So the fine state of Pennsylvania has issued a management plan for two of its greatest American wildlife heroes. One is the Bald  Eagle and guess what the other one is? I’ll give you a hint, it has a flat tail. The draft report is being offered for public comment and responses will be accepted until March 3.  (You might not remember, but Pennsylvania is the state where the famous trapper told the paper he was only coming to kill the ‘soldier beavers‘. So I figure almost anything is better than that.)

Actually the report so far isn’t horrible.

In keeping with our agency mission, beavers must be managed for the benefit of other wildlife species, their habitats, and all Pennsylvanians for generations to come. Our beaver management mission is to establish stable beaver populations in balance with their habitat for the benefit of wetland wildlife species and humans through proper population monitoring, harvest management, and damage control. The goals of Pennsylvania’s beaver management are to (1) establish sustained beaver populations within suitable habitat, (2) monitor the beaver harvest, (3) minimize beaver damage complaints, (4) increase public awareness and knowledge of the benefits of beavers and their habitat, and (5) provide opportunities to use and experience beavers.

Nice start. Here’s the first  thing that got my attention was this

1.2.2. Develop and test a field technique to estimate family group size based on characteristics of constructed features (age, number, and height of dams, condition of lodge/den, food cache size).

I puzzled a bit over the idea that you could determine the size of a colony based on the dam or lodge, and asked around. Our own Skip Lisle said “certainly not” and Sherri Tippie gave this thoughtful reply this morning.

I’ve seen people try to use all kinds of things to try to determine a beaver family size.

Beaver are like people, they are all individuals. I’ve seen a family of 2 huge adults, with 2 yearlings and 6 six kits, come out of a very modestly built lodge, and dam. At first look, you would never think there were that many beaver living there. I’ve also seen just 2 adults build a dam that was almost 8 ft high, one of the biggest I’ve ever seen in an urban environment. It looked like way more work than just 2 beaver could accomplish. I’ve been told that you could tell the size of a family by looking at the size of a food cache. But it didn’t take me long to discover that didn’t work all the time either. And the beaver who live in Clear Creek west of Coors, don’t create a cache because the water is too swift. Kind of funny. . . a long time ago someone from the BLM gave a paper that explained how you could tell the weight and age of a beaver by measuring their tail. Well after catching a few I soon learned that wasn’t true. As soon a someone thinks they have something nailed down to figure out a beaver family size, they’re more than likely to run across something that discounts it. That’s just what I’ve found. An old ex-trapper, once told me – the only way you can determine for sure how many beaver are in a family is sitting out at night an counting heads. But then how can you be sure you’re not counting the same beaver twice. I just love um and catch um!

Sherri, we love you. Your loving beaver pragmatism completely chisels through the layers of Beaver Sophistry (BS) and bureaucracy that adorns reports like these. How would we possibly know how many beavers were in our habitat unless we watched? A lot? (A very lot!) There are three dams and two modest lodges for five beavers now, but there used to be four dams and one modest lodge for eight beavers! In general I think its a good idea for Pennsylvania to recognize that beaver are valuable in providing wetlands and that they should know how many there are in order to decide how many they should allow people to kill. I support the effort. But this next finding made me giggle so much though I had to put the report down for a more somber day.

He also observed the lack of some beaver behaviors typical of most rodents. He noted that beavers never stretch, nor do they lick, even during grooming.

When you think about it, how could ANY short legged mammal that lives in water but whose fur isn’t waterproof and needs to groom itself daily to survive NOT STRETCH??? Don’t feel bad, Grinnell of the UCB zoology department said that California beaver don’t leave footprints, don’t live over 300 feet elevation and fight  competition to the death to mate with the herd. So very smart people can misunderstand beavers. There’s precedence. (There’s a LOT of precedence.) We’ll do what we can to nudge you to the light. Just in case you think those images above were photo-shopped, here’s video as well. The ridiculous laws of youtube require me to show the original in very small format here High Hopes1 but if you want a closeup of the curious “STRETCHING BEHAVIOR” go you can do without the soundtrack.

I think this report will be fun. Why don’t you go get your own copy and play ‘spot the fallacy’ with me!