NPR’s Scott Simon was kind enough to provide the audio, so I added my own finishing touches. I especially like the first slide and the fifth slide. But it’s all fun, and will only steal 65 seconds of your valuable monday morning, so enjoy!
I LOVED making the flying beavers. I could do that all day. That’s worth every second of labor it took to put together. Onward and upward. This morning there’s some assorted beaver news, with beaver bemoaning, beaver barometers and beaver benefits.
I’ll show you what I mean.
Busy beaver destroying area around Yellowknife visitor centre
An industrious beaver has been wreaking havoc at Yellowknife’s Northern Frontier Visitor Centre lately. “This beaver has totally changed the appearance of our landscape, having removed an entire area of trees,” says Tyler Dempsey, a staff member at the centre.
The beaver started building his (or her) lodge in Frame Lake, in downtown Yellowknife, about a week ago, using vegetation from the property of the visitor centre to do so. The underwater lodge is about three metres from the lakefront building.
Dempsey says while visitors, and even staff members, have enjoyed watching the busy beaver at work from such a close proximity, they couldn’t ignore the amount of damage it was doing to the property.
“An entire area has almost entirely been cleared out resulting from the beaver’s behaviour,” says Dempsey. “The rapid pace and productivity he’s been able to do this with — we would see massive changes, even overnight.”
Chicken wire around tree
When enough was enough, visitor centre staff wrapped their remaining trees in chicken wire to prevent the beaver from using them as lumber.
Dempsey says that seemed to help, but admitted that he and other staff at the visitor centre probably wouldn’t be that sad if the beaver chose another locale altogether.
“If he did go for greener pastures, I think we would probably welcome that move.”
(I know what you’re thinking. Yellowknife has a visitor’s center?)
Even though it’s 2500 miles away in the remote Yukon, I would remind readers that ‘reluctantly wrapping trees’ is pretty massive progress for YK where a trapper as recently as 2012 reported in the paper that beavers could “Bounce from their tails and leap to attack you.” (That got a letter from me which was published locally). I’m going to count small blessings and be happy that people in this remote Yukon province are enjoying watching the beavers work at all, even if they are using the wrong materials to protect trees. Maybe this bit of beaver instruction will teach itself.
Onto the beaver as barometer article from Nova Scotia.
Nova Scotia’s winter will be short, outdoorsman predict
Want to know what’s in store this winter? Chest-high snowbanks or rivers of rain? Joe Googoo of Wagmatcook First Nation in Cape Breton thinks he knows. Googoo was taught by his father and grandfather to read clues in the natural world.
Googoo said he has noticed beavers building their dams in lakes instead of streams.
“Yes, the beaver are the best indication right now,” he said. “I went to around 20 or 30 streams. There were beaver in there last winter. There’s nothing there now. They all went down [last winter] because the streams are so shallow, they’re easy to flood.”
Googoo predicts the water will be high in streams next spring, indicating a lot of precipitation over the winter.
Um, okay.
I guess its not worth considering any other variables that might be at play regarding beavers building in streams versus lakes. Food, predators, or trapping for instance. I remember as a child pointing at woolly worms and exclaiming that it was going to be a cold winter. And we celebrate groundhog day on a national level.
I guess if we’re going to believe a man whose last name is literally baby noises we might deserve what we get?
This last bit of beaver chivalry is generous even by beaver standards.
Beavers save the Catawba River from sewage spill
Thank beavers for a cleaner Catawba River, Charlotte’s water and sewer utility says. Charlotte Water initially reported that 3,660 gallons of sewage overflowed into the Catawba in northwest Charlotte on Wednesday night.
Thursday, the utility corrected the report: “The spill last night did reach a Catawba River tributary but did not reach the Catawba River. A beaver dam strategically located contained the spill.”
Pumping is underway to suck the spill from the tributary. No word on the health of the beavers.
From a city that kills so many beavers it has been regularly featured on this website, I’m going to say that it’s mighty kind of beavers to save your asses when you’ve been trapping them for years and years. No word on the health of the beavers? Do you really need word to imagine their fate after living and working every in your filth?
Just watch, after Charlotte lets the beaver soak up their sewage spill they will say they need to be eliminated because they spread Giardisis.
