This fantastic picture by Cheryl Reynolds shows two kits crossing the dam in different directions: (this is apparently why you see logging trucks on the highway going both ways!) It also explains why there were complaints that beavers were taking trees and yet alarm at the re-planting of trees, concern expressed that beavers would interfere with steelhead, and now disbelief that the steelhead are really in the creek at all.
“My mind’s made up. Don’t confuse me with the facts.”
This “position of imposition” was re-illustrated with a tale told me last night by a beaver regular. Apparently he was hard at work on his usual filming and was pleased that the property owner approached him in a cordial and chatty way. (Mind you this is the same property owner who said the blackberry bushes on his bank never produced fruit…check the photo in the frame). He eventually observed that he thought “people were putting new animals in the creek” and remarked that there were mink farms “and one could have been placed here.”
This, I assume, in an effort to disprove the improving effect of the beavers on the creek by accusing beaver supporters of “planting” habitat evidence. Nevermind the “Keystone Species” nonsense. Bring in the “Keystone Cops.”
Maybe the mink and the steelhead were brought in by hand. Maybe the otter was someone’s pet. Maybe the green heron and the kingfisher were smuggled down in a pillowcase and stapled to the branches to make them stay. Maybe the turtle was forced by well-meaning county workers to lay her eggs there against her will.
Maybe making still pools that trap increasingly rich sediment doesn’t really affect a creek at all.
This reminds me of another conversation with the city. We were describing our idea of putting little video snippets of human visitors to the dam in a “whose watching our beavers now?” segment. Staff agreed it would be interesting, with the caution added “If they were legitimate”. Implying they might not be. As if we would write a script, find actors, direct the scene and have them “pretend” to be visiting from Minnesota or Wisconsin and comment on enjoying the beavers.
The mind reels.
The willingness to believe anything but what you actually see is a deeply cynical mindset that cannot be challenged or even influenced with facts. We can’t show the animals that visit the creek if watchers are going to assume they were brought in by truck and released out of a cage the moment before the camera rolled. We can’t even introduce them to our vast field of human visitors if it is assumed that they are all in costume, “pretending” to care about beavers for their acting debut. That is the point. The facts (which challenge the belief) are rejected and don’t matter.
I will say this though; as frusterating as those examples of incredulity are, (and they provoke real outrage in this particular woman who has tried to tranparently document things from the beginning) they attribute to us a lot of power: think of it! Armies of exotic animals (perhaps the entire lindsay museum!) at our disposal, busloads of actors to impersonate actual visitors, and hours of free time to make all this stuff up.
Never mind the logic that says if we had the luxury of scheming and pretending an entire ecosystem we wouldn’t post grainy videos that were taken at an ungodly hour of the morning. We’d sleep in until eleven and go to the studio after a leisurely breakfast of croissonts, browsing the endangered species list before chosing our animal star of the day.
Sigh. Until that enviable day of arrives, we will have to settle for real animals and real people who take time out of their real lives to notice the impact that these beavers have had on this creek.
That will have to do for now.
