Yesterday was the third conference call for the rapidly growing chapter on urban beavers. While the last one left me feeling like I was surrounded by nobel scientists and barely qualified to participate, this one made me realize that I actually do have a very specifically valuable skill set. During the call I would make comments that seemed fairly obvious to me – like how stream complexity isn’t anything a city engineer wants, or why dead wood is seen as a threat in city streams and quickly removed, or how flow devices require stream alteration permits in California – and they kept being surprised and grateful that I said them because they would never have thought of that.
It finally dawned on me that actually living in an actual town with actual beavers for a decade produced a pretty remarkable learning curve. And I guess it’s okay I don’t know what evapotranspiration means. Because I know other things. Useful things. And in nine years I have learned something about how to save beavers.
Not everything, but something.
Anyway, I’m grateful my coauthors who send treats like this my way. This is from a beaver management plan written for that Walmart in Logan, Utah by Elijah Portugal, Joseph Wheaton, and Nick Bouwes. I was told it was shareable as long as I gave credit, so I’m adding it to the website until someone tells me personally to take it down. It’s definitely worth reading and fills me in Martinez with a longing I think only Salieri can have felt for Mozart, but WOW is it worth it.
Take a good long look at that chart, and see how far you get down the page before you use extermination. Honestly this made me so happy I felt giddy when I saw it. Imagine a place where trapping beaver wasn’t the first or even the second solution that was thought of.
For comparison: here is the complex decision tree that most cities [and Martinez if it were left up to them] employ.
