Yesterday I stumbled across this wonderful interview with Derek Gow about beavers in England. I admit that I was originally drawn by the amusing photo which of course readers of this site should recognize right away. But let’s make allowances for the fact that they haven’t seen beaver in 400 years and cut them some slack.
It might take a moment to adjust to his Cornish accent, but the whole 15 minute interview is very, very good. I got especially fascinated by his discussion of the species that suffered when beavers were removed from the landscape. At around 2:13 he talks about the Large Copper Butterfly that relied as catapillars on the coppiced willow trees at the edge of forests beavers once provided that never really recovered from their removal. Next he talks about the Bearded Tit which feed their youngsters on the larvae from flooded reed beds that rarely occur in the absence of beavers. It made me realize what an incredible numbers of species beaver ponds affect that we never even consider.
The entire interview is the work of Open Learn and you might want to register and peek about to see what else they have. I’m very impressed with the work Derek has done to educate his countrymen about why beavers matter. It’s an uphill job but he points out that if we want folks in Kenya to coexist with truly destructive animals like elephants and Lions, we should be able to tolerate a little beaver interference!
Amen.
