And I did nothing because I was not a salmon…

You knew it would happen. Because all politics is beavers eventually. How could they resist the chance to hurt salmon, beavers and native Tribes all at the same time. The Trump administration has abandoned them all.

Trump administration pulls US out of agreement to help restore salmon in the Columbia River

SEATTLE (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday pulled the U.S. out of an agreement with Washington, Oregon and four American Indian tribes to work together to restore salmon populations and boost tribal clean energy development in the Pacific Northwest, deriding the plan as “radical environmentalism” that could have resulted in the breaching of four controversial dams on the Snake River.

The deal, known as the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, was reached in late 2023 and heralded by the Biden administration, tribes and conservationists as historic. It allowed for a pause in decades of litigation over the harm the federal government’s operation of dams in the Northwest has done to the fish.

What’s three more dams in the vast scheme of things? I mean those fish don’t REALLY need to get places and who believes in nutrient cycling anyway?

Am I rite?

Under it, the federal government said it planned to spend more than $1 billion over a decade to help recover depleted salmon runs. The government also said that it would build enough new clean energy projects in the Pacific Northwest to replace the hydropower generated by the Lower Snake River dams — the Ice Harbor, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Lower Granite — should Congress ever agree to remove them.

Well of course. The current administration doesn’t take kindly to all that creek restoring liberal salmon talk. They don’t eat salmon.

It’s steak and ketchcup all the way.

Did you feel it? The seismic shift in the force where the epicenter of beaver education suddenly landed in Colorado?Yesterday was the first-ever beaver festival in Colorado. Looks like it made a literal splash.

Give a Dam Beaver Festival debuts in Durango

Ryan Beevers, 9, Abel Blaisdell, 9, Ellie Linville, 7, and Adrien Linville, build beaver dams with sand, rock, willow trees and water with the help of volunteer Laurn Kramer on Saturday during Give a Dam Beaver Festival at Rotary Park. Several different organizations participated in the first annual event highlighting the benefits of beavers and the work being done to maintain and restore watersheds. 

Awesome photo~!That is just the kind of engrossing activity children love and photographers go crazy over! I’m so happy to see this happening in Durango.

Attendees at the Give a Dam Beaver Festival onSaturday at Rotary Park participate in beaver theater explaining the history of beavers in America and how important they are to the ecosystem. Several different organizations participated in the first annual event highlighting the benefits of beavers and the work being done to maintain and restore watersheds. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)

The very best way to tell a story is to get their attention first. Looks like Give A Dam did that in spades.

Attendees at the Give a Dam Beaver Festival on Saturday at Rotary Park participate in beaver theater explaining the history of beavers in America and how important they are to the ecosystem. Several different organizations participated in the first annual event highlighting the benefits of beavers and the work being done to maintain and restore watersheds.

This is my favorite part. I think it will be in the library for a few weeks afterwards. How cool is this?

 

A beaver hut was constructed on Saturday during Give a Dam Beaver Festival at Rotary Park. Several different organizations participated in the first annual event highlighting the benefits of beavers and the work being done to maintain and restore watersheds. (Jerry McBride/Durango Herald)

Hey I know what troop 429 might want to do next year. Hmm. It kind of makes me itchy just looking at it but kids like that sort of thing.

Great work Nichole pulling off the best ever beaver celebration in Colorado! I can barely remember our first festival lo these many years ago. Worth A Dam salutes you and give you a tail slap of hearty congratulations!

I will never stop feeling a little thrill in my veins when I read beaver artricles  that start with phrases like  “Community reacts“.  The killing of beavers in Ann Arbor is not going away quietly. There were at least 7 headlines in my mailbox last night. Including this from a very unusual voice on public radio:

Community reacts to City of Ann Arbor killing beavers at Leslie Park

The local community has been raising concerns over the City of Ann Arbor and the Washtenaw County Water Resources Office’s choice to exterminate beavers in Ann Arbor.

In a joint statement shared with WEMU, Ann Arbor city and Washtenaw County officials consulted experts from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Department of Agriculture on managing the beavers and their dam at the Leslie Park Golf Course. They were informed of the possibility of building a beaver pipe to allow water to flow through the dam.

But with no guarantee of the pipe working and failure would mean flooding around the local area, officials decided to kill the beavers.

Director of Communications for the Huron Valley Humane Society, Wendy Welch says killing wildlife is neither effective nor humane in the long term.

Welch adds that beavers are a keystone species because their dams help increase biodiversity and keep the water clean.

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Sometimes its the questions that matter.