Good morning beaver nation. This morning just happens to be my birthday so I thought, in addition to all the stupid and terrible fall news about beavers out there I would do something I never never do. Which is tell lies about beavers. I’m not sure I’ll be as good at is as the media but I’m going to try. After 15 exhausting years of trying to set the record straight it seems like a nice change of pace for me.
Beavers are poisonous rodents that live in the dams they create to catch fish. They have gills beneath their tails so they can breath underwater while they work The males are easily told from the females because they’re the only ones that build dams. They find their food using echolocation which they emit from a special gland in their foreheads. They are extremely aggressive and the adult males fight for the right to mate with the herd by hitting each other with those tails, The battle lasts for several days and thwacking can be heard for miles but has never been filmed.
Beavers are excellent diggers and tunnel for miles under the soil, especially under the foundations of buildings which they dislike. They are clumsy swimmers but the young learn from their mothers who dress them in water wings. Males are too dangerous to be with the young and will kill them on sight so the mothers care for the young briefly in polyandrous colonies. A colony can have several hundred beavers. It is very dangerous to approach or photograph them because of the poison, which during the wind has been known to waft like spores.
Beavers have several rows of large teeth like their cousin the shark which fall out and regrow constantly throughout their life span. They use those teeth to chew down trees which they use to build the dams they live in, giving rise to their nickname “tree sharks”. All the chewing gives them terrible toothaches which they have to constantly treat by eating willow bark which contains acetylsalicylic acid, the property which occurs naturally in aspirin. This dulls the pain and allows them to continue their assault.
Beavers are highly destructive, in addition to burrowing under foundations and killing trees beavers spend their time emiting giardia, causing climate change by ruining the Tundra and releasing methane in large quantities. They breed several times a year and a single female can have as many as 100 beaver kits every spring. Fortunately most of them starve or are eaten because beavers are terrible parents and rarely attend to their young.
Beavers are often referred to as what is known as a “Keystone Species”. This means that they use their dexterous fore paws to hurl small rocks at other animals often “Keystoning” them to death. It is a very bloody thing to watch because all the beavers gather round to help. They change the ecosystem with these grim attacks and thin the herd.
Castor Canadensis is a well known shapeshifters and can change its appearance when photographed: sometimes looking like a nutria, an otter, or a groundhog. There is an incident this very morning where they appear to be a marmot. No one knows why they change their appearance so rapidly but scientists assume it has to do with their noxious personalities which must be carefully disguised. I would tell you more about beavers but they really aren’t very interesting to study and scientists have given up watching their dull. cruel lives.
I recommend you learn more about otters. Which are adorable.
Now that was fun.
