On a mid week morning where news is slow, I have to ask myself, honestly. Am I ready for another beaver alarm from South America? This time on PRI for god’s sake. It is stunning to me that after everything that’s been done to the region from military coups, massive burning, agricultural campaigns that destroyed native plants, and ripping out trees at an alarming rate to plant soya for biofuels – we have the gall to blame BEAVERS for destruction in South America.
It’s open season on Patagonia’s voracious, disruptive … beavers?
Even furry, seemingly friendly creatures like beavers can become big problems when dropped into an ecosystem with no predators to keep them in balance.
That’s what happened in Patagonia, where the busy dam-builders are profoundly changing the once-pristine region that spans the southern ends of Chile and Argentina.
In 1946, 25 pairs of Canadian beavers were brought to Patagonia to kickstart a fur industry. That business didn’t take off, but the beavers flourished; there are now about 100,000 beavers in Patagonia that don’t belong there.
They’ve completely changed the entire ecology of the region,” says Derek Mead, editor-in-chief of Motherboard, a digital magazine and video channel.
The industrious beavers have chewed down trees and diverted rivers, reshaping the area’s river system. That’s a useful function in their normal habitat, but in Patagonia, they’ve turned beech forests into barren wastelands. The trees, cut down to stumps by the beavers, can’t regenerate or hold onto the soil. Rains and heavy flooding erode the soil, turning a previously dense forest and tight river into an open pit, Mead says.
Lets start with “no natural predators”. I understand since they are 5000 miles away from their natural predators they are not likely to get eaten by a bear. But hmm I wonder if there are any predators in Argentina and Chile that might like a little exotic beaver meat? Let me just check what’s around there, “87% of South America’s carnivore population occur in Argentina”. The maned wolf for one, and a variety of others. This book outlines seven species of carnivores living in the Pampas. Not to mention a dozen different kind of Caiman (crocodiles) that can be found anywhere there’s water. And let’s not forget those in that Youtube video. I guess no “natural predators” but a host of “unnatural” ones. And It’s not like beavers can offer much self defense.
Seven years ago they were whining that the beavers had
grown SO LARGE in South America that they were eating FISH. Seriously. At least they seem to have stopped that nonsense. Now they are paying anyone to hunt them and selling the meat in local restaurants. I’ve been in the beaver biz for so long, I already wrote about it in 2008.
Never mind. Go ahead. Blame the beavers for everything that’s wrong in your lopsided countries. I admit they don’t belong there. And everyone deserves a scapegoat.
Oh and if you don’t think the PRI article and film is stupid enough for me to complain about, check out the comments on Youtube. Grr.
