Dam man’s beaver behavior
by Johnny Boyd, Aspen Daily News Columnist
Beaver ponds catch silt, keeping it from our gold medal trout streams. The silt rebuilds our meadows — a renewal process man can’t wrap his mind around since we seldom renew anything. Beaver ponds retain water. Drive up Brush Creek Road this week and you will notice the only green areas in a sea of brown grass surround the beaver ponds. It’s insane to allow all that water to escape simply because a beaver cut down a few aspen trees.
I spoke with Dr. Werner von Heineken about the beaver and why it is so persecuted. “Ze beaver iss a creature that causes jealousy in man,” he explained through a thick Vulgaristani accent. “Man doesn’t like competition when it comes to engineering nature.”
This clever article from Johnny Boyd gets right to the heart of the matter and with the device of “Dr. Heineken” quickly exposes our inexplicable reluctance to share with beavers. I thoroughly enjoyed most of its 10 paragraphs although that last two left me a little pale. I wrote him my appreciations but said that he forgot to mention salmon, birds, wildlife and all the creatures that depend on beaver-created wetlands. Oh, and also climate change!
The good doctor has a point. Man considers himself to be the smartest animal in the forest. Still, we love to do dumb things. Worse, even if we know what we are doing is idiotic, we continue as if we can’t do anything else — like that carcinogen spewing thing. Nature evolved the beaver to do exactly what is needed in the habitat it is indigenous to, and our inability to coexist with the creature is more about our shortcomings than the beaver’s.
Since the article’s from the Aspen Daily News he shouldn’t really waste his time with Dr. Heineken. He should drive 150 miles to visit with Sherri Tippie in Denver and she’ll tell him everything about beavers he needs to know and then some. Of course I would add that “Dr. Perryman” has noted that men also dislike beavers for being so thoroughly domestic – going home every morning to the same woman year after year. By killing them they feel they have touched the mustang wildness missing in their own lives.
But that’s just the shrink in me talking, I’m sure. I can’t compare with Dr. Heineken.
Kingfisher Update
Your kingfisher has a fractured mandible. Shannon was performing surgery yesterday. If she wasn’t brought in she would have died as she can’t eat on her own. Other than that her weight is good and she should survive. Lindsay is participating in the beaver festival this year.
