Its Tomsk population is now at about 10,000, contributing to the risk of riverside flooding and seriously depressing fish stocks.
Happy New Year. I thought we’d start the year right with a little piscatorial ennui from the ecology minded “Voice of Russia”. Apparently their environmental department has studied the issue and found that all those dams get in the way of spawning activity.
And just ask Mr. Dostoyevesky: when anything gets in the way of Russian spawning activity, they get very, very depressed. ba-dum-bum.
And random odd fact to start the year off right: google the term “Depressed fish” and see how many images pop up. Not sure why that is, but apparently I’m not the only one whose looked for this before.
See this picture? It is from this year’s number 1 website (according to ebizMBA rankings) which of course is the Huffington post. It’s actually NOT a website per se, but rather a news aggregate site, which takes stories and columnists from all over. (Like if there were thousands of beaver writers around the globe and I could just pick which ones of them to feature.) (Imagine that!) It sold for a cool 315 million to AOL in 2011 and Arianna herself was made editor in chief of the Huffington Post media group – which, in addition to the lucrative advertising deal, means ultimately she’s responsible for this.
This ‘beaver’ is number 44 in their end of the year animal photos. ‘Year end’ means they already posted it before. You can bet I already wrote to helpfully explain that beavers never, ever do the backstroke and they ignored me and blithely continued to mislabel it. I actually believe I exchanged emails with the photographer some where along the way who was embarrassed to have got his trip to the zoo photos mixed up. But never mind. His mistake is now a photo of the year.
I again pointed out the mistake, as did some other people with eyeballs and frontal lobes. But never mind. It’s a photo of the year now. Or misnomer of the year if you will.
“Oh, I’m sorry, my dears,” Uncle Monty said, wiping his eyes with his hands. “You must be very frightened. But the Incredibly Deadly Viper is one of the least dangerous and most friendly creatures in the animal kingdom. Sunny has nothing to worry about, and neither do you.”
Klaus looked at his baby sister, who was still in his arms, as she playfully gave the Incredibly Deadly Viper a big hug around its thick body, and he realized Uncle Monty must be telling the truth. “But then why is it called the Incredibly Deadly Viper?”
Uncle Monty laughed again. “It’s a misnomer,” he said, using a word which here means “a very wrong name.”
(And by the way, if you never treated yourself to any Lemony Snickett, what on earth are you waiting for?)
Well some misnomers bring weirdly good fortune I guess, because this morning an old friend wrote me after seeing my post on the gargantuan aggregate and was very pleased to learn I was helping beavers. This particular friend traveled with me as a fellow disciple through the thick inkblot-laden forest of graduate school and once decorated a cake to look exactly like card X to honor a beloved professor. If you have any wish at all to know what on earth I’m about, here is my entire dissertation in Haiku:
This looks like a batBut people cooking dinnerWill get you discharged
When the wall crumbles and the polarities shift (and they will shift) and folks across the country start to advocate for beavers because they are so good for wildlife and wetlands and habitat and climate change and salmon and drought and you know-EVERYTHING. The very first federal agency to change their stripes won’t be fish and game, or the secretary of the interior, or god forbid USDA. The first ones to the ‘reasonable stewardship table’ will be these guys. USFS. The forestry people who say things like this:
A unique relationship exists between moose, beaver and willow communities, with each component influencing the persistence of the other. Browsing of willow communities by the inflated moose population of the 1960s and 1970s was detrimental to willows at that time, especially in the absence of beaver. Today, a more vigorous beaver population has helped willow communities proliferate, and the Forest Service is interested in maintaining the health of these communities in order to benefit the declining moose population, which is highly dependent upon willow, especially in the winter months.
The county says beavers are not threatening to residents.
Beavers are prevalent in Virginia. Credit: Eugene Hester, VDGIF
Beavers in the ‘burbs? Many people think of beavers as wilderness animals. They do live in wilderness areas, but also seem comfortably at home in northern Virginia.
Two places in the Mount Vernon-Lee area where you might see beavers are Huntley Meadows Park and the Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve.
Recently, beavers have been very visible in Huntley Meadows Park, said Park Manager Kevin Munroe. “This may be best time to see them because they’ve decided to build at the beginning of the boardwalk. They are very cooperative at the moment,” he chuckled.
What a nice intro to an article! You will remember Huntley Meadows from back in November when they were protesting that beavers were moving things around in their beautiful marsh park. Well they are still in residence and even after the rabid beaver attacks in the county this year, they are still much appreciated.
The beaver lodge, seen from ground level. Credit: Ned Stone
Singing their praises, Munroe remarked: “Beavers have more effect on their habitat than almost any other animal outside of humans. Beavers have a very positive effect on watersheds because they create wetlands that provide wildlife habitat, consolidate silt and allow for deep pools during both winter and summer. They reduce erosion by slowing down the water.”
Mr Munroe! You get a letter from me and a free t-shirt! I can’t tell you how happy I am to meet an old beaver friend that’s a complete and total stranger and lives in a state that has more than its share of beaver foes. Well met, sir! And Glenda Booth who wrote the report really paid attention and listened when he was singing! Good job!
Usually active at night and known as “nature’s engineers,” beavers chew down trees to construct dams and lodges in lakes and streams. Beaver dams usually form ponds. They eat primarily herbaceous vegetation, woody and aquatic plants. They store limbs and logs underwater near the lodge for winter.
In Virginia, beavers are found in the northern piedmont, mountains and coastal plain, but between 1911 and 1932, there were no beavers in Virginia because of over-trapping for pelts. In 1932, state game managers “imported” 35 beavers from other states and released them in nine counties. By 1953, the beaver population had recovered enough so that DGIF allowed limited trapping. Today, the state manages them as a game species.
Beavers create new habitats that help other plants and animals. Their dams can slow moving water and allow other wildlife and plants to colonize. Beaver ponds can attract waterfowl, amphibians, reptiles and aquatic insects. The dams can also allow more sediment to collect and cause flooding of roads and other property. Beavers kill trees and the higher water levels they create can kill trees.
Ooh you forgot ONE sentence Glenda. Let me help out “Dead trees later make important homes for obligate nestors like the woodduck. Stands of beaver drowned trees become rookeries for Great Blue Heron.” Other wise excellent work in every way!
Oh and by the way, do you know who makes a point of regularly visiting and photographing the beavers at Huntley Meadows? Our friend Ann Siegal who wrote about beavers in the Washington Post last year. Very small world.
Great Blue Heron & Hooded Merganser - Ann Cameron Siegal
And random odd fact to start the year off right: google the term “Depressed fish” and see how many images pop up. Not sure why that is, but apparently I’m not the only one whose looked for this before.
