The light video is obviously our runaway tyke, the second is harder to tell except for the very beginning. Look at that floaty little body above the water. I had an awesome day yesterday because I was feeling lighter in spirit and a DVD was on my porch when I got home. Hurray!
I think I’ll call him “Lightfoot”.
Oh, and in the shadow of our tickertape parade, I’ll mention that there’s another beaver attack. Brace yourselves for an exciting news cycle. This one happened in Nova Scotia and they have NO IDEA WHY because they were just swimming over the lodge with a big dog and snorkling equipment?
Angry beaver attacks man on Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore
There’s a vicious beaver on the Eastern Shore. To make matters worse, the giant rodent has a taste for human blood.
“Maybe it was just one angry beaver, or maybe it thought I was a big human-sized log in a black wetsuit,” Jeremy McNaughton said Thursday.
“It makes me feel better to say I was bit by a bucktoothed, flat-tailed shark.”
McNaughton, Peter Murphy and Paul Skerry were minding their own business at Spanish Ship Bay on the Eastern Shore last week. The three buddies were snorkeling about a kilometre from shore in water two metres deep on Aug. 27.
“The beaver just sort of assaulted us for no apparent reason,” said Skerry, 66, on Thursday.
Cue the Jaws music.
McNaughton, 23, saw a dark shadow move beneath him.
“I’m used to swimming with all kinds of marine life so I just thought it was neat, and I yelled to Paul that there was a sea otter or something.”
Then it began circling Murphy, who spotted the menacing black tail of the fearsome herbivore.
“It was quite a large beaver — big enough to be a seal,” said McNaughton.
“Then it started circling a bit too close for comfort so I gave it a little kick away with my flipper.”
Alas, beavers also have flippers on their hind feet. Their front feet are reserved for claws.
As McNaughton lifted his head from the water to call over to Skerry, the Castor canadensis struck.
“It was very sneaky; it definitely knew I wasn’t looking,” said McNaughton.
“It felt like something hit me in the side real hard. … I looked down and I saw its little T-rex arms. I pushed it away and it was gone.”
T-rex arms? Jaws music? Fearesome Herbivore? Front paws are reserved for claws? Did you run out of hyperbolic alarmist exaggerations? Or do you still have more?
Oh good, the reporter has more.
Those fangs grow continuously throughout a beaver’s 24-year life expectancy and are only kept in check by their penchant for gnawing down trees.
I hate the beaver attack stories of summer. And I hate the beaver flooding stories of fall. And the beaver washout stories of spring. Come to think of it I think winter is the best beaver season. Everyone’s too busy shoveling show to complain about beavers.
