at you Then they fight with you Then you win
Did you listen to yesterday’s forum? It was such an amazing discussion and flow devices were mentioned straight away! Even before I called in! It was great to hear all the commenters and realize I KNEW who they were personally! We were a secret beaver brigade! If you missed it here’s the link. There wasn’t ONE stupid thing said except for by the host who thought when people came to America they had never seen beavers before. Clearly she didn’t read Ben’s book.
Which gives us time to talk about this article that appeared a couple days ago. Even the headline has me tingling.
inspired to see how her students at Smith would do with the effort.
Doesn’t that sound like the best college course ever? I would be early every day!
Oooh Ooh! I have one! Call on me! I know how we can improve beavers lives! “Stop Killing them!”
I was daydreaming yesterday about the horrific vigilante law in Texas that allows friends and neighbors and gossips to turn women they suspect of seeking or helping a woman seek an abortion and collect the reward in court. It’s promotes deep mistrust under the guise of being PRO LIFE. And I thought, HEY if we could turn in friends and neighbors and cities for trapping beavers off their property or even applying for a depredation permit, and then take them to environmental court and collect the reward money which can then be used to install a flow device that would be pretty PRO LIFE too. I mean we know that beaver dams create biodiversity and store water to keep things alive so anything anyone does to threaten them destroys that right? And we’re not SO far away that any act to waste water is an act against the state, right?
Suddenly the vigilante law seemed to have more promise,
Well until those dark days come lets hope to persuade folks with lots and lots of carrots.
AWI is working to develop federal legislation that would establish a national beaver conflict-mitigation grant program to help tribes, states, agencies, local governments, landowners, conservation organizations, and others pay for nonlethal beaver-conflict solutions. More than 100 small businesses, wildlife groups, and tribes representing 33 states have joined a letter in support of this idea. In addition, some organizations and tribes have drafted separate letters of support.
That’s really good to hear. You may not know this but a million years ago when Mike Callahan was just dreaming about doing his instructional video to teach people how to install flow devices, he received a grant from AWI to make it happen. They are the power player you never hear about on the beaver stage so I hope this works out. They have a long list of supporters for this idea, which includes some folks you might know at the end.
Let’s wish them every success, although I’m kinda liking my viglante idea, swooping to drop some justice on every intolerant farmer and city manager
Again there is little current beaver news beyond the annual pseudo scatological crap about vanilla flavoring. There is though some news from the creator and longtime maintainer of this blog! 
inspired to see how her students at Smith would do with the effort.
Well until those dark days come lets hope to persuade folks with lots and lots of carrots.
Let’s wish them every success, although I’m kinda liking my viglante idea, swooping to drop some justice on every intolerant farmer and city manager
