Category: Beaver-themed merchandise

These are unusual beaver-themed designed merchandise we like. Some of the items have been donated to Worth A Dam, and some we just hope they will be soon.

Happy Birthday, Tim!

heidi08 Beaver News, Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers February 2, 2014

Did you know that last month we celebrated the 100th birthday of the MIT beaver? (His name is Tim – get it? MIT backwards?). It’s an appropriate relationship because graduates from MIT and beavers both design things, maintain things, and come to think of it, a lot of folk really don’t want either of them around.

There’s an article about it here with a really fun slide show of Tim through the ages. I was able only to snag to photos that were my favorite, but you really should go look. A big thanks to Malcolm Kenton of D.C. who sent this my way and rightly thought I’d be interested.

The MIT Beaver Through the Years

MIT’s longtime mascot, the Beaver, turns 100 on January 17, 2014, and everyone is invited. Since its arrival, the beaver—now known as Tim—has become a familiar face around campus, both in person and in print. To honor his centennial, check out a gallery of rare images that honors Tim and highlights how much the beaver has changed over past 100 years.

Being an unimpressive graduate myself, I didn’t know about the MIT beaver until Captain Frye spoke passionately about the topic at the November 2007 beaver meeting lo these many years ago. He was a graduate complete with Brass Rat and described why beavers were highly respected engineers because they could dam a stream while the stream was still running, rather than forcing the water to detour while they worked like we do. I’m never forgot his sage advice.

Happy Birthday MIT beaver! Hope you had the ‘tim’ of your life! Given Massachusetts comically tragic relationship with beavers, I especially loved this photo.

This morning’s donation is a handcrafted beaver stained glass, designed by UpNorth Suncatchers. Designed, crafted and donated by Mark House in Michigan. I’m sure you know just the window it would work in, so get ready to bid high. Thanks Mark!

Letting the Colonies Recolonize!

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Environmental February 1, 2014

I think Louise Ramsay’s excellent article in the Ecologist has started a wonderful trend!

Beavers are re-introducing themselves – and we should let them

Jo Cartmell

Beavers are essential to thriving wetland ecosystems, writes Jo Cartmell, and will help not hinder flood control in densely populated England. We should all welcome their return.

Beavers create areas of natural habitat such as wetlands, pools and ponds with marginal vegetation, which enable other wetland species such as otters, fish, bats, water voles, frogs, dragonflies, water fowl and birds such as Reed Warblers to move in. The beaver is a vital part of a thriving wetland ecosystem.

Lovely start Jo! I’m enjoying this article already! Seems there was a beaver on the Thames that she saw with her own eyes in 2007. Now there’s one in Devon. Remember the English Channel is only 21 miles across. And there are many happy beavers in France. What ever you decide about the Scottish beaver trial, these animals might just decide to colonize themselves!

Their hydrological engineering helps to back water up, so that it slowly filters down to the rivers which prevents floodwaters from rushing downstream to flood our villages, towns and cities. Which is just what we need in this wet winter of 2014!

When you remove a species from the ecosystem, as we removed the beaver over 400 years ago by hunting it to extinction, it is going to have consequences.

You might think that wildlife needs to be placed back into large expanses of wilderness, but beavers are moving successfully into heavily populated areas in Holland. And now they are trying to do the same in England.

This just gets better and better….

We should welcome the return of beavers to our ecosystems to re-wild our lands and ourselves. We need to start rethinking our whole approach to environmental management – and rely more on freely provided natural processes, and less on human interference.

Jo! You are clearly a kindred spirit! What are you doing in August? Maybe you want to come to the beaver festival?

Jo Cartmell is a wildlife photographer, conservationist, amateur ecologist and natural historian with a particular interest in water voles. She has been involved in the recreation of several wildflower meadows and is co-warden of a local nature reserve.

I ran out of time for our share and tell party for the silent auction yesterday. Let’s get back on track with this very clever and sturdy bottle opener , a product of Brut Design in Montreal. Nicola crafts these indestructible beaver openers and kindly donated one to our silent auction. Jon’s eyes got a little big when it arrived, so get ready for a bidding war! Thanks Nicola!

Famous Beavers and Superb Owl week

heidi08 Beaver News, Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers elsewhere January 30, 2014

More flurry about the brave pioneer colonizing Devon at the moment. Isn’t that always the way? You work hard every day for familiar beavers that matter. And then some new beaver shows up and the world can’t seem to get enough of it! This from Scientific American:

First Wild Beaver in 800 Years Confirmed in England?

Few species recoveries have ever been as dramatic as that of the Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber). Once overhunted to near extinction, only 1,200 beavers remained by the year 1900. Today, after more than a century of intense management and reintroductions, the beaver population stands at more than one million (pdf), which can now be found in almost every country in their historic range in Europe and Asia.

One notable exception to that recovery, so far, has been England, where beavers were all killed off more than 800 years ago (they disappeared from the rest of the U.K. around 1600). Although a few small groups of captive beavers live in England and there are plans to eventually reintroduce some of the furry rodents back into the wild, none live there naturally, on their own.

Until now.

John Platt wrote a fine article. (I of course made sure to write him about salmon extinction and beaver, which he responded to this morning). I wish Scientific American (is that an oxymoron?) would realize that the REAL BEAVER STORY is the fact that we’re worried about salmon, worried about drought, worried about climate change, and maniacally killing off the water-savers that could rescue us all.

Well I guess we should enjoy the excitement while it lasts.

Apparently some people are enjoying it too much:

‘Don’t scare off our rare beaver’

Farmer David Lawrence, who owns the land where the beaver was spotted, said the sighting could provide an unexpected boost for his camp site business.

“It’s definitely a novelty,” he added. “The Otter is very busy with wildlife, it’s already a beautiful place to come and this is just another great thing for visitors.”

But he politely requested that would-be beaver spotters refrain from searching the area in case they disturb the animal.

“The last thing we want to do is upset him and for him to move on,” he said. “We’re not sure how he’d react to seeing people, and having seen what his teeth have done to the trees it may be best to avoid him!”

That’s right. You saw what he did to that man in Belarus didn’t you? You want to be next? Then back the hell away!

I certainly have felt that way with our beavers at times, but what I have learned is that the more people watching and caring about beavers, the safer they get. There’s always someone on hand to scold folks who walk on the dam or stand to close. And in England with all those animal-lovin’ sorts, even the little old ladies will be fierce about it. I wouldn’t worry too much about this beaver being scared off if I were you.

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Yesterday the mailman brought 5 packages of beaver donations to our house! It was weirdly like Christmas, only much, much more beavery! I’d thought I’d share first a double gift from Paula at Owls and Friends in Wisconsin. Beaver-photographer Ann Siegal from Virginia showed me some amazing beaver earrings they had, so I wrote them our story. They answered very kindly and said they were all out of beavers – but they loved our story so much could they send gifts anyway? Guess what I said.

How pretty are these?

Thanks Owls & Friends! They will be sooooo popular! And speaking of owls, did you see that Stephen Colbert has been talking about Superb Owl week and had the President & CEO of Audubon on last night?

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From Bad to Worse

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers elsewhere, Who's Killing Beavers Now? January 29, 2014

I weeded out the bad news yesterday but today there’s an extra helping. Let’s start with Gatineau Park. If that sounds familiar it should – it’s where Michel LeClare invented the limitors that became the basis for flow devices used by Mike and Skip.

NCC keeping a close eye on Gatineau Park’s beaver population

Over the last few decades, the National Capital Commission has learned to live in harmony with the park’s beaver, which number more than 1,100 in 272 active beaver colonies, according to a 2011 air inventory.

Where possible, the NCC favours an approach of coexistence. Last fall, the CBC’s The Nature of Things profiled the innovative efforts of Michel Leclair, a former NCC conservation officer who has designed and installed more than 200 water control devices that have helped minimize the beaver’s destructive impact.

The NCC uses lethal force most often at 56 of its 154 monitoring stations in Gatineau Park, where it takes a “zero tolerance” approach to the presence of beaver. “Basically it’s the areas where if a dam was to break or rupture, it would present the biggest problem in terms of public safety and infrastructure,” said Emily Keough, an NCC spokesperson.

Ahh the noble NCC. I believe their motto is “We’ll allow ourselves to get credit in the documentary for living with beavers, but we still want permission to kill a few.” How exactly are these zero tolerance areas marked so the beavers know not to build there? Are their signs or caution tape?

It occurs to me that some judiciously applied castoreum might do the trick. (A beaver won’t build there if they believe someone else already has) – but don’t let science interfere with your trapping party. I can see you’re on a mission. Well, a coMISSION.

How about this inscrutable news item from Kentucky? (Where’s Ian when you need him?)

Bad beaver busted

Bruce Ward of South Mayo Trail in Pikeville shows a beaver he killed on Monday. Ward said the beaver was becoming a nuisance in the area and after contacting Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife officials told him he could harvest the animal. The beaver, Ward said, is 55 inches long and 15 inches wide.

Where to begin? First of all, how exactly was the beaver bad? Was he hanging around with the wrong crowd? Do you mean the beaver was successful, and built a dam that held back water? Just in a place you didn’t like? And second of all, why is the fact that Bruce couldn’t solve a problem so he decided to kill it instead, news? I mean, is it news when someone catches the mice in their pantry? Or steps on a spider on the sidewalk? If these minor wildlife infractions don’t rise to the level of news, why does the death of the allegedly ‘bad’ beaver?

Could it be because you know better? Or could it be that you’re glancing over the state line at your neighbors in West Virginia saying, my god we had really better take care of the things that take care of our water!

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This morning’s donation is from Northwoods Carvings and hand carved walnut by master carver Marc Degagne in Canada. Can’t you just feel the smooth weight of this water-saver when you look at it? Thanks Marc and Claire! I know this will be a popular item.

And I sang this song all the time when we won the beaver battle in Martinez! Thanks for everything Pete.

The Culling Fields

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now? January 25, 2014

Siberia has just announced that it will kill 5500 beavers to “prevent the spread of disease”. No word yet on what disease exactly they’re stopping, or why a disease that beavers caught in their water system wouldn’t be a problem already without the beavers.

5,500 Siberian Beavers to Be Culled to Avoid Disease Outbreak

MOSCOW, January 24 (RIA Novosti) – Several thousand beavers in western Siberia are facing a cull by the summer in a drive to avoid an outbreak of disease, local media reported Friday.

Gazeta Kemerova news website cited a statement by the Kemerovo Region’s environmental protection department as saying as many as 5,500 beavers could be killed to thin out the ranks of the animal.

Overpopulation of beavers is also reportedly responsible for numerous road-flooding incidents caused by their dams. No up-to-date information on the beaver population of Kemerovo Region is available.

Ohhhhhh. The dangerous FLOODING DISEASE! Gosh, people were really scared of that contagion in Martinez. (I hear it’s catching.) And please re-read that last line. We have no idea how many beavers there are in Siberia we just know there are too many!

Wikipedia tells me that Siberia is 5.1 million square miles, and most of Russia. Not sure how they’ll even keep track of the numbers with all those dead beavers.

The rodent is a bigger hazard than it looks.

Last April, an irritated beaver killed a man in western Belarus. The animal bit through a major artery while the man was taking a selfie with the rodent, causing fatal wounds to the photographer.

That’s right, we will justify our bad decision by referencing his. The man in Belarus should never have tried to pick up that beaver and his friends should have completed the second grade and learned how to apply a tourniquet, but that’s what happens when men make mistakes: beavers get killed. 5500 or however many we feel like. Never mind that the population will likely rebound and we will have solved nothing. Never mind that there are hundreds of Europeans who could teach us how to install flow devices. Never mind that Russia needs clean water as much as any other country.

Our minds (such as they are) are made up.

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Now Lithuania is just a little east of Siberia, and I received a nice note this morning on a donation from an artist there. Giedrė Karramba creates a miniature animal zoo from sterling silver. I asked for these earrings and she has kindly wrote back offering a pair of earrings and a pendant.

Just remember when you wear them, they were made in Lithuania so this adorable pair is castor fiber.