Lee-Ann Carver is a wildlife photographer in Kenora, Ontario that just pointed me in the direction of this book. I met her after my letter about beaver trapping in the area was published in the local paper. Lee-Ann is a big beaver fan, and an occasional reader of this site, rumor is she might be persuaded to donate some original photographs to the silent auction so keep your fingers crossed. The book is the personal tale of a fish and wildlife technician working with the Ministry of Natural Resources, surrounded by a family of trappers, who winds up caring for some beaver kits and learns to unlearn everything she was taught about the animals.
This passage particularly caught my eye.
“Although beavers don’t normally actively dam until their second year, it was clear to me that even as kits they have a sense of how important it is to keep water contained. My little charges, for instance, were agitated whenever they heard the sound of running water. Once, when one of the kits accidentally pulled the plug out of the bathtub they both mewed and whined fantically. When I rushed to see what was wrong, I found one kit trying to plug the hole with his companion. When I pulled the unwilling, wiggling obstruction out of the way, the other kit managed to pull the plug back into place.”
Lil Anderson: Beavers Eh to Bea
Intrigued? You can pick up your own copy here. I’d advise folk like us skip the colorful passages about helping her “Daddy set up the conibear traps as a child”, and just savor the beavers, which are adorable. The title itself reflects her transformation, as she originally named them like lab specimens, Kit A and Kit B, but they became personalities and that transformed into Eh and Bea.
Nice.
