You may recall that there are two sets of beavers in Scotland. One ‘official trial’ in Knapdale in a landmass they can basically never escape, and one “unofficial” in the Tayside where our friends the Ramsays live. And after much hemming and hawing they were both granted permission to stay in the country. But there was a catch. They could only stay if there could be a legal permitted way to kill them when they caused issues for farmers. Scottish National Heritage was put in charge of the process.
There has been a massive scandal in recent days as a hardworking reporter from the Ferret, Rob Edwards obtained a copy of the training slides Scottish National Heritage used to educate the chosen few. The slideshow so horrified thousands of countrymen that there have been more than 15000 signatures to a petition to stop the killing. Remember Scotland is a small country. They haven’t ever had that many people sign anything.
This is from the final slide and partially explains the alarm.
It took all my breath when I first saw it. Not because of the dead beaver, lord knows we’ve seen enough of them over the years. But because of the joyful children in juxtaposition. Obviously having a fun day out with Dad. Killing funny things with flat tails,
And when you’re a child and your dad is a racist or a trapper or a terrorist, you don’t know any better. How could you? When I was a child and my father used to spray chemicals into the elm tree to avert dutch elm disease. I didn’t know any better. I would sit on the stairs and collect all the dying caterpillars that dropped out in a little container with leaves, hoping to keep them as pets. Every year I was surprised that they stopped moving within hours. And I didn’t understand until much later that my father spraying chemicals had killed them.
So I went though the slide show grimly reading how to kill beavers by catching them where they lived or worked and getting entire family groups. I downloaded it for your education if your stomach is strong enough But it was the third slide that REALLY got my attention. Maybe you’ll see why.
If that picture in the lower right corner looks familiar it should. Because its the photo of one Cheryl Reynolds taken of our kit and dad beaver in 2013 in Martinez California.
Our beavers used to teach snipers how to shoot family groups.
Of course I was beyond incensed. I contacted the reporter who said that the slideshow was prepared by the Scottish government and that he would find out how they got our photo. In the meantime he was willing to mark it as stolen on their website where I found it. Even though for him it was the middle of the night.
I believe this entire slideshow and decision to train authorized beaver killers was, what we candidly would call in America, a royal clusterfuck. The idea that some perky intern sat down on their laptop and made a power point about how to kill every last beaver (don’t forget the little ones) is beyond horrific. And the idea that they would browse the internet(s) like looters and choose photos from OUR WEBSITE where we teach how to NOT kill beavers is outrageous.
I wrote the board of the Scottish Natural Heritage as much and will let you know if I or the reporter hear back. If they wanted to do this right they could have used any of the thinly respectable trappers organization or even the USDA. Obviously they didn’t take this job seriously or they would have been more careful in how it was presented and not finished with a photo of two little girls having a dead beaver tea party
Stay tuned. I think there will be more to this story.
