Maybe this loyal dog understands that beavers are a keystone species, who maintain what’s left of our clean, fresh water. Maybe he knows that without beavers smolt numbers for trout and salmon will plummet and there will be fewer migratory and songbirds nesting in the spring. Maybe he knows that far, far too many of this beavers’ uncles and cousins are needlessly crushed in conibear traps or strangled with snares. Maybe he is mourning the tremendous ignorance that mankind steadfastly clings to when it comes to living with beavers, who should be treated as heroic “first responders” in our dying streams.
Then again, maybe he’s just sad about his friend.
A sick-at-heart pooch is ‘mourning’ the death of a beloved but unlikely friend: A beaver named Beavis. According to YouTube user “Jack Bdead” who uploaded the video, Beavis and Bella the dog had played and lived together “for quite a while” before Beavis died last year.
A pair of beavers spotted along Guadalupe River in San Jose. Wildlife educators are hoping they stay, saying the beavers are a benefit to the environment and great ambassadors to children coming to the area to learn about the ecosystem.
Well, well, well. I was diligently holding the story until I had ‘permission to set it public’ but it looks like someone let the cat outta the bag. This appeared on KGO friday morning. Believe me when I say that I’ve been straining to influence how this unfolded and whether they had problem solvers already in place before the hounds were released. Well, now let’s get this party started!
I see the video doubled in the number of hits last night so that’s not really a secret any more either. Good. You should all be very very proud that the story credits beavers for helping rivers and teaching children. If Worth A Dam flogged NOTHING else, we’ve promoted that message over and over, in the many corners of the earth, far and wee.
Now, San Jose invite Worth A Dam and maybe Mark Ross down for a meeting, figure out how to wrap trees or protect culverts or install a flow device, and let’s get on with already. You know it works. You know you can do it. Think of us as the test case.
Best part about the KGO story was the comments that mentioned Martinez over and over! And the announcement by the reporter that there were only two colonies of beavers in the Bay Area. Martinez and the Lexington Reservoir.
Shhh…they’re so cute when they’re sleeping. Let’s not wake them.
The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards 2013 national winners were announced today. This year I won a Gold Medal for my film Day Shift, a Silver Medal for All My Dreams music video, and a Silver Medal for my whole portfolio. Day shift also won an American Visions Award, and a Best In Grade award. The national ceremony is in May at Carnegie Hall in New York City and for the first time will be streamed live online. Scholastic has been a huge part of my life in the last four years, and I thank everyone at the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers for their support and encouragement.
Congratulations Ian. And have a blast at Carnegie Hall. (Again.) Worth A Dam is so enormously proud of you. With about two months left to go on your senior year, the world is definitely your oyster. Whether you end up at Cal Arts or SCAD in the fall your professors will soon be scrambling to take credit for what is certain to be an awesome career of varied and inspiring achievements. I’m so grateful our paths crossed.
It seems like only yesterday that I was thrilled to discover this for the first time.
March 17th may be the day we celebrate St. Patrick driving all the snakes out of Ireland, but March 15th is apparently the day to broadcast the folk who kill beavers. This morning’s beavers headlines read like a Where’s Waldo of trapping beavers. Apparently extermination is an equal opportunity employer. In more ways than one.
Don’t believe me? Let’s start with Mr. Les Wedge in Syracuse New York, who boasts he has been killing animals for 57 years. His glossy cover story comes with video, and and he sagely notes;
“I do it for the enjoyment. It’s another excuse to be outdoors and observe nature,” Wedge said. “Secondly, it’s a kind of game with the animal. You have to be right on a particular spot to trap so that they don’t miss it.”
Now there’s a man who knows how to have fun. His nature-lovin’ “hunger games’ must be a hoot at parties.
Or let’s talk about Mr. Philip Engle, who very generously comes down from the frozen climes of Montana in the winter just to trap beaver in Mississippi. Sometimes there are so many beaver that need killing he bring his friends.
Every day the three were in Monroe County, they probably set 40 to 50 beaver traps each day and collect most the following day. It’s a grueling routine that starts at 7 a.m. and typically ends at 7 p.m. with the rest of the night skinning the day’s catch.
“Some nights, we may stay up until midnight skinning. We don’t waste a thing with the beavers. We may get a buck for this and a buck for that so we really get $3 per beaver. The landowners are happy to have them off their land and we’re happy just having fun trapping,” Engle said.
3 dollars a beaver. And you get to have fun trapping. The thoughtful part of me would like to know just how much you are costing the state with all the fish and duck population you are destroying, and exactly how many dollars Monroe County received in federal FEMA funds for drought compensation. But surely that’s water under the bridge. Or a drop in the bucket. Or some other water-based metaphor that basically means you people are so deeply committed to stupid that its almost a religion.
You think you’ve seen it all. That you have read the most remarkably short-sighted and inhumane article possible and that nothing will have the power to shock you any more. And then you see this:
Leslie doesn’t fit the stereotype for a fur trapper. She wears insulated camouflage waders and she has all the appropriate tools and methods. She knows the state regulations. But she also looks like she just stepped out of a beauty salon.”I don’t have to change who I am to trap animals,” Leslie said. “This is just who I am.”
In fact, instead of fitting the mold of a trapper, trapping fits the mold of Leslie’s family.
I won’t mention that she brings along her 11 year old son. Or that the reporter is compelled to mention that her personality is as ‘sparkly’ as her sunglasses. I will just say that they really, really hate beavers in Missippi, and leave you with this.
“We absolutely have to set and check our traps every day before sundown, so this just fits our needs perfectly and it gives us something to do outside,” Leslie said. She added that the outdoor activity meets additional needs for her son. “This also helps me to teach him about the balance of nature,” Leslie said.
Don’t believe me? Let’s start with
