I like to think that I’m more suited to Salon.com than TIME magazine or readers digest, but I may have to change party affiliati on after this article, boldly entitled “11 species that are destroying the planet” and featuring a cover photo of a beaver. Never mind that the article is talking about the beavers in Tierra Del Fuego which should never have been there in the first place and were the result of some Brazilian Nazi get-rich-quick scheme. Never mind that the trees in that zone don’t coppice and the conditions beavers cause have nothing to do with beavers in America, where they belong.
To grow its fur trade, Argentina imported a mere 50 beavers from Canada in 1946. Bad idea. Since then, they’ve swelled to a colony of more than 200,000 and have spread to Chile, felling endless trees in their wake. Officials have tried trapping them with little success. Their other solution? Encouraging restaurants to add beaver to their menus.
Mind you, the article also mentions how badgers are ruining England with bovine disease and white tailed deer are destroying the US by causing climate change – so the author’s staggering ignorance isn’t limited to beavers but honestly, I expect some actual thinking to occur when a Salon.com article is written. Even if it was lifted from Global Post. Not a bunch of urban legends from a scary sleep-over where beavers become a poster-child for destruction!
Go please and politely comment here:
Baindu Kallon
Intern at Global Post
Currently a junior at Northwestern University studying journalism and international studies. Looking to combine both passions for storytelling and international issues such as refugees, migration flows and human rights. Interested in using different media platforms such as social media and online journalism, to raise awareness on these challenges that face the developing world.
Alright Baindu, you’re a student and I’m willing to overlook your wildlife ignorance if you’re willing to learn something about our natural world before pontificating about it. Wikipedia Rick went to North Western, and he turned out awesome, so I’m sure there’s hope for you. Maybe you should come to the beaver festival and talk to us, and the coyote people, and the badger people, and the bat people, and the bird people, and understand what’s really at stake before you use a powerful platform to set back environmental thinking 30 years.
Sheesh.
