How did this ever slip by me? I am sure I read the title about “70 years of trapping” and it went into the recycle folder. I’ve just about had it with the glorious recollections of an aging trapper, but I will NEVER NEVER get tired of articles like this.

LEAVE IT TO TIPPIE: Nationally-renowned beaver trapper recalls decades of tales

Tippie — a Denver local who has been called North America’s best beaver trapper — is featured in “The Beaver Believers”, a documentary underscoring the role that beavers, and their dams, play in preserving scarce water as climate change and drought intensifies.

Early this month the film was screened at the Banff Mountain Film Festival in Denver, and it’s picked up awards on a cross-country tour.

Tippie features prominently in the full-length documentary alongside five scientists introducing beavers into habitats as a means of preserving increasingly scarce water. Although Tippie is not a scientist — in fact, she’s a hairdresser by trade — she’s become an authority on beavers and their ecosystems through more than 30 years of trapping the aquatic rodents in Colorado.

Ahhh Sherri! It is wonderful to read about you getting the press you deserve with Sarah’s documentary. I hope there was a long time of discussion about this movie and why beaver matter. I can’t  tell you how happy it makes me to see her still fighting the good fight and getting credit for it.

For decades, Tippie has fielded requests from local governments and landowners to safely remove beavers from metro-area streams and irrigation ditches where they do what they do best: Down trees, build dams and flood waterways.

Instead of killing the industrious but irksome creatures, Tippie live-traps entire families of beavers, holds them in her Denver backyard for several days and then deposits them safe and sound where landowners or governments want them, usually in Colorado’s high country.

For Tippie, beavers are more of an obsession than an occupation.

Denver home is chock-full of beaver-themed knick-knacks: Tiny clay beavers she’d made herself, piles of beaver stuffed animals and even bath towels threaded with little beavers. Her sweater had a picture of a beaver on it.

HA! Tell me about it! I’m sure beavers just arrive on your doorstep like ours. It’s not so much of a decorative flair as a constant stream of things coming your direction. Believe me, I’m learning all about it.

 

As a recognized authority on trapping, she’s been featured in many newspapers during her three decades of work including Sentinel Colorado, Time and her favorite — Costco’s magazine.

For Tippie, beavers are more than just a beautiful animal: They’re a keystone species that create entire ecosystems by damming streams, creating rich conditions for plant and animal life and keeping water in dry soil for longer.

She spoke frankly about local governments and politicians who she thinks are abandoning beavers and destroying the environment. She swears like a sailor and isn’t afraid to tell people how she feels, she said.

Ahh Sherri. Speaking truth to power in every room she visits. That’s the way to change the world. You have been an inspiration to me for more years than I can count.

She spoke frankly about local governments and politicians who she thinks are abandoning beavers and destroying the environment. She swears like a sailor and isn’t afraid to tell people how she feels, she said.

Tippie was a natural subject to feature in “The Beaver Believers”, said Washington-based director Sarah Koenigsberg. She originally heard Tippie speak at a beaver education event in Utah, she said.

“This woman is a firecracker. I’ve got to track her down,” Koenigsberg recalled thinking. “Obviously, she captivated everyone.”

Koenigsberg met with and filmed scientists across the West; and in Colorado, her crew camped out in Tippie’s backyard for about 10 days. They forged a deep friendship.

Lucky Sarah. Lucky beavers. When I am at the edge of endurance and sick and tired of all the negative attention beavers receive in the world, Sherri always inspires me to try a little bit longer. She remains a national treasure and we should all be grateful for her many decades long hard work.