You can tell right away when people aren’t accustomed to saying nice things about beavers, They reluctantly review Ben’s book with headlines like these:
The upside to beavers, a valuable rodent
You can feel them, stretching their fingers into the darkness with their eyes tightly closed afraid that something rat like is going to jump out at them.
SALISBURY — Ben Goldfarb, author of “Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter,” told a Zoom audience of more than 150 people that beavers and their activities are highly beneficial to the environment. Goldfarb’s talk, sponsored by the Scoville Memorial Library, was on Saturday, March 6.
The beaver is a rodent, Goldfarb explained. The animals typically weigh between 40 and 50 pounds.
Poor Connecticut reporter. Nobody told her she’d have to write about 50 lb rodents when she took this gig.
Goldfarb said this near-extirpation had serious environmental ramifications. Describing the beaver as a “keystone species,” he noted that the habitats beavers create also serve waterfowl and fish species, and serve as firebreaks and filtration systems for water
.Get out! You don’t say!
Looking forward, Goldfarb contrasted a photo of a freestone mountain brook “(“looks like something in a fly-fishing catalog”) with a photo of a swampy area, with trees in standing water.
The latter vista doesn’t appeal to people accustomed to thinking of wetlands as undesirable.
“So we have to remember what our lands are supposed to look like.”
Aw do we have to? That Ben Goldfarb, always making us think about things we don’t want to. First those nasty R.O.U.S.’s and now this! Next thing you’ll be telling me is that these monsters are everywhere. Like even Texas. Sheesh.
Beaver found in south Austin neighborhood undergoes rehab
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Navigating a growing city like Austin can be a difficult task, even for a human, so when a beaver took on the bustle, he may have bitten off more than he could chew.
The City of Austin’s Animal Protection unit got a call about a beaver in south Austin right before the winter storm. They found the male rodent in the road near a neighborhood off of Menchaca Road and Slaughter Lane. He wasn’t doing too well.
Beavers in Texas? Yes. One of my favorite urban beaver photos of all times comes from a suburb of Dallas.
