Have you ever noticed how people complain about beavers until they want something from them? Yes, we noticed that too. It’s like that annoying roommate you had in college who always talked smack about you and hung out with her other buds until she needed help with her latin paper and ooh then she was your BEST friend ever.

England is doing that with beavers and flooding lately.

Beavers in Gloucestershire’s Forest of Dean ‘settling in well’

A second pair of beavers released in the Forest of Dean as part of a scheme to tackle flood risk are said to be settling in well – and building dams.

The beavers replaced a pair introduced in 2018, the first in Gloucestershire for 400 years, as part of a wider plan to return the animal to the UK’s wild.

But they had to to be trapped and moved after seven months when one was found to have tapeworm, a parasitic disease.

The new pair took their place at the same site near Lydbrook in the autumn.

Beavers were hunted to extinction in the UK in the 16th Century. But efforts have been made to reintroduce them to the wild in areas including Somerset, Yorkshire and Cumbria, while they have also been living wild in areas around the River Tay in Scotland for some years since escaping or being illegally released some years ago.

Oooh sure. You probably GAVE them the tape worm in the first place. But sure get rid of those beavers and start over. How’s it going so far?

Forestry England said their replacements had been captured in Scotland, from different areas of the River Tay. It said the “necessary health checks” had been carried out and the female had been released in the autumn followed by the male a few weeks later.

Rebecca Wilson, from Forestry England, said cameras at the site showed the beavers were “dam building and tree felling” and had “settled in well”.

“Nocturnal dam building is creating deep pools of water, slowing the brook’s flow,” she said. “The tree felling followed by coppicing trees will bring benefits for a variety of wildlife that depends upon more complex habitats.”

Well sure. Now that you have some do-over beavers let them get to work. I’m so old I can remember when a servant or pet got a tape worm you treated him with 9.99 worth of pills instead of killed and replaced. But what do I know?

It is hoped the animals will help prevent flooding in the area by improving biodiversity and building dams and ponds.

The authority said it would be monitoring the “hydrological and ecological changes” the beavers make.

As in, none of the kids really like Martin, and we never, ever play with him. But we invited him to Scott’s birthday party because “It was hoped he would bring his complete set of Pokeman cards” which everyone wants.

Good luck, beavers.

Can speed bumps actually slow traffic?

I mean will the busy flow of uncontrollable cars actually slow itself down based on a tiny obstruction in the roadway repeated over and over again>? Why does no one ever ask that question and why does the other one get poised repeatedly?

Cumbria’s Eden Valley to see reintroduction of beavers

Beavers are to be reintroduced to Cumbria’s Eden Valley to see if they can thrive in upland environments.

The animals, which were hunted to extinction in the UK in the 16th Century, will be introduced to the Lake District for the first time in a trial. Efforts to return the species to other parts of the UK, including Yorkshire and Somerset, are also under way.

The government-approved trial will look at how beavers restore small farmland streams and can aid flood prevention.

Oooh ooh, call on me! I know this one!

It is hoped the beavers will deliver benefits such as carbon storage, flood mitigation and an increase in other wildlife.

Conservationists support the return of beavers to Britain’s rivers for the benefits they can provide in preventing flooding, by damming streams and slowing the flow of water, as well as boosting water quality.

I don’t know. Do you think the repeated  observations of science and gravity will apply in another region? Do you think speed bumps will slow traffic? That’s a real head scratcher. I guess we’ll find out.

The funny thing is that just last night I was reading about the great flood of 1862, and thinking about the timing of this massive event. Obviously all those humans mining for all that gold had some effect. But given the fact that the entire beaver population was wiped out about 20 years earlier and their decaying dams would just about be completely gone  – one has to wonder.

The Great Flood of 1862 was the largest ever recorded in Oregon, Nevada and California’s history. The flooding occurred from December of 1861 until January of 1862, drowning the state in water and leaving much of the Northern Valley unlivable until the summer months of 1862.

The flood created a lake down the center of the state that was 300 miles long and 20 miles wide. It’s estimated that thousands of people were killed in Northern California during the event.

Entire cities were under water and many people were killed. 

The foothills of the Sierra Nevada were seeing tremendous flooding activity during this time. The American River near Auburn rose 35 feet and some of the small mining towns were completely submerged. On the Stanislaus River near Knight’s Ferry, two major bridges washed down the river and anything within 40 miles was completely destroyed.

The year before had extra heavy snow so the melt didn’t help matters. But don’t you think all those missing speed bumps might have had something to do with the calamity?

John Carr wrote about his riverboat trip up the river during the peak of the flood:

“I was a passenger on the old steamer Gem, from Sacramento to Red Bluff. The only way the pilot could tell where the channel of the river was, was by the cottonwood trees on each side of the river. The boat had to stop several times and take men out of the tops of trees and off the roofs of houses. In our trip up the river we met property of every description floating down—dead horses and cattle, sheep, hogs, houses, haystacks, household furniture, and everything imaginable was on its way for the ocean. Arriving at Red Bluff, there was water everywhere as far as the eye could reach, and what few bridges there had been in the country were all swept away.”

 It’s a terrifying story of our history that I knew nothing about before. When Stanford was inaugurated governor of California he had to row his way to the capital.

I bet a lot of those beaver hats got floated away too, Ironic, huh?