rei-collage

Paul Scott of the free Tay beaver group found this on the bank under a willow and happily brought it home to share. Because it was dry when he found it there has been a lot of discussion on its origins. He explained that the river in question has great fluctuations so it’s possible it was ‘exited’ under water and just dried out when the level dropped. Bruce Thompson (respected environmental consultant at ecoTRACS in Wyoming) had this to say about it:

“The usual diagnostics — shape, color, texture, size and location — appear correct for Castor, although I cannot discern what that larger light-colored content is — a leaf? The late and great Olaus Murie refused to claim 100% certainty with scat ID unless he personally saw it exit — I love that man! — but using the process of elimination (sorry) to remove other competing identities (at least in North America), and based on past collections of Castor canadensis specimens, I’m better than 90% confident that it’s beaver.”

Obviously we’re not talking North America here. And since this is Scotland its from Castor Fiber, not Castor Canadensis, but I don’t think they look all that different. Paul explained the ‘leaf’ saying

Was fairly confident of what it was when I first spotted it but it’s always nice to have it confirmed. The small leaf shaped object is fragment of wood which still shows the tooth groove down the middle. The 3ft mentioned in the original post is actually 3ft above the water as opposed to inland. The scat was found on the top of a horizontal Willow trunk, so could have been dropped there by a Fox or a Heron who picked it up thinking it was something tasty. The area is also prone to sever fluctuations in water level, so the original deposit could well have been made in water given that the high level would have submerged the spot. Two other samples were found a few feet away in a beaver dug canal but would have instantly disintegrated had they been handled. Sadly, I’ve been searching for a good example for a few years now. Happily, I can stop now.

And before you question what kind of man looks for beaver poo and happily saves it in tupperware, remember that it could easily be the first wild beaver poo collected from the county in 400 years, and maybe that will explain the fascination. Remember, that beavers were extinct for a long, long time in the United Kingdom.Would you take home dinosaur poo?

Like all beavers in Scotland, this one clearly has a very high castor-fiber diet!

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Oh and Owyhee in Nevada (not too far from the Elko River where Carol Evans of the BLM has documented compelling beaver magic) congratulates this years’ winners of the science fair, in which students Richard Pete and Indira Modesto took third place for “Beaver Pond Ecology.”

To which I can only reply: “Third?”

The Fogertys’ home is on Edgewood Drive, which abuts to Alamo creek. Wilson and Ann Fogerty came home from a vacation to find a rather large beaver problem in their backyard. A metal fence they put up was torn down and in their what they described as usually pristine swimming pool sat quite a few large clumps of beaver feces at the bottom.

Isn’t that just like a beaver? Lurking inside a muddy dam, knocking over a metal fence, plucking the petals from some geraniums and pooping in a swimming pool? Gosh those poor beseiged Fogertys. Get me the number of animal control. This has to be stopped.

Umm…

Except beavers don’t live ‘inside’ the dam, they probably wouldn’t knock over a fence unless they were trying to get to a tree, they have tastier targets in mind than your geraniums and how on EARTH would you know to recognize beaver feces?

Allow me to say, as a woman who has in the past four years of my life spent literally thousands of hours with beavers, allow me to say that in all my morning and evening jaunts to the beavers I’ve seen exactly zero beaver feces. Which doesn’t mean that they’re invisible or constipated as a species, but rather that they occur in fairly secretive locations and always in the water. Because of beavers unique diet they are more like little pellets of sawdust than babyruth bars. I have even seen them online in only two places, and the above photo is one of them.

Which is why, I, as an avid beaver-reader and critical thinker question the notion that this couple came back from their Winnebago vacation, put down their keys and sunglasses and were stunned to recognize beaver droppings in the bottom of their swimming pool. How would they know it was beaver?

They can go from cute and cuddly to a rodent in a New York minute,” she said as she assessed the damage. “I would say, ‘Don’t leave it to the beavers.’ ” “I want to throw dynamite in there,” Wilson Fogerty lamented about the beaver dam.”I don’t want to have a dead beaver,” she responded. “But they do carry diseases and there is not a lot of people to help you figure this out.”

Ahhh the salt of the earth. The hardworking men and women of Vacaville, CA just trying to take care of their swimming pools and geraniums. You know, I’ve heard through the grapevine that way back when Martinez Public Works discovered our beavers they called PW in Vacaville and said, “What should we do?” And the answer came back very simply,

“Kill em, all!’

Well, Mr. and Mrs. Fogerty, I think its so unlikely that beavers pooped in your pool that I am willing to promise to personally clean all the beaver poop myself. Feel better? The tipped flowerpots makes me think more likely raccoons since they are often very happy to look for the grubs at the bottom of the pot. Or it could have been humans having a fine teen pool party in your back yard and leaving you with a token of their intrusion. If it turns out it was beavers I will eat a plate of the bugs of your choosing. I haven’t heard of a single real problem your beavers are causing you so I won’t pretend to offer solutions. just know that exclusion for your swimming pool is a good idea for all kinds of reasons, not just beaver-related.

Even this family from Texas who hated beavers and chased them out with a pool scrape didn’t complain about beaver poop in their swimming pool!

(But thanks for the excuse to post this picture again, I never ever get tired of it!)

UPDATE: Just heard from the Reporter that they will publish my letter to the editor. A beaver poop to remember!

And meanwhille, beaver friend GTK writes that they’re busy shooting wild pigs in Clayton so they won’t mess up the golf course. Gosh, we have to use up a lot of water and kill a lot of wildlife to keep those 18 holes looking nice.