Every once in a while an article drops that is so alarming it earns all of my attention for a full 24 hours. Like this one did,
Wildlife and ag: ‘Pheasants and beavers and deer, oh my!’
Columnist Jonathan Knutson expounds on the variety of wildlife that frequent farmlands and the reactions they get by different property owners.
Ambivalence means having mixed views or feelings on a given issue or topic. It’s the perfect word to describe how many upper Midwest agriculturalists feel about wildlife.
As a general rule, most of us enjoy having some wildlife, or at least some species of wildlife, in and above our fields, pasture and farmsteads. It’s a connection to nature that can enrich and satisfy. I think of the first time I saw a bald eagle, its habitat greatly expanded, flying majestically above my family’s farmland. (The image lost a little luster when I realized the eagle was swooping down to eat the guts of a deer we’d just shot and gutted, though the sight of the eagle was pretty cool nonetheless.)
But the enjoyability of having wildlife around can vary greatly depending on both the type of animal and the individual priorities and personality of an agriculturalist. Some types of wildlife are just more likeable, for lack of a better word, and some agriculturalists just enjoy wildlife more than their neighbors.
At the risk of overgeneralization, I think most wildlife, from an ag perspective, falls into three main categories: the really likeable, the really unlikeable and ones that are simultaneously both. There will be disagreement about which types of wildlife belong in the differing categories, but the basic concept seems sound to me.
Guess what species of wildlife he finds intolerable? Go ahead, guess.
Beavers are the “bad” type of wildlife that I personally detest the most. They’ve destroyed countless trees in and near the portion of North Dakota’s Sheyenne River Valley where I grew up and subsequently have spent big chunks of my life. I’ve driven literally thousands of times past beautiful trees, especially oak, that they’ve ruined. Yeah, I’m a tree guy and probably overvalue those ruined trees, but to me, they’re far more important than the so-called “nature’s engineers.” And I’m not the only person who feels that way.
Did you guess right? See he likes pheasants cuz hunters like to shoot them and deer for the same reasons but beavers are just a pain in the oak tree. You know its true.
Most controversial are types of wildlife that bring obvious enjoyment and obvious damage. Deer, it seems to me, are easily the most outstanding example. Hunting them (which I’ve done for 50 years) can be a lot of fun. So is spying a big-antlered buck or watching a doe and her tiny fawn. On the other hand, the damage done by deer to growing crops and haystacks is aggravating and financially painful.
I don’t know what’s the right and proper role of wildlife in ag. Nobody else does, either. Opinions and priorities vary so greatly that a one-size-fits-all answer is impossible. But there’s one thing I am sure of: I could do with a lot fewer blackbirds, coyotes and especially those accursed beavers.
I
‘m sure you know that those oak trees weren’t the beavers first or even second choice for supper. They would have preferred all that scrub brush that you ripped off the landscape months ago, You know the willows. they’ll eat oak if they have to but it’s not tasty. Next time try leaving some undergrowth for them to browse and wrapping the trees you love with welded wire. Make sure the wire goes higher than the snowline.
Then maybe you’ll have some free time to read the articles about nitrogen removal and beaver dams offering flood and fire protection. Or maybe the article that says beaver dams retain nine times more water than equivalent area without beaver even during drought. I’m pretty sure that AG needs water.
Then we can chat,
