With one correction in spelling to Mr. Twain’s quotation, this is a fitting introduction to today’s column. Yesterday I received the results of the survey conducted at the four seasons in El Dorado. You’ll remember they were having troubles with beavers a while back and folks contacted us about wanting to keep them. A couple of them even came to Martinez to look around and see our flow device, then visit the beaver festival. They lost the battle with the HOA to save those beavers, but have formed a wildlife group to hopefully change the situation the next time. The HOA kindly responded with the usual survey of attitudes which 104 residents returned.
Ugh. I shudder to think what would have happened if Martinez got their hands on something like this. The questions aren’t exactly UNBIASED although the HOA deserves grim kudos for actually saying eradicate and not “remove” or “euthanize”. (Which Martinez used to cloak its ugly truth.) Okay 64 against keeping beavers and 36 for is significant at the p.005 level but the obstacle’s not insurmountable. They only need to change 19 minds. That’s like 10 couples. I’m thinking BBQ and martini’s, maybe in Martinez beaver glasses?
I especially love the part where the HOA asks residents if they will pay to thin the willow after they pay to kill the animal that would trim the willow naurally. Nice! I would start by saying, “Does the fact that you used our HOA dollars to complete this survey mean that if 51 had voted against eradication you would not have killed them next time?” If it does – we have our work cut out for us but it’s work we can do. Can you give me a map of the residences who responded to the survey? How many of them were on the creek?
If the answer is a mealy-mouthed “We have to protect the property regardless of what public opinion says” or something like that, demand they give a refund to residents for the expense of the survey itself (including the time it took them to add these things up), since its clearly a waste of time and of no value to the residents. Offer to do the survey for them next time so it won’t cost residents anything. It’s not as hard as it sounds. I know a beaver-friendly psychologist who would be happy to volunteer some time to put together new questions.
- Is it better to solve a problem for the short term, or adopt a long-term solution”
- Would you appreciate more variety of birds and fish in the area?
- Do you know what a “keystone species is?”
- Do you think the HOA at Four Seasons is as smart as other communities that have successfully employed humane solutions? Or would it be too hard for them?
Give me a call. I’m sure we can whip something together in no time.
And some more dam lies this morning from the Boston Globe, talking about how rebounding forests on the East Coast have made a wildlife boom.
As forest returns in New England, so do inhabitants
Beaver: Wiped out entirely in southern New England by 1900 with only small remnant populations in northern Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire. Now hundreds of thousands live throughout New England, including an estimated 70,000 in Massachusetts.
Mind you, nobody has actually COUNTED the number of beavers on the East Coast or West Coast or Barbary Coast since they noticed there were hardly any left! The 70.000 figure comes from the panicked inflated statistics offered when MA Fisheries and Wildlife responded to the voters decision to eliminate crush and leghold traps. As in “OMG we’ll be overrun with beavers. There will be 70,000 in 10 years!”
Nice of the Globe to write that down for them like its a fact. But I’ve noticed before the Globe is very compliant when it comes to beaver dogma.
For the record, MA has 10,555 miles of land of which 25.7 is water. That works out to about 2712 miles of water total, which would mean that there would be about 2 beavers for every mile of water in the state. Which I suppose is theoretically possible, except for the fact that MA is notorious for not allowing beavers in reservoirs or near drinking water, so that’s got to subtract a lot of real estate. Plus some of that water has got to be under towns and concrete, and beavers can’t live there. Not to mention that plenty of beavers in cities and on private land are getting killed every day. So I’m going to hazard the guess that that statistic is inflated. In 2009 the NYT reported the population estimated at 30,000 beavers in the state. Which means that these remarkable animals that take three years to reach sexual maturity and breed once a year have more than doubled their population in four years.
Today, Ms. Hajduk said, there are at least 30,000 beavers, all over the state.
Wow, that’s a lot. Maybe this whole environmental movement has gone too far. We obviously brought them back too much. How many did their used to be? 29,000? Oh wait, remember those historical trapping records that showed 60 to 80 beaver per mile of stream? I wonder how many miles of stream Massachusetts has. (Gosh the internet is useful. 4320 miles of stream in the commonwealth of Massachusetts.) Lets just multiply that by the low number of 60…how many beavers would we expect if we were back to that baseline? I mean if we had done an even adequate job of “bringing them back” 259,200. Let’s be generous and just round down to 200,000.
Uh oh. By the most conservative possible calculations, Massachusetts is short 170,000 beavers!
Say it with me now:
There are lies there are dam lies And there are statistics.
