Follow-ups

Our young stop-motion films and beaver hero went to the city council meeting at St. Matthews last night about the beavers in Draut park. It sounds like it went excellently, here’s his summary of the evening.

Update!

The council meeting went great. I got up and talked for about 15 minutes, they asked quite a few questions, and told me how beavers destroy trees. One of the councilmen is in charge of the parks, and another was a biologist and they were very interested in it, the parks guy is going to watch Mike’s DVD and I am going to be meeting with him in a couple weeks at the park and we are going to figure out what we are going to do, he was very open to the idea of a flow device, (if we even need one).

I’ll let you know if anything else happens, but overall I think meeting was very successful. All of the council members, (except the above mentioned) said I did a good job with the presentation.

Great work Ian! We are rooting for you! Good for Mike for donating a DVD! And great work beaver protection S.W.A.T. team that appeared from everywhere to fan out over roof tops and behind parked cars until we had them surrounded! Please keep us posted. Since they are trying to protect a culvert, he better start the DVD here….

The next follow up isn’t nearly as cheerful. Remember the beaver found in the slurry pitt in Devon that was assumed to be the third ‘missing beaver’ from Derek Gow’s farm? Well, uh guess what? It isn’t Igor!

George Hyde, operations manager at Dartmoor Zoo, which took in the creature, said they were “99 per cent” certain that this is a different beaver.

“The male that got away was 35 kilos,” he said. “He was known for being a big beaver.  “This one is only about 15 or 20 kilos. At an educated guess he’s about two or three years old. It’s a real mystery where he’s come from.”

Ooh! Ooh! I know! Call on me! Looks like there’s a beaver underground in the UK! Knowing that the population is too superstitious to believe the science and too paranoid to accept the change required to protect their creeks and streams, Castor Fiber has taken matters into their own hands – er – paws and started reproducing on their own! And its been happening for two or three years already! (Apparently doing it on your own is so much easier than having a team of scientists looking over your shoulder every minute ruining the mood!)

This particular beaver is a youngster so it’s fairly reasonable to believe that mum and dad are not too far away,” said Mr Hyde.

“The fact he was found in a farmyard suggests he was exploring and looking for territory of his own.”

Yeah, about that…Well the British country side wasted no time in abandoning their stiff upper lips to enjoy a good panic. Beavers breeding in the wild for the first time in 400 years! Giant rodents rampant on the countryside! Snakes on a plane! Jeremy Goodwin from the Free Tay beaver group summarized it dryly and made me snork coffee yesterday morning, saying: “Zombie beavers! They are coming to eat children’s brains.”

You’re thinking we exaggerate? Just check out this from This is Cornwall yesterday!

Beavers, for example, damage river banks and trees, alter water courses and eat, or at least hinder, wild salmon.

Why bother with the facts when it will sound so true to so many readers? I am reminded of this famous introduction 7 years ago.