We need a real beaver update first off. The secondary dam (name to be changed soon) is HUGE. And one of our new stakes is already sprouting! Jon spied a mother with 12 baby ducks yesterday and we went down to beaver watch this morning. Our kit (almost yearling, birthday in May) was swimming back and forth in front of the hole where they live, and a parent swimming up from down stream after a night feeding. She had to CLIMB up over the monumental dam before heading to sleep for the day. A great beaver morning.

I’ve been waiting forever to share this great new research from Dr. Ellen Wohl. There is so much happening lately there’s never time to catch up. If you want to remind yourself who she is listen to this short clip. It remains the single most pithy description of beaver benefits I’ve ever heard. Photos courtesy of Worth A Dam, of course.

See how she just slips in the good news about beavers along side the already largely accepted news about wood??? Her research has made a huge difference in the way folks look at beavers, and I’m sure there’s more where that came from. Go read the whole thing here:

It’s Cherry Blossom Festival time which reminded to share an old story. A while ago some patriotic beaver started chewing down the National trees, and the decision of whether to kill them or not caused a bit of a stir. Now the trees have their own mascot to protect them. Paddles the beaver, which reminds visitors not to pick blossoms.

There’s a new resource for beaver restoration in the world, compiled by Rebecca Haddock of the Miistakis Institute of Alberta. She attended the state of the beaver conference and liked what she learned. This is what I would call a great start, although it is missing info on several key players like the Lands Council and/or Methow Project in Washington, The Beaver Advocacy Committee in Oregon, Sherri Tippie in Colorado, even more locally to them Cows and Fishes in Alberta! -)Not to mention you know who in California…) The full report is online at OAEC here.

And as our beavers get more visible, the ones in Napa do to. Here’s footage Rusty shot yesterday of Mom and Dad swimming together.

Lastly, I just got a request from Mountain Lake in NY to use Cheryl’s photo in a podcast they were releasing about beavers. They gave us a very nice plug, Go see for yourself.

Somebody must have forgotten that the new role of media is apparently to repeat and inflame and never evaluate the accuracy of the rumors it reprints. They mistakenly assumed their job was to do some “actual journalism”, (cold research and statistic laden fact-checking) instead! Shocking development in this day and age, but good for us. (I’m sure the offending outliars at the Washington Post will be fired in the morning.) In the mean time we should enjoy our good fortune because this could save a few thousand beavers’ lives. Pass it on:

Got rabid beaver fever? Remain calm

The country’s largest rodents hadn’t made news in the D.C. area since a rogue beaver munched iconic Tidal Basin cherry trees in 1999. Then last week, rabid beavers attacked twice in four days in Fairfax County, mauling a swimmer and chasing children on a dock. Those attacks followed one in New York last month and three in Philadelphia last year. Are area beavers running amok?

Probably not, said Julia Murphy, Public Health Veterinarian for Virginia. She has not seen more rabies cases than usual this year. The East Coast, particularly the Mid-Atlantic region, does report more rabid animals than any other region in the country, but Murphy said that’s because we have the most people. Animals are usually tested only when there is reason to think people have been exposed to disease, and in large population centers, people and wild animals practically live on top of each other. No one notices a rabid animal who dies in a rural forest, but when one terrorizes kids in Springfield, it gets our attention. We kill it, test it, report it — and it becomes a statistic.

Outstanding reporting from Bonnie Berkowitz and Patterson Clark at The Washington Post. Thank you very much for putting an alarming issue in context. Send this article to your aunt or co-worker who keeps sending you those ‘ rabid beaver’ emails, and do NOT let anyone tell you that beavers are a threat.

Oh and about those cherry trees….Remember my accidental discovery of the “ Paddles the beaver” button from the Cherry Blossom Festival in DC? Well I must have written NPS about it because I got an email this weekend from a ranger at the park who thought our website was amazing and was happy we were saving beavers. He said that the buttons were so popular they were nearly sold out before the festival, but that he had a few left and would be sending them our way.

One of course will be for ME and my ‘rabid’ pursuit of all things beaver. But maybe the rest are silent auction items? Here’s further proof of the old adage that if you’re not nuts about beavers by now, you’re really not “Worth A Dam”.