I generally did poorly at algebra and dreaded math as the bane of all existence. I avoided or dropped such classes with alarming regularity, and when a professor announced that I could never succeed in her course without at least algebra II I admit I burst into tears. But somehow I eventually found my way to a champion statistics instructor who wanted students to be able to do all calculations by hand and I instead of faiiing . I strangely excelled. Unlike every other class I had ever been in for my entire life I did every scrap of homework and even did some of it twice. I got every answer correct on every final and went on to became the friendly research assistant of the teacher. When I graduated I even received an award. Statistics just made sense to me.

Add this to the mysterious fact that when Jon, who all his life had excelled at math and science, took stats in college he received his lowest grade ever. Go figure, Math and statistics: I honestly think the fields tap into different parts of the brain. They are as different as water-skiing and carpentry.

Which is why it’s time to talk about scatterplots.

A scatterplot consists of an X axis (the up and down axis), a Y axis (the side to side axis), and a series of dots. Each dot on the scatterplot represents one observation from a data set. Sometimes the two variables aren’t related at all, (like height and IQ), and then the scatterplot looks like an amorphous jelly fish-like blob. But sometimes they’re VERY related, so that when one goes up the other follows, like smoking and cancer, and then the scatterplot looks like almost like a straight line or an arrow pointing to obvious conclusions.

The scatterplot of learning about beavers based on your geographic location is generally consistent by region. If you are in the midwest, for example, you likely know very very little. But if you are in Washington state you know a whole bunch. There are pockets of various arrows and pockets of jellyfish. Recently certain areas of the world have started to get much, much smarter indeed and that brings us to the beaver scatterplot.

Take Scotland for instance.

Beavers to ‘spread naturally’ across Scotland after Tory bid to prevent legal protection fails

Beavers will be allowed to “spread naturally” across Scotland, the SNP’s Environment Minister has said after a Tory bid to prevent them being given legal protection was rejected.

Roseanna Cunningham dismissed as “somewhat apocalyptic” warnings that the move would cost farmers thousands of pounds and hit some of Scotland’s best salmon rivers.

She told MSPs that there would be no attempt to “formally contain them in certain areas”, although she said “pop-up populations in completely separate” parts would not be tolerated.

Now it’s good that beavers will be tolerated across the country and that granted protected species status, but a nation that has lived 400 years without beavers doesn’t exactly know what “Spreading naturally” looks like, so the odds of beaver showing up and being considered “unnatural” are fairly high. It’s already been happening for the last 10 years in fact. Add to this the fact that there are some regions that are so geographically inaccessible or so blocked off with motorways that beavers will never get back unless they’re introduced. Don’t they deserve beavers? Our beaver friends in Scotland aren’t thrilled with this pronouncement, but as I always say:

Baby steps for babies.

She told MSPs: “What we anticipate now is that beavers will simply be allowed to spread naturally…Now they are here they must be left simply to spread into a natural range.

Meanwhile, for an army of young conservationists in America, their future looks bright with beavers, that is if the famed ‘green new deal’ has anything to say about it.

National service for the environment – what an army of young conservationists could achieve

A modern volunteer army of conservationists could get to work in every country, adjusting their efforts according to the environmental needs of each setting. The first task set could be in environmental monitoring – collecting data on pollution and wildlife abundance. These surveys would provide invaluable information about the health of ecosystems and how they are changing.

Ecosystems could then benefit from projects which reintroduce species and restore habitats. Mass tree planting could absorb atmospheric carbon and provide new habitat for returning wildlife. Wetlands – coastal ecosystems which protect against sea level rise – could be expanded with vegetation which would also create sanctuaries for migratory birds. Reintroduced beavers and other ecosystem engineers could act as animal recruits who create new habitats, such as dams and lakes, which allow even more species to thrive.

How would you like to be a new college graduate working for a summer reintroducing beavers! Fixing drought one beaver at a time. I can’t think of anything better – for the planet OR for a young ecologist.

Finally, I read this morning that our own Morro Bay in California is about to get a lot smarter, thanks to Kate Lundquist of the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center.

Morro Bay Science Explorations with the Estuary Program

Join the Morro Bay National Estuary Program for our Morro Bay Science Explorations talk!

Title of talk: Wildlife Conservation and Restoration in Our Creeks.

Kate Lundquist, Director of WATER Institute, Occidental Arts & Ecology Center.
Topic: The history of beaver in California and the importance of beaver to watershed restoration.

- March 21, 2019
- 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
- Free

WONDERFUL! The estuary is always getting a great deal of press for cute baby sea otters, its about time they saw some beavers coming their direction! Good luck Kate, and don’t forget to mention the most famous estuary beavers, ahem.

The Gnawing Question of Saltwater Beavers

Scientists have long overlooked beavers in the intertidal zone. Now they’re counting on the freshwater rodents to restore Washington’s coastal ecosystems.

Yet beavers aren’t just coastal wanderers, they’re also residents—potential health consequences be damned. Greg Hood, senior research scientist at the Skagit River System Cooperative in Washington, says biologists have overlooked beavers in the state’s tidal shrublands, a liminal zone washed twice daily by the ocean. Until recently, Hood adds, estuarine beavers were considered bizarre anomalies, when they were considered at all. “You don’t find what you don’t look for,” he says.

In freshwater environs, the dam builders are the ultimate keystone species, their ponds and wetlands furnishing habitat for creatures from mink frogs to wood ducks to moose. Hood’s research suggests beavers are equally indispensable along the coast, engineering deep pools for fish, including juvenile salmon, in estuaries plagued by habitat loss. Acknowledging the importance—indeed the existence—of coastal beavers might just be vital to re-creating a lost intertidal world: an ecosystem sculpted by rodent teeth, undone by human hands.

True, our beavers never made it as far as the ocean but they had to contend with plenty of salt water and plenty of tides. Find 15 minutes and listen to this whole important story, intricately written by Ben and eloquently read by Heather Walter.

What this dam lacks in aesthetics, however, it makes up for in hydraulic brilliance. With the tide out, Bailey explains, this dam holds back water that would otherwise run to the sea, forming a deep bathtub in which beavers shelter from black bears and coyotes. Come back six hours later, and the returning tide will have filled this channel, completely submerging the dam. “You could kayak right over the top of it and not even know it was there,” Bailey says.

In other words, the estuary’s beavers seem to anticipate tidal fluctuations, erecting their dams in places that ensure water remains even when the tide reaches its ebb. The US Army Corps of Engineers could hardly have done it better.

Beavers’ diets consist of the inner bark of trees such as willow (above), as well as cottonwood, aspen, alder, and other deciduous species. Photo by Suzi Eszterhas/Minden Pictures

Tadaa! Recognize that handsome face? That’s our second mother carrying willow (notice the reddish tinge and visible teats?) branches lovingly chopped by the always helpful treasurer of Worth A Dam in our humble Alhambra Creek. Notice that this is a rare photo that shows upper teeth. And isn’t it fitting that this loving article about beavers doing the impossible should feature a photo of our beavers doing the impossible?

In a sense, then, our coastal beaver blind spot is an artifact of history—a form of “ecological amnesia,” as Frances Backhouse put it in her book Once They Were Hats. Just as sun-blotting flocks of passenger pigeons and earth-shaking herds of bison vanished from our skies and prairies, the combination of marsh drainage and trapping wiped beavers from our coastlines and, eventually, our memories.

We will remember. Don’t worry. Go listen to the whole thing. It’s really worth it.