Work and play.

Both are important, and necessary for a healthy life, (Or a healthy website). And both are inspiring in their own way. A video that requires work might have difficult subject matter, or subtitles that take a moment for your brain to translate. But a video that inspires a playful spirit gets itself shared and is just fun to watch over and over.

That’s what on the menu today. Work and play. Only the “work” video is very, very good and will be teaching us until far into the future. It’s excellently made and good for us. And I know we’ll turn to it time and time again.

And the “play” video is just really, really cool. Like the coolest thing you have seen all month, all year, or maybe ever. It’s that good.

My puritan upbringing says the order should be work before play. But you are free spirits all. You may not have time for work right now and want to come back for it later. Which is totally fine and up to you. Just please make time for it someday because its really, really good.

I love the local volunteer groups in Germany that help folks manage beaver problems peacefully. I could watch that part over and over again. I love seeing Gerhard Schwab and thinking of him coming to Martinez two summers ago looking up our beaver habitat. I physically winced when they said beavers could have “positive and negative effects” on fish. And I’m still scratching my head about that flow device. So curious!

Now, if you’ve been a good child you can have your dessert. Or if you’re a wild child just have it first. Either way it’s good. This was posted by Robert lles on the Save the free beavers of the River Tay FB group. I have no idea where its from, but I love it as much as any 26 seconds of beaver life I have ever seen. To me it represents the very adaptive character and unflappable quality I like best about the animal. The ability to persevere and float or waddle on whatever life throws at you and come out the stronger.

Plus it’s really cute.

You see what I mean? I mean even if you were trying to be clever and do a human voice-over for this video all you could come up with is “It’s stiff….then “It’s noisy“….and finally “It’s wet” Because that’s what beaver life is like.

One long silver thread of adaption.

Wild Ideas: Beavers: nature’s engineer

Pam Owen, Rappahannock News

While humans may not be happy with the beaver’s engineering, the ponds and wetlands it creates serve as habitat for many other species. When beavers move on, many of these wetlands convert to meadows, providing habitat to other species before forest takes over again. With this cascading effect, populations of many species rebound along with the beavers.

Humans should also value some of the ecoservices beavers provide, including the buffering effect on adjacent lands. The ponds and wetlands beavers produce keep water in the landscape for drier times and, during precipitation events, slow runoff and reduce flooding, capturing silt and pollutants in the process.

This is a nice beaver-101 article that introduces the reader to plenty of beaver benefits and even talks about wrapping trees to prevent chewing. I wish it mentioned flow devices too but it’s Virginia and we’re grading on a curve. We know the state has heard about them before, because Stephanie Boyles paper originated from Christopher Newport University and the Virginia Department of Transportation was a key player in her research which concludes:

Given the demonstrated low costs to install and maintain flow devices compared to the high costs of preventative maintenance, road repairs and beaver population control activities, a compelling case can be made to install flow devices in freestanding dams near roads or to protect culverts that beavers could potentially plug. Nevertheless, a more prudent approach may be for transportation agencies to identify conflict sites and install flow devices at sites that have the largest impact on road maintenance and beaver management budgets.

Stephanie Boyle, Christopher Newport University, Virginia

Still, even without the mention of flow devices, this is a smart positive look at the animal. The author describes their advanced adaptions to aquatic life and is smart enough to put a photo of an actual beaver (not a nutria!) at the start. I especially liked this part:

Some targeted species, such as native willow, actually benefit from this trimming, which stimulates root growth and the spread of suckers.

Smart beaver writing from a region we often associate with beaver challenges, (and famously two cases of beaver rabies last year). I’m off to go thank her and make sure she has copies of Stephanie’s important research. Let’s get Virginia on up to the plateau, shall we?