Paths that cross

Well the beaver gods were kind to me yesterday. The wonderful artist Amy Gallagher Hall wrote me back and said she was a great beaver fan and had seen the new kit THAT VERY NIGHT! She thought what we were doing was wonderful and wanted to help, but alas she was leaving for an extended back packing trip and would be gone for three weeks during the festival. She definitely would like to help next year though!

I also heard from Jake Chant of the Devon Wildlife Trust who was advised by Mark Elliot to reach out to me (ME!) specifically on the overlap between the river use between beavers and people along the River Otter. Issues included recreational swimming by people, dog walking, and fly-fishing. There had been a near beaver attack a few weeks ago on a dog that got too close for comfort. Did I have thoughts about what might help?

Okay, I confess, I was chuffed that folks 5361 miles away would as me for advice, but then I got serious and told them that the primary issue of dog attacks happened in June and July because the beavers were protecting offspring. If they could get folks to keep their dogs on a leash in the morning and evening during the summer months it wouldn’t be an issue. The rare cases where beavers attacked human swimmers were all beavers with rabies, which the UK has worked very hard not to have.

And as for the fly-fishers worried about beaver attacks because the scary beavers slap their tails at them in the water?

(What enormous sissies, I thought but didn’t say.) What I did say was that there are plenty of fly-fishermen in the US who love beavers and introduced him to Dougald Scott. Dougald is on the board of directors for the NCCFF and the salmon restoration federation and wrote a great article on the importance of beavers in the 2012 newsletter. I sent him a copy and said he should go looking until he found an un-phobic beaver friend that loved to fly-fish- because education requires allies. And if you can’t find one, make one!