Beaver Town: Residents Coexist With Wildlife
(ANIMAL NEWS) OREGON — The town of Corvallis, Oregon has decided to protect beavers residing in Dunawi Creek, right next to a local popular park. The park’s fields frequently flood from the beaver’s damming. However, an engineer team with support of the community is finding a way to coexist with the beaver’s natural behavior, instead of getting rid of them. Read on to learn how communities can live peacefully amongst animal neighbors. — Global Animal
Let’s start Monday off on a bright note! What an adorable picture! This feel-good beaver-tale comes from Corvalis Oregon, south of Portland where there are plenty of beaver fans among football goers. I’ve been reading something about this story for at least two weeks now as the city is making sure to get maximal promotional value for its kindness. Now it’s an AP story which is even better press than Martinez ever got. Good for them.And good for beavers!
Corvallis parks officials have decided that solving flooding caused by beavers at a local park will take a little engineering of their own. The Gazette-Times reports that for years beavers have caused flooding at the softball fields at Sunset Park from damming the Dunawi Creek. But now parks officials are planning to install pipes to keep the water in ponds at a manageable level.
Maintenance supervisor David Phillips says they considered removing the animals, but that moving the critters may not sit well with the community by Oregon State University, where the mascot is a beaver. Phillips says they “decided we should try and see if we can live with the beavers, this being a Beaver town.”
Mind you an earlier article reported that what they had put in was actually a 15 inch pipe with an elbow – so that the water drains into the elbow until the pond’s a certain height and then it stops until the water rises. No protection on the intake. Which is nice if the beavers don’t plug the pipe since the opening isn’t blocked in any way. The article describes the city as having a “team of engineers”. I’m sure they thought of this.
The beaver-gods must be smiling down on us this Monday because two other amazing things happened before I fell asleep last night. Worth A Dam received a last minute invite to the 100th anniversary celebration of Girl Scouts at the Alameda County Fairgrounds. (As in 20,000 girls and their families do some art and learn about beavers.) And I finally persuaded the iconic beaver author Hope Ryden (of the much beloved Lily Pond) to talk with me on Agents of Change. Since the subtitle of her book is “Four years living with a family of beavers” I’m thinking we’ll have LOTS to talk about! Stay tuned!
