Are you a Beaver Believer? (Click to play mp3) 
Susan Allen Report from Open Range on Aginfo.net. Did you go listen? You really should. It’s one of those fairytale good news reports that are nearly too good to be true. Thanks for the beaverly advice, Susan! We were actually contacted this week by a local rancher who wants to know how to get beavers on his property. I had to explain that California doesn’t allow relocation ‘officially’ like other states. We have a long ways to go before we learn what Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Idaho and New Mexico already know.
Well, yesterday’s Estuary Conference was a good start. Apparently Brock’s beaver-salmon lecture was standing room only and well received. I’m thrilled that he’s willing to keep plugging away at an issue that seems to be picking up steam. The more folk who know what beavers can do for us, and what we can do to keep beavers, the closer we’ll be to a working watershed again.
Last night Cheryl sent an alert that a New Jersey Patch article had released a story about Animal Control offering a new guidelines binder (I assume with a page that says “Don’t shoot beavers in a public park like an neanderthal” or some such thing). Funny thing is that they ran it with Cheryl’s photo attributed to THEIR photographer! I wrote the editor in a proprietary huff and she apologized for the ‘accident’ and changed the attribution. Being that it wasn’t just ‘shown’ but specifically down loaded and reposted on their website I not sure how ‘accidental ‘it was, but its fixed now and I’m happy to help New Jersey see beavers better.
Oh and a final thought about yesterday’s Paleo-beaver discovery: apparently the animals haven’t changed much in all that time. (Why mess with success?) And their place on this planet proceeds any variation of human life by about 5 million years. Just sayin’.
