Time for more good news. This article by Eli Frankovich from the Idaho based Lewiston Tribune does what few others attempt: offer a sense of context for the current and past response to beavers, and recognizes the dramatic impact of Ben Golfarb’s book.
More than a decade ago, before a water-loving rodent with a penchant for gnawing on trees became the animal du jour — its ecological powers heralded as a climate salve, ecosystem restorative and all around tonic of hope — the seemingly humble beaver brought two unlikely allies together.
“Animal du jour” I LOVE that phrase. Remember all of you were loving beavers before it was the cool thing to do.
Joel Kretz, a rancher-politician with a penchant for theatrics and dislike of predators (cougars and wolves, in particular); and Mike Peterson, the executive director of the Lands Council, an environmentalist with the gentle mannerisms of an aged hippie and the resolve of a veteran of the Timber Wars, found themselves on the same side of an issue: beaver relocation.
In 2006, Kretz first co-sponsored a bill in the Legislature legalizing the nonlethal relocation of “nuisance” beavers in Washington. It was a progressive bill, one that acknowledged the oft-ignored importance of the world’s second-largest rodent.
While that so-called “Beaver Bill” didn’t become law until 2012, it set the stage for Washington to become the beaver leader in the United States.
I love an article that starts off with a good beaver history lesson and mentions that puns get overused in beaver stories. I’m not certain Washington, however, that Washington was the first to rethink beavers, even though it might be the first now. I would say Utah was the first first but Washington has become the new first. Does that make sense?.
Streams slowed by beaver dams and lodges create better habitat for animals and insects, collect silt, and store and cool water, among other things. In videos taken by the Lands Council in the Colville National Forest bear, moose, herons, cougars and more flock to beaver complexes.
Those successes have increased the social and political tolerance and love for the furred builders. Fueled in part by Goldfarb’s book, beavers are having a moment, their positive impact on everything from animals, to plants, to climate change being recognized.
I don’t think there has been another article discussing the impact of Ben’s book or the fate of beavers in general. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever read a reporter visiting the archives of his own newspaper to see how coverage has changed.
A trip through The Spokesman-Review’s “beaver” file in the morgue (the place where old newspaper stories are kept) is a grisly affair with more than a few bad puns and awful alliterations.
“Beaver meets end under car wheels,” reads one headline from 1956. “A beastly beaver terrorizing the Mississippi River city …” states an Associated Press story from 1994. “California firms fined for starving beavers,” goes another.
Now it’s not uncommon to walk the river bank and see those trees wrapped in a fine wire mesh, another sign of increasing respect and willingness to coexist with the industrious rodents.
Can I just pause here and say how much I LOVE this article and journalist? Eli Francovich is a true kindred spirit if beavers, I can tell you. And of this website in particular.
That isn’t to say it’s all peeled cambiums and roses. While Washington may have model beaver legislation and nonlethal removal permitting, WDFW still kills more beavers than it relocates. In 2018, 28 beavers were relocated, 1,251 were killed due to human-beaver conflict, and 730 were killed by trappers, according to WDFW.
Wow, A reporter that not only looks up the past stories on beaver trapping but visits the current information as well. If you were very naive you would think this happens all the time, but I can assure it doesn’t. Be still my heart.
That aside, the story of beavers in Washington is mostly one of cooperation and collaboration. While it may have been enshrined in law in 2012 with Kretz’s Beaver Bill, evidence of Washingtonians affinity for beavers goes back further.
Amongst the blood and gore in the beaver newspaper archives rests one 1968 article that seems to predict a more beaver-friendly future.
“Approximately 30 beavers each year are moved from one area to another throughout Stevens County,” the article states. “The beaver is important because of his contribution to conservation. By constructing his dams and ponds, the beaver provides homes and food for all forms of wildlife such as fish ducks, mink, muskrats, etc.
That’s a fantastic article. I just love thinking of Lewiston, which is right on the border of Washington, peering over the state line at its neighbors and thinking “We should be more like them!” Let’s all copy Washington and Ben’s Book, okay?
