Guelph – Worth A Dam

The Pilgrims and the beaver trade

That’s right, the Pilgrims apparently paid for their journey to religious freedom with money they borrowed from the Company of the Merchant Adventurers of London. And guess what was the fastest way to pay them back after those first hard winters? I’ll give you a hint, it starts with a ‘B’.

By 1625, the Pilgrims concluded that the fur trade would offer the most viable means to retire their debt. They were able to obtain a charter from the King granting them rights on the Kennebec River in what is today the state of Maine.

So the Pilgrims built a shallop, a sailing vessel designed for coastal navigation, and set out for Merrymeeting Bay, 200 miles to the north, then up into the Kennebec River. Twenty five miles upriver, at the head of the tide where current and tides mark the extreme of navigable water, they established a trading post at Cushnoc, the site of modern-day Augusta.

The indigenous tribe, the Abenaki, were anxious to trade. They had abundant furs to offer in exchange for corn, of which the Pilgrims were producing a surplus, and other goods. As Governor Bradford put it, “not only with corn, but also with such other commodities as the fishermen had traded with them, as coats, shirts, rugs and blankets, biscuit, pease [sic], prunes, etc.” In exchange for a shallop-load of corn sailed up the river, 700 pounds of beaver pelts came back down. With beaver fur in great demand in London, the Pilgrims were able to satisfy their debts by 1636.

700 lbs of beaver skins. Wow, since the specified weight for an adult beaver pelt was 1.25 lbs that means that the pilgrims paid off their credit card with about 600 beavers on a single stream, plus of course killing all the kits and incidental young that weren’t good for anything. Let’s see, that’s like 56 beavers a year in a 170 mile stretch of river…let’s say 3 a mile….yup that seems about right.

Religious freedom, thrift, hardwork and beaver killing! Now I know just how to decorate for thanksgiving this year! And just to show that beaver intolerance spans the centuries fully from our founding to the modern day, there is

apparently a new episode of ‘Duck Dynasty‘ out this week that shows the hardworking Bayou entrepreneurs blowing up a beaver dam. A smart man would think to himself, hey since they make their money selling decoys for duck hunting maybe they would want more to keep the animal that builds conditions that make more ducks – but a smart man would be nowhere near this ambivalent hickfest. Apparently they think the beavers live in the dam! If you want to see the explosion go here but I’m sure you have better things to do.

(Tell me again what A&E stands for because I must have forgotten.)

If you need some good cheer after this beaver killing extravaganza go read this op ed by Karen Levenson of Guelph Canada. She’s the Director of the Animal Alliance in Canada that wrote me last week about starting a beaver festival in Ontario. Enjoy!

Beavers are an environmental asset

Throughout North America, cities such as Guelph are recognizing the critical role beavers play in protecting our environment. Beavers are a keystone species that help maintain healthy aquatic habitat, which supports a wide variety of animal and plant life, thus ensuring biodiversity.

Let’s be proud that Mayor Karen Farbridge and forestry supervisor Randy Drewery are taking a progressive, science-based approach by wrapping vulnerable trees to discourage beavers from chewing. The city can also plant trees that beavers prefer, fast-growing species, such as poplar, willow, birch and trembling aspen, close to the water’s edge to discourage beavers from removing more valuable trees further up the bank and to help stabilize the slope and prevent erosion. An added benefit is when these trees grow back they are fuller, with lots of new growth, providing nesting sites for a variety of bird species.

Apparently the city of Guelph Ontario loves their trees so much that they’re willing to kill their beavers to prove it. Not exactly sure how a lowered water table and weaker riparian border helps trees, but the good folk in Guelph must know best. They’re saying it doesn’t make sense to make a plan to protect trees without making a promise to kill their ‘predators’. And don’t talk to them about coppicing and new growth either!

Coun. Bob Bell says a plan that the city is developing to better manage its trees over the next 20 years should include a section on one of the enemies of trees – beavers.

Enemies of trees? W0w. Strong language from a man who’s not afraid to call a spade a spade! So 300 years ago before Canada had killed its population of millions more beavers there was no forest canopy because all those beavers devoured them? Really? And it was only when people trapped every single last furry one and planted a few token trees in the ground that the canopy bounced back?

“It is definitely an issue, and I would hope our new forestry plan would address beaver removal,” he told a city council committee last week. Derek McCaughan, the city’s executive director of operations and transit, said city officials are looking at the problem of damage by beavers.

I’m sorry the oddly named city of Guelph is plagued by enemies of trees. Are there also enemies of information in your borders? Or will you listen when I explain how the trees you want to protect can be wrapped or painted with sand to prevent chewing? Will you try and understand that beaver chewing produces a natural coppice cutting – an old forestry term which refers to hard cutting a tree so that it grows back bushy and more dense. If you don’t have willow along your streams you should plant some because they are a preferred food and quickly rebound. And when beaver dams raise the water table they help prevent drought and actually expand the riparian border.

Before you decide to kill beavers to protect trees you should think about the fish populations that will be harmed, the otters who will be forced out, the birds who will lose feeding and nesting ground. You should think soberly about what a massive impact you would have on all this wildlife if you take out this one, disliked, actor.

That’s what “Keystone Species” means, by the way.

Oh and here’s a recent letter to the editor from one of your residents about what they think about these “Treenemies”.

Pleased to see beavers are back

Guelph Coun. Bob Bell is insisting that urban forestry management include a policy for the removal of beavers.

How sad that man’s response to nature has so often been nothing more than removal of the bother. Perhaps the urban forestry management should consist merely of all tree removal given how much leaves and branches can be a bother.

Beavers are a natural treat to watch and there are ways to fence off critical trees and allow them access to some that are less critical. Indeed, some of the damage I notice is of brush, not just grand trees.

As well, there are ways to control animal population growth short of total removal.

When I first moved to Guelph 43 years ago, there were beavers on our rivers, but the city soon hired a trapper and they were all gone for years and years.

Well, they have come back and many of us are pleased.

I thought the problem issue was being handled when I saw that some trees had fencing around them, but now Bell is proposing removal.

Surely a more intelligent approach could be taken that would leave our urban forest a bit more natural, but not destroyed entirely. Does our local university not have any better ideas than Bell’s?

Jim Mottin

Guelph