Yesterday was an exciting dejavu with some calls to Fairfield public works and the local paper that had the familiar echo of history to them. I ended up having a great conversation with a reporter who is now meeting with Virginia at the dam site this morning. It was strange to have all the urgency of our Martinez story but have it be less personally upsetting to what me. When I dealt with our beavers talking to the press was always breathlessly terrifying that I would say something wrong and they would suffer because of it. This was someone else’s beaver so I could be calmer, focused and more clear-headed.
We talked a long time and as he knew nothing about beavers or the Martinez story I later had the distinct feeling of helping somebody up a mountain a little bit at a time. I would explain what dams were for and then wait for him to catch up. Then explain why beavers mattered and help him along a little more. In the end it felt like he had a pretty great vantage point onto why beavers matter and why removing a dam would alter the ecosystem. Maybe I’m explaining it wrong or exaggerating but it felt important, and I was both hyped up and exhausted afterwards: ready for battle or a long nap.
In the end I connected him to Sonoma Water Agency who had just installed two flow devices and talked about how our success in Martinez. We learned that it HAD been the city that ripped out the dam but didn’t figure out whether the beavers had been harmed already or whether there was a permit to do so in the future.
I’m imagining that quite a few people got phone calls or emails yesterday that they weren’t expecting. And I expect we’ll hear more on the story soon. We wish all good things to Virginia this morning. Good thing beavers can manage in fairly shallow water. This is from the Wenatchee project in Washington.
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In the end how we talk to reporters about beavers really matters. Yesterday this rather strange article starring Glynnis Hood was published. It is from the very tippy top of Canada that is almost Greenland.
Meet Nunavut’s newest arrival: the beaver
A recent beaver catch in Baker Lake, along with this summer’s earlier beaver sighting near Kugluktuk, more than 1,000 kilometres northwest of Baker Lake, have some wondering whether beavers are expanding their range into Nunavut.
The short answer is yes, said Glynnis Hood, a beaver expert and environmental science professor at the University of Alberta.
“What you’re seeing is the start of a frontal movement of animals that are ready to explore, and if it works others will come,” Hood said.
Okay so I’d rather a friend like Glynnis talks to the press about the scourge of beavers ruining the permafrost than anyone else, but sometimes scientists are trying so hard to appear unbiased that they err on the other side.
Case in point:
“Beavers are great colonizers,” she said. “They build on their past successes. They will build a dam and pond system and then, of course, they can successfully reproduce and their young will disperse.”
“Think of how coronavirus spreads, Hood suggested as a comparison: one person can infect two people, and those people can each infect two more people, and “so the spread does get to be fast.”
Good Lord Glynnis. Pick another metaphor, will you? Corona Virus? Yes, beavers are EXACTLY like a crippling plague that’s killing our way of life. You know one that we are spending all our money and time avoiding.
Various articles on beavers have dubbed beavers “ecosystem engineers” and “agents of Arctic destruction and have accused them of “running amok in the Arctic.” That because their landscaping may speed up the thawing of permafrost and release more climate-warming greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
“They can do all of that. They can be a major disturbance, but they are a natural force in nature,” said Hood.
Well yes they are natural. Hurricanes and earthquakes are Natural too. It doesn’t mean anyone likes them. Glynnis can’t you use that big old brain of yours to say something nice about beavers?
“I don’t think they are the only reason that the Arctic is warming and permafrost is melting,” she said, adding that she prefers to see beavers as “our ecological second chance” because they also create biodiversity.”
Next time LEAD WITH THAT okay???
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh!
