Today is day of revealing salmon mysteries, which is handy because saving salmon is motivating for far more people than saving beavers, (present company excepted). We start with this fine article from the North Delta in British Columbia where a volunteer group spent the weekend making little dams for salmon, because ‘beavers can’t be allowed to do it anymore”.
Delta’s Cougar Creek to get five weirs for spawning salmon
The Cougar Creek Streamkeepers have spent a week doing construction down at Lower Cougar Creek to make it a better place for spawning salmon.
The streamkeepers have constructed five weirs, horizontal barriers across a waterway, along Lower Cougar Creek to increase depth of the pools behind the weirs and oxygenate the water passing over them.
“Back in the old days, it was the beavers who often made impoundments in the water,” streamkeeper Deborah Jones said. “But now we don’t have enough trees to allow beavers to just be cutting everything down.”
Yes it’s true. Mother beaver used to be allowed to do her job, but now the are so worried she will eat one of the few remaining trees we left after building that parking lot that the Streamkeepers have trapped her away and agreed to do the work for her. No word yet on whether they’ll also be putting out willow shoots for bird nesting, small pools for amphibian rearing, filtering the water for toxins and laying out feeding tables for waterfowl. Mother beaver really did a lot for nature, so the job replacing her is a big one.
There’s more about it on KTNA’s next installment of Glacial Rivers. 
The Ecology of Glacial Rivers–Su River runs of humpback, sockeye, and coho
The seventh in a series from the Susitna Salmon Center. This segment by Jeff Davis deviates from the ecology theme to tell about the runs of the other four species of salmon in the Susitna River drainage. From tagging studies, Department of Fish and Game biologists have information about when the runs are, where most of the salmon spawn, how long they spend in freshwater habitats, and other details of the spawning season. Chinook salmon were covered in the previous episode.
So be kind to beavers fishermen or ELSE that salmon gets it, I think this means.
Speaking of kindness, I found this yesterday and thought it was the most truly adorable creation I had ever seen. It the brilliant work of Polish illustrator Emilia Dziubak for the children’s book “Hug me, please“. I believe it fully captures the oafish delight I feel upon having our beavers finally returned, don’t you? I especially like the beavers eyes because I’m pretty sure that is the very same enduring expression I have made nearly every time I was unexpectedly hugged. The timing of this couldn’t be better, so I adopted it for our beaver announcement too.
