Category: Who’s blaming beavers now?

Mystery Theater with Beavers

heidi08 Beavers, Educational, Environmental, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's Killing Beavers Now? September 23, 2017

There’s nothing I like better than a good beaver mystery. I’m never happier than I am when I finally puzzle out the nutria living in the woman’s swimming pool, the groundhog in Wilbur’s backyard, or the Capybara visiting the water treatment plant.

But this surprised me. A sea-lion/beaver between the Mohave desert and San Bernadine in a salt water lake.

This Desert Life: The beast in Spring Valley Lake

A 50-pound mystery surfaced in March 1987 after a resident spotted a sea lion swimming in Spring Valley Lake’s shallow depths.

Gossip filled the community as word of the unlikely guest spread, eventually resulting in 15 eyewitness accounts that made a concerned believer out of Karin Wyman.

Wyman was curator of the Laguna Beach-based nonprofit Friends of the Sea Lion (now the Pacific Marine Mammal Center), and interviews with residents convinced her of three things: the sea lion was a 10- to 11-month-old pup. It had been illegally captured and dumped in the 200-acre lake. And it was sick.

“Whoever caught it and brought it here couldn’t have approached it unless it was sick or injured,” Wyman said, adding that sea lions tout a bite four times stronger than any dog.

Equipped with nets and a fishing boat, Wyman and colleague Don Burns embarked on a weeks-long search for the mammal. Meanwhile, if caught, the culprit faced jail time and a $20,000 fine per the Marine Mammal Protection Act signed by President Nixon in 1972.

But there was a problem. Amid the search, willow and cottonwood trees began falling around the lake, their trunks gnawed nearly in half.

Joel M. Shows, a trapper for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, surveyed the damage and reviewed footage of the purported sea lion swimming. His conclusion was the saltwater mammal was, in fact, a rather large beaver that had wandered over to the man-made lake from nearby Mojave Narrows.

If there existed talk of a beaver being less likely than a sea lion, it was quelled by State Department of Fish and Game warden Dick Phillips, who said beavers weren’t so unusual in the arid High Desert.

Whoa. It’s either a very confused sea lion OR a beaver. And hey why are they calling an elevation of 2700 feet “High Desert“. Does that mean the top of Mt. Diablo is high desert? Hmm, maybe they’re referring to the population, not the landscape. Well a nonprofit in Laguna Beach got involved and did some sleuthing of their own. But fish and game said it wasn’t any marine mammal.

It’s an ongoing problem around here, especially in Spring Valley Lake, Oro Grande and (Lake) Arrowhead,” Phillips said. “Beavers are not native to the area. They were introduced.”

By Phillips estimation, beavers were imported to the region in the 1940s, and — as an example of their prevalence — he noted that six had recently been “taken,” including a 110-pounder in Oro Grande.

The solution was permits Phillips issued to Shows — who had experience trapping bears and mountain lions — and Spring Valley Lake officials that allowed for the beaver to be shot on sight.

Death was preferable to a tranquilizer because, according to Shows, “If you dart him, he’ll go under and drown before you can get to him.”

And so the beaver’s fate was presumably sealed. But there was another problem. No one — not even Phillips — had actually seen the beaver on land. And glimpses of it swimming in the lake didn’t exactly dispel the sea lion theory.

Never mind that beaver were historically prevalent and 30 years later a brilliantly researched paper would prove that fact, but why would they expect to see the beaver on land anyway? In 10 year’s of watching it was a fairly uncommon occurrence. And why WOULDN’T they expect to see a sea lion on land? My clearest sea lion memories were when they were sunning themselves on a dock some where….

Complicating matters was the discovery of 30-pound catfish in the lake that had been bitten in two; Daily Press writer Bruce Snyder noted in his reportage, “Sea lions dine on fish, while beavers are vegetarians.”

“Normally, I’d say that it (the sea lion) is probably a beaver,” Phillips said after the gruesome find. “But around here, anything can happen.”

Wyman and Burns stuck to their belief that the animal was a displaced sea lion and then Spring Valley Lake administrator Bernie Wagner agreed.

Wyman called off the search, saying she wouldn’t come back unless there was solid proof of the sea lion’s existence. Still, even with the beaver identified, a creeping doubt nagged her.

“The only thing that makes me wonder is that we talked to people who say they saw a (sea lion) and say they saw the front flippers and things,” Wyman told the Sun. “Beavers don’t eat fish.”

Be that as it may, the sighting allowed the hunt to commence via Phillips’ permits. But a hunt never occurred because Spring Valley Lake officials declined to use them.

The stated reason: the beaver had disappeared.

Ooooh, tell me another one grandpa! That made me shiver in the nicest way. The actually funny thing about this is the story happened in 1989, just around the time beavers were trapped out of Lake Skinner 90 miles away in Riverside County. This of course led to the Friend’s of Lake Skinner case and the lawsuit that was won at the appellate level for trapping out beaver without a CEQA analysis. Now I can’t exactly see how a beaver would get from point A to point B, but it sounds from this article like they were doing a fair amount of trapping at the time, which is pretty interesting because it explains where those beavers might have come from.

Another Beaver Mystery Solved.

‘Lovely Woodland Creatures’

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver Behavior, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Who's blaming beavers now? September 12, 2017

Yesterday Martinez had an Irma sympathy pang. In the evening it got muggy and humid, and then it started to rain! First a few drops at a time, and then a veritable short storm, complete with booming thunder. It was very unlike California in September but I mention it because at the exact moment it started to rain the mail was delivered and happened to contain a very special package all the way from the Ukraine. It was actually the first donation to next year’s beaver festival from an Esty shop called Sho2Shop by Andrey Shokoto. He wanted to help but wrote back too late for this year. His design was such an irresistable pillow I had to buy one myself for a bday present.

He calls it “It’s raining beavers“.

Isn’t that adorable? It’s well made too, with a neatly disguised zipper so you can wash it or tuck in the cushion of your choice. Obviously, with this arriving the exact same moment as the very unusual storm, with the beavers moving in a block from my house, and with articles like this guaranteed to amuse me, I am starting to believe in beaver fate. Or as Hamlet said “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends”. You tell me if someone upstairs wasn’t thinking of Heidi’s feelings when he wrote a headline like this.

Beavers are no longer under suspicion for delaying the filming of the Twin Town sequel

Beavers are no longer under suspicion for delaying the long-awaited Twin Town sequel, with the blame now falling on an unknown group of teenagers. The cameras were due to begin to start rolling last week for the filming of the first scenes of the follow-up to director Kevin Allen’s cult ’90s original.

But the location earmarked for filming ended up submerged under four feet of water. Director Kev Allen was originally told that a rare colony of Carmarthenshire beavers were to blame.

It was thought they dammed up a contributory stream, causing water to swell onto the film set. Mr Allen said last week: “It’s the oddest thing I’ve come across in 20 years of film-making. Having spent months building one of the key sets for the movie, it has taken a bunch of beavers to screw up my filming schedule.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about beavers in 10 years, it’s that they are notorious for ruining film schedules. And the Welsh beavers – well they’re just the worst. Cluttering the set with all their chewed mossy sticks and vowel-less consonants!

But beaver experts were quick to call foul on the accusation.

Alicia Leow-Dyke, Welsh beaver project officer for Radnorshire Wildlife Trust, said: “Whilst the film set might be flooded, beavers are not to blame, I have worked with beavers for almost a decade and I am very familiar with beaver ecology.

No beavers have been reported living near Kidwelly. We have also been to investigate ourselves and found no evidence of beavers in the area.

“Beavers have characteristic field signs and beaver dams are easy to spot. If they were present it is extremely likely we would have found these field signs.

“The only beavers living in Carmarthenshire are in an enclosed area, upstream of

Kidwelly and on a different catchment that is nowhere near Kidwelly. The dams created by these beavers did not cause flooding to the Twin Towns film set.

“It is also well evidenced that beaver dams actually decrease the risk of downstream flooding.”

Oooh snap! Dam straight! You tell ’em Alicia!

Director Mr Allen now believes a group of teenagers caused the damage.

He told WalesOnline: “We have actually learned over the weekend that it was in fact a group of teenagers who had built the sabotaging damn and not in fact beavers after all.

“Whoever blamed these lovely woodland creatures in the first place must have been unaware that beaver has been pretty hard to come by in Kidwelly for quite some time. I personally blame the parents.”

Hahahaha…Me too! I blame the parents too! Ohhh I dearly love this article and the fact that the troubled director in his fancy car actually calls the beavers lovely woodland creatures. I love Alicia’s defense and love the refreshing idea of blaming the parents instead of the beavers. Honestly, if I were dreaming I couldn’t have asked for a better story.

Speaking of getting what you wished for, here are some of Cheryl’s wonderful photos from Sunday’s labor. I especially love the tippytoed beaver, but they’re all perfect. And see how those rascally parents are helping their children cheat?

The case of the missing beaver dams!

heidi08 Beaver Art, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? September 8, 2017

I saw this yesterday and right away wanted to author a film noir children’s book beaver dam detective series. Can’t you see it now?

Investigation continues into loss of Mill Creek beaver dams

If you ask Sara Melnicoff of Moab Solutions, part of the Mill Creek Partnership, Mill Creek had 11 or more beaver dams this spring. Then in July every dam was gone.

Melnicoff first noticed the damage mid-July, before the heavy rains of July 24 and 25 caused flooding in the creek. She contacted Mary O’Brien of the Grand Canyon Trust, who had previously participated in writing Utah’s beaver management plan. O’Brien took photographs of the dams, some of which had been notched or had sticks pulled out of them.

“The dams had been compromised a few days before the flooding,” O’Brien said. “I have a whole series of photos that I documented for BLM of all 11 dams and each one has a notch cut out of the center. That’s all that it takes [to compromise the dam].”

11 dams suddenly gone! This sounds like a job for inspector beaver! (sorry, couldn’t resist.) Are there any suspects?

Eyewitness accounts support the claim that vandalism was involved. Maria Roberts, a Forest Service employee, was hiking with friends in mid-July when she saw a man pulling sticks out of the dams.

“I saw a guy, looked like he was pulling branches apart from the beaver dam. I figured he was supposed to be there, like he was working,” Roberts said. Another witness took photos of the man.

The day before the dams were compromised, Melnicoff said, she received an email from an unknown address concerned that the beavers were causing E. coli bacteria in town. O’Brien said that in her experience, beavers are not known to cause E. coli but do benefit the ecosystems they inhabit.

Oh ho! So we have a suspect AND a motive! Call in the expert witness…

“When they come up streams and have to build dams to get two and a half feet [of water to build their lodges], there is then a whole cascade of effects that happen,” O’Brien said. “Streams are often incised from grazing, from long-ago blow-outs of cattle ponds, from floods and so on and really the only thing that can restore that stream is basically woody debris … beaver are the chief engineers that do that.”

O’Brien said that beaver dams create habitat for other animals as well.

“When a beaver comes in and starts making a pond, that opens that up and now ducks come and shorebirds come and they drown the trees, which makes them perfect for cavity nesting birds, which makes it perfect for secondary cavity nesters who use the holes of cavity nesters,” O’Brien said. “[The] water behind the pond is a great nursery for fish. And then of course otter can come into the system because there’s fish. And muskrats are there. And water voles are there, so one thing that the beavers do is make the system far more complex. Without beaver, in a lot of, say, your mountains here, it’s a just strip of water coming through and there’s trees on either side.”

Thank you, Dr. Obrien. Excellent and relevant testimony. Call the next witness!

Arne Hultquist, director of the Moab Area Watershed Partnership, agreed that beavers are not the cause of E. coli in Mill Creek. “If I was having problems with beavers and E. coli, I would be seeing it at that site [above the Power Dam] and I don’t see it at that site. I see it down in town,” said Hulquist, who conducts water quality tests at various points around Moab.

Ah HA! So the beavers were blamed for something they didn’t even do! Their dams were destroyed and then all the wildlife they supported suffered the results. Thank goodness our crack team is on the case!

The DWR is still actively investigating the incident, according to Wolford. The DWR is looking into the incident based on the legal definition of wildlife crime, Wolford told The Times-Independent.

“We are still investigating [and] we have one final loose end to tie up, but it does not look as if charges will be filed,” Wolford said.

“There’s not really a crime for breaching a dam,” Wolford said. “The crime comes after, if it’s either displaced beaver or killed beaver. If there’s an actual beaver that’s dead in the area, that’s where the actual crime starts to come into play.”

Wolford added that the dams might have already been abandoned. “It’s possible that they were [abandoned to start with] because if the beaver were there, those dams would be built back up really fast,” Wolford said. “[It] usually only takes them a night to do it, especially the ones that tend to look like they were more man-made breached. They were small enough breaches that the beaver would have been back in immediately. The ones that are bigger breaches, those ones definitely look like flooding issues. As wildlife, we like beaver. They do a lot of good to the ecosystem and help out things quite a bit.”

The jewels might have stolen themselves, officer. It happens all the time in the real world. No fingers to point, nobody to blame, nothing to see here. Besides they’re just BEAVERS for god sake. How much should we really care?

I don’t know about you but that does not sound like they’re actively looking into it to me.

It’s nice to see beaver dramas happen in other towns. This so reminds me of the early days in Martinez. There was one day when someone left oleander branches on the dam and people were worried it was a plot to poison the beavers and the whole town was in an uproar. It turned out it was a well meaning ET who loved them and just thought she was doing something nice.

Ahh memories.

The clincher on this case is that the actual date on this story from Moab is 2013. I don’t know why it’s running again, but I guess they aren’t still ‘working on it’? Maybe they’re doing this instead.

Fail faster! Fail harder!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, stupid solutions, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now? September 3, 2017

This is a great photo from Kentucky. You know why it’s great? Not because of that cool dam or the fact that you can see it’s leaky because water flows through it. No. Because that culvert is SO damaged anyway, with road collapse and erosion. Look at those dents! It looks about ready to flatten, but the county isn’t worried about that. They are worried about ONE thing. And we all know what that is.

Beavers costing county, landowners Animals threaten roads, crops, timber

They’ve cost the county nearly $100,000 since 2015. They damage cropland and timber. They cause flooding and threaten roads. They are beavers, and they are a growing problem in Hopkins County. Now, a working group under the commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources that includes state and federal agencies as well as state and local elected officials is studying the problem.

“They stop culverts up. They stop drainage areas up with sticks and mud,” said Jeff Browning, Hopkins County public works director. “The water backs up and causes damage to roads, crops and woods.” “We start trapping every day, for eight hours a day, in December,” he said. This season, which ended in early spring, county trappers caught 168 beavers, significantly more than the 125-130 they usually get.

“We’re not gaining on it,” Browning said. “And I think it’s getting worse.”

He said his staff is researching multiple approaches, including looking at what other counties and states do, the possibility of setting up conservation-type districts to fund beaver eradication and working with the Corps of Engineers and Division of Water on the legalities involved.

“What I pledged to the group is that I can facilitate finding a solution and working with the counties and Legislature,” Johnson said, adding he expects to have initial information in about 60 days.

Prunty, R-Belton, said she reached out to Johnson after getting multiple letters from constituents in her home county of Muhlenberg. Damage to roads and cropland are not the biggest issue there. Instead, she said, it’s more of a case where former landowners liked the beavers because they created wetlands that attracted waterfowl, which was good for hunters. Now, some landowners want to harvest timber, but can’t because of the flooded land.

“It’s an economic issue for my constituents,” she said. It used to be profitable to trap beavers for their pelts.”There’s no end to it,” Wedding said.”We’ll never eradicate them,” said Browning, the public work director. “I just want some funding help.”

That’s not likely, said Prunty and Embry, R-Morgantown, given the state of the commonwealth’s budget.”I personally don’t see us allocating funds for that,” Prunty said.Embry agreed. Getting new funding “is always difficult,” he said.

Fish & Wildlife Commissioner Johnson said finding funding help is part of his group’s mandate.”We’ll look for other sources of funding that may or may not exist,” he said, indicating some federal help may be available through the USDA. But money won’t solve the problem, which is “how do you keep them under control for the long-term,” Johnson said. “It’s hard to fight those little suckers.“

And as we all know, if something isn’t working or showing signs of success, what you need to do is do it more frequently and faster. Hire more people to kill more beavers because eventually you know it will work right? I mean it’s not like there are these PROVEN tools that will let them protect the roads and culverts and allow the beavers to remain so that they can keep away other beavers right? It’s certainly not like we did it our selves in Martinez for a decade. Better to keep setting the mousetraps over and over and bill the citizens for it. Forget all those disappointed duck hunters.

More complaints from the city of Bristol in Wisconsin where those crazy beavers are just tiring them out.

Beavers causing DAMage in Bristol

Dam(n) it: The phrase describes the beavers’ instincts to build, and with the added ‘n,’ area residents’ reaction to the problems that the large rodents’ work causes in the Dutch Gap Canal.

The dams, removed for decades by residents, were identified at the Bristol Village Board meeting this week as a factor contributing to flooding in the Lake George area.

“We’ve got to get someone out here to trap them,” resident Scott Shannon, said. “It’s a friggin’ nightmare. I’ve taken probably 100 dams out with my (backhoe).”

“Tenfold,” Shannon said. “This is just wearing me out.”

Gosh darn those wicked beavers and their sneaky ways. Why doesn’t killing them work anymore? Don’t tell me there’s another way to solve this problem, because my back hoe is so much fun!

Marty Johnson, wildlife biologist with the State Department of Natural Resources, confirmed that the beaver population is increasing.

“There are more beavers out there,” Johnson said. “The trapping presence over time has lessened, so the population is on the uptick. We have been getting more complaints.”

Johnson said the DNR recently hired the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to blow up dams in the public hunting grounds in Wheatland. He said beaver activity at Richard Bong State Recreation Area has increased as well.

Paddock Lake administrator Tim Popanda said beaver were causing problems in the canal that leads to the lake a couple of years ago. There, the village obtained permission from the DNR to trap beaver on DNR property out of season.

The DNR website also offers suggestions, such as putting culvert pipes through the dams, to help mitigate the problems. One such system, called the Clemson Beaver Pond Leveler, was developed at Clemson University in South Carolina. Made mostly from PVC pipe, it allows water to flow through a beaver dam or plugged culvert.

“We are trying to figure out if there is something we can do to minimize it,” Kerkman said.

To that end, the Village Board approved spending $17,600 for an engineering study by Strand Associates to determine how water flows in the neighborhood and identify possible solutions. The study will assume beavers will continue to occupy the Dutch Gap Canal.

I have an idea. Give ME the 17,000 dollars and I’ll tell you how to solve this problem. And it isn’t with a 30 year old invention that will get clogged in a minute. Hire Mike Callahan or Skip Lisle or Amy Chadwick to install a flow device and have them teach you how to do it so you can handle the next 30 yourself. Them sit back and watch your water levels safely maintained and your roads clear and your fish and wildlife population thrive as your beaver population stabilizes.

I’m glad we’ve had this little chat.

The Beavers of Better Days

heidi08 Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? September 1, 2017

As you will notice by the bold sign in the left margin, the metaphorical cat is ‘officially’ out of the bag. Yesterday we were invited to Kiwanis and went public in the most possible way about our returning beavers. City mogul’s were in attendance, including Leanne Peterson and Cathy Ivers so we know the mayor will know soon, if he doesn’t already. Something else that will likely get his attention is that two not-beaver-friends at the meeting stood up and said publicly how negatively they had felt about the beavers originally, and how surprised they were how much I helped them learn with my patient, positive attitude (ha!) that taught them so much. And how they were truly GRATEFUL for my help in changing their minds and understanding why beavers mattered. No, really.

Jon and I were kind of stunned by that, which was way better than we hoped for.

I came home and boldly announced on FB that the beavers were back, and there are 63 likes this morning, with lots of folks sharing the news. I am counting on the fact that word will spread all through the town because last night I was called by the Gazette about the return. I know its impossible to be sure about their safety, and everything will get harder before it gets easier, but I feel I’ve given it a good initial shot. Even though my instinct is to hide them forever and keep them safe, I know that beavers themselves don’t keep secrets. They’ll make their presence known soon enough to the folks living along the creek. So the best chance we have is to enlist the public support and see what happens.

Cross your fingers.

I saved from yesterday’s glut of good beaver news. We wish there was a little more method to their madness, but we’re very happy they’re catching on, or giving the appearance of it.

‘Beaver deceivers’ a promising solution to Cumberland’s dam problems

CUMBERLAND – Town officials and wildlife advocates say they’ve uncovered a potential long-term solution in fighting destruction from beavers: a wire mesh system that keeps water flowing in local waterways.

But in February, the Land Trust found luck with “pond levelers” that control waterlines behind the beaver dams. Cumberland Highway Supt. Frank Stowik told The Valley Breeze that one day’s work has changed everything in drying out local trail systems and preventing damage.

“An article out of Vermont regarding their beaver problem showed there’s a cage made out of a wire mesh,” he said, describing what he called the “beaver deceiver.” “You put a pipe in and extend it beyond the edges of the trail. The beaver doesn’t go near it.”

The cage technology keeps beavers from noticing the permanent leak through the dam and controls floods. For a couple hundred dollars, Stowik’s team purchased a roll of chicken wire, a pipe and a few pool noodles to keep the cage afloat. A backhoe pulled out 100 feet of chewed logs and forest debris, then the pipe was submerged halfway underwater with the 4-foot mesh box preventing any clogs and disguising the leak through the dam.

I’m having such a mix of feelings right now. We are THRILLED that the Cumberland Land Trust realized that killing beavers wasn’t a real solution. And very glad they learned other ways. But I’m more than a little concerned about this floating box of chicken wire. They can only have researched the issue with both hands over their eyes not to learn that their was an actual DVD to teach them how to do it correctly? My prediction is that the chicken wire is going to plastered with mud very soon, and that the floating cage is going to whip off in the first storm. There are good reasons Mike and Skip use 6 inch wire fencing and anchor it firmly to the bottom of the pond.

Cumberland Land Trust President Randy Tuomisto first examined what he believes is the first pond leveler installed in Rhode Island in North Smithfield. He emphasized the need to cohabitate with beavers rather than trap and kill them. Local licensed beaver trapper Brett Malloy lent his expertise too, noting that only a licensed professional can remove the animals.

“It will keep repeating itself once you have beavers,” said Frank Matta, of the Land Trust. “If you trap them, you have to euthanize them. Being an environmental group, that was not an option we were going to go with. We’ve been trying to do our best to accommodate them, and I think that’s what the town is trying to do with the Monastery.”

Multi-agency monitors now are studying the damage control efforts. For the Land Trust, when another dam rose just a few feet away, they installed another cage. The bog bridge boardwalk at the preserve took shape earlier this month, and has been keeping hikers dry through the first leg of the swamp.

“Right now the two pond levelers are maintaining the level we want and have been functioning as designed,” said Tuomisto. “I’m happy with the success we’ve been having.”

The Monastery’s cage has been in place for a month with the same favorable results.

“We go out every couple weeks right now because it’s new,” Stowik said, noting the hundreds of hikers who explore the area daily also share the legwork. “If there’s an issue, usually the phone rings right away.”

Stowik also hailed the cage technology’s humane alternative to extermination. And for the Land Trust, which also examines the beaver’s role in wetland maintenance and storm abatement, it seemed the only solution.

“I don’t believe the beavers are going away,” Matta added. “If you took out a family of 10 or 12, within a year they would be repopulated with their extended family. That’s why we have to learn to deal with them.”

I’m so confused. I can’t decide if they really want to solve this problem humanely and they just made several innocent rookie mistakes or if they are just pretending to want to solve it that way and waiting for it to fail so they have an excuse to trap with impunity. I was so hopeful about Cumberland’s public response when I wrote about it back in 2013. Now I’m not so sure. Obviously these tools are working in the summer because they’re not being challenged by storms. The fact that it’s floating must keep the beavers from plugging the cage for now, but it won’t matter once it gets flung by the storm.

Gentlemen, there is no need to reinvent the wheel here. It’s round for a reason. Buy a copy of Mike’s DVD and watch how this is really done. I may be an old cynic but I predict that when these fail you are going to brush your hands together and tell the conservationists “Well, we tried it your way, but I guess we have to kill them now.”

Just so you know, it’s not considered trying until you use the correct tools, correctly.

GO HERE and learn what you’re not doing.

I just wrote them a note too. I guess we’ll soon find out whether they really want to help or just want cover from those crazy beaver huggers. Poolsnake? Honestly?

Yesterday I saw this on Facebook and had to share. Great work by Methow, once again!