Tag: Patti Smith

BEAVER ANTIBIOTICS FROM A TRUE HEROINE

In all the world there is only one woman I admire so much I’d hand her the keys to the website in a heartbeat and let her take over Worth A Dam tomorrow if she were that foolish. She is without question, the kindest, bravest, beaver-lovingest woman on the entire planet, and that’s saying something. Thank goodness there are more than a handful of us now.

I’m speaking, of course, about naturalist, illustrator and author Patti Smith.

Patti Smith: The View from Heifer Hill | Wild times

While I have been enjoying the slowdown in human activity — fewer cars on the road, fewer planes in the sky — things in my backyard have been anything but quiet. On the last Saturday in April, I hiked up to visit Henry and Gentian, the former mate and the two-year-old offspring of the venerable Willow. The two beavers had survived the winter and had evaded the bear that killed Willow. When I arrived that evening, however, I found the two apples I had left on my last visit. I saw no sign of recent activity. Henry and Gentian were gone. Perhaps a matchmaker had whispered in Henry’s ear? Willow’s daughter Dew lived downstream and was also single.

Not since Lily pond have a cried as much as I did when the bear ended Willow’s journey. It is certainly sadder to watch beaver death thru the eyes of a human than it is to observe through the eyes of a beaver. They are much more practical and unsentimental than we are. I learned that from our beaver mom’s death and the way her family stopped even acknowledging her when she was ill.

Dew was last featured in this column in January when I discovered new pond construction in the brook just below my house. Starting a new pond from scratch in winter is an act of desperation. In winter, beavers are supposed to be cozy in a mud-plastered lodge with a well-stocked larder. I would have been more worried if an ordinary beaver had undertaken such an endeavor. However, Dew had created this pond — Dew, the daughter of Willow, and a veteran of eight winters.

It was dark by the time I reached Dew’s pond that night. She swam over and climbed ashore, making the long, low, huffing sounds that indicate agitation or warning. I left her an apple and headed down to the dam,

The dam had been worked on over the preceding week. I scanned the surface of the pond for beavers and saw the small beaver hiding in some alders. My headlamp beam picked up something else in the woods beyond — the reflected shine of widely-spaced eyes — a bear.

OH NO! Not another bear! Never mind what the literature says, bears don’t read scientific journals. And beavers are tasty. We just know they are.

Once upon a time, I believed that bears were not much of a threat to adult beavers. Indeed, according to the literature, bear predation on adult beavers is quite unusual. Black bear diets are made up almost entirely of plants, with insects for dessert. Still, the footprints in the snow last December left little doubt about the fate of Willow. Furthermore, when I rediscovered Dew’s son Charley living upstream this spring, he had some scars that seemed most likely the result of bear claws. Given this evidence, I suspected this bear was after more than the sedges sprouting along the pond shore. I yelled and clapped to scare it away, but from the far shore, I was deemed non-threatening

I returned to Dew’s pond the next morning. The bear had bashed in the roof of Dew’s lodge and clawed away some of the mud and sticks. Still, the sturdy latticework of larger branches prevented access to the living chamber.

When I returned that evening, I discovered the more significant havoc. When Dew came ashore for an apple, I could see a deep slash across her wrist and a couple of smaller scratches on her face. Wounds oozed through the dense fur on her shoulders.

Ouch. Ouch. That lousy bear. I mean I like them in theory but don’t attack beavers, okay? Is it going to have to go to to rehab? That’s such a disruption in a beavers live.

As I write this column, I am sitting on the shore of the pond in the warm sunshine four days later. For the last few days, I have spent a lot of time here persuading Dew to eat antibiotic-laced apples. Today, a kingfisher wings overhead. Chickadees sing in the alders. The little beaver has climbed the opposite bank and is eating some spruce twigs. When Dew finally deigns to rise from her diurnal slumbers, she swims over and limps ashore on three legs. A ribbon of dead tissue dangles from her shoulder, and her front paw has doubled in size. Still, she is using it more than she was yesterday. She eats her apple then sits up to scratch her belly. The little beaver dips into the pond, swims over, and climbs up behind Dew, providing my first close look at this elusive fellow. This cutie must be a yearling that Dew has had stashed away here all winter.

Antibiotic-laced apples!!! How many times did I dream of finding some non invasive way of treating our beavers! I wanted to dose the top layer of water outside the lodge with a tincture of conjunctivitis eyedrops when the kits were young. I dreamed of that when they popped their heads up it would fix their poor infection. Alas no one would attempt it. Patti works at a wildlife center and has been a respected soul enough that someone will let her try feeding antibiotic laced apples. Good for her.

I’ll be spending a lot of time at Dew’s pond over the next couple of weeks, making sure she takes her medicine. I hope like heck that it works. With so much of humanity fretting over the health of friends and families now, I know I’ll be in good company. I’ll bring my work and my binoculars. Beaver ponds are always busy with life, and most of it is peaceful. They are fascinating places to fret.

If Dew pulls through this, she is likely to be a wiser beaver and may have a better chance of avoiding this aberrant bear. Once I no longer need to worry about Dew, I’ll start looking for Henry and Gentian. I hope they’ve found a place of abundance and security for their next home. I expect I’ll spend some time sitting on their shores. May we all have less to fret about then.

I don’t care who knows it. I LOVE PATTI SMITH. I LOVE THAT SHE”S FEEDING ANTIBIOTIC APPLES TO DEW! You should love her too. If you haven’t read ‘The beavers of Popples pond yet” order it right now and give yourself a treat. And lets all keep our fingers crossed or a swift recovery.

DEGREES OF BEAVER FREEDOM

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Grooming, Beavers January 4, 2020

I think I mentioned before that I was horrific at math and oddly skilled at statistics. I’m sure there’s some kind of left brain/right brain distinction to explain some of it but for what ever reason one made sense and the other made me panic. No matter who taught it, No matter how much I tried.

One of my favorite concepts used in statistics was always “Degrees of Freedom“, Usually calculated as N=1, it basically it refers to how many chances you might have to achieve those same exact results given the number of times you tried or how many people you tried with. As the degrees of freedom go up the odds of it happening again also go up so the rarity of the results go down. As the degrees of freedom go down, the odds of it happening just like this ever again go down and it becomes very ulikely. Until there is zero chance.

I mention this because in the back of my mind I tend to think of the days before the annual Worth A Dam ravioli feed as Degrees of Freedom. As in “There are this many chances to get it wrong or forget a detail or have to take someone to the ER and still achieve the desired result.” The closer we get to day, the room for error gets lower and lower. As of this morning there is one day left before our 5 course dinner for 13 people. That means one day to get the house set up and make sauces ready and dip the cookies in chocolate. If we were visited by unexpected relatives today, or broke someones toe or had a power outage – tomorrow would become nearly impossible.

In other words, we are down to 1 Degree of Freedom.

Today is a day for Chinese takeout from the cartons in the living room so we don’t mess up the silverware or the table setting. And it’s a great day to read this cozy column by Patti Smith from Vermont which we always enjoy.

Remember when last we heard from Patti she was mourning the death of her beloved beaver Willow, who after a very long life had been unable to escape a bear.

The View from Heifer Hill: Finding an old friend on the river of life

During the last week of December, I skied down to look for the beaver that recently moved into the brook below my house. Beavers do not relocate in December unless calamity strikes. I suspected that a raging torrent from rain and snowmelt had destroyed this beaver’s dam and washed its food cache downstream. While this new location offers good foraging, the rocky stream bottom provides little mud for sealing a dam. Without a deep pond, ice can seal the entrance to a beaver’s lodge, trapping the beaver inside.

I had tried hollering on several occasions to entice this beaver to appear. Since that technique hadn’t worked, I decided that on this visit I would use the stealth approach — sitting quietly and waiting for the beaver to reveal itself. Once I settled myself by the brook, I noticed that the beaver had been building a lodge directly across from my seat. After a few minutes, I heard the gurgle that announced the emergence of the occupant. The beaver that surfaced paddled quickly over and swam back and forth a few times before lunging up the icy bank and onto the snow beside me. I was so pleased to see the notch in the tail that identified this beaver as Dew.

I first met Dew eight or nine years ago. The uncertainty stems from not knowing if she is Dewberry, born in 2010, or Sundew, born the following year. Either way, I met her shortly after she was born to that champion of beaver survivors, Willow. “Survivor” might seem a strange thing to call a beaver who was just eaten by a bear, but she lived to near the maximum lifespan for a beaver (about 20 years). I have not yet determined her exact age, but the teeth I recovered will allow me to.

Isn’t it wonderful that after losing her friends and matriarch of so many years she would run into one of her children who just moved in after losing her old house in storm? Mother nature can be pretty dam sweet sometimes. When she’s not busy doing the other thing.

Dew is the only one of her offspring known to survive, aside from the yearling Gentian. I concluded last month’s column with the hope that Gentian would inherit her mother’s penchant for longevity. Given that I could not find any of her siblings, I didn’t hold out a great deal of hope. Yet here was Dew — approaching her ninth or tenth year! Dew, who seems to have survived her first mate, Ilex, and is now wintering alone in this unlikely location. Given her heritage, I give her much higher odds of surviving this challenging winter than other beavers. I have seen her mother survive as bad.

Patti is such a delightful mix of science, heresy and affection. She pretty much breaks all the rules about not naming or feeding the animals you’re studying. But she also seems to learn more about their lives than anyone who follows the rules ever will. Ever time we get to visit Patti in Vermont my heart swells with the deepest fondness and I am reminded of my own days watching beavers.

Patti is a kindred spirit.

On New Year’s Eve, I took a few friends out to visit her. Along the way, a dark shape was spotted hustling away into the shadows. When I hailed the beast, it stopped, then turned and came toward us. There was Quirinus, one of the porcupines I have been studying. He paused on his travels to eat an apple with us.

The forest, glazed in a mix of ice and snow, shone bright in moonlight. Once we settled by the brook, Dew arrived and began opening up channels in the slushy ice. She took an apple and swam to her lodge to eat it before reappearing and clambering up on the opposite bank. There she spent 15 minutes in elaborate ablutions, scrubbing and combing every bit of her corpulent physique. One of my friends had a blazing headlamp that lit up the scene like stage lights. Dew seemed to be preening for her audience. Why not? Beavers are social animals, and she had been on her own for at least several weeks.

I am so glad that she gets to spend quality time with the beaver after losing his or her mother. I remain completely mystified about how she tells them apart. We only ever had a few beavers whose identities I could spot on sight. Mom with her chinked tail. Dad with his size. GQ with his good loos. Mom II with her red fur. That’s about it.

Maybe you do better? I have a touch of prosopagnosia. I can barely tell humans apart.

When Dew finally swam off, we headed upstream a bit and built a fire. There in the snowy forest, we enjoyed the rising sparks, and a very localized rain shower caused by the melting ice on branch overhead. I couldn’t imagine a more beautiful transition from one year to the next. I was warmed by the fire and by knowing that a new beaver ambassador would carry on the work of my old friend Willow. May the new year bring such joy to you.

And to you Patti!

And may the new year bring joy to any and all reading this site. Wish us luck dipping the tails today. I would invite you all for dinner but consider yourself lucky to escape it. We are not at all generous hosts who do this out of the goodness of our hearts and a love to entertain. We actually do this to compensate for demanding terribly exhausting days of service at the beaver festival and the willingness to resist saying “NO” when being asked for the millionth time. You know what they say, To those whom much has been given, much will be asked.

It’s one free dinner that actually costs the attendees a lot. It dam well better be delicious!

New Years Ravioli Feast-20

ANOTHER HEART TOUCHED BY A BEAVER

heidi08 Beaver Book, Who's saving beavers now? December 7, 2019

I’m going to make you all cry now. Well not me, Patti Smith. The Vermont “me” – way more graceful and without the sarcasm. She’s going to make you cry with this beautiful column about the death of her heroic ambassador beaver, Willow. You’ll know, when you read her elegiac prose, how much I thought of the death of our own mother beaver loo, lo, these nine years ago. It takes the courage of a matriarch to change a woman’s life apparently. Mom was the one who decided to live near us in Martinez. And Willow was the first that allowed her life to be touched by Patti. My heart grieves for her loss, and ours.

Smith: View from Heifer Hill: In Memorium for Willow the beaver

On the night of December 3, I broke a trail through the deep fresh snow to the shores of Sodom Pond. It was not the tough, uphill work that made me immune to the beauty of the moonlit forest; I was going to say good-bye to my old friend Willow.

Some of you met Willow when I began writing about her in this column nearly twelve years ago. If so, you will know that she was the first volunteer when I decided I would like to meet a beaver. She has been sharing her life with me (and you?) ever since. This fall found her settled in a new pond with Henry, mate number five, and Gentian, their 18-month-old kit.

Willow’s life was remarkable on two counts. As a beaver ambassador, she welcomed many visitors over the years. In this capacity, she played a small role in awakening humanity to the tremendous role beavers play in making habitat and in holding cooling water on a heating planet.

Willow also had an unusually long life. I have speculated about the superpowers that kept her alive while so many other beavers disappeared. She has been blind in one eye for the past five years and has had the disheveled, bony appearance of advanced age for nearly as long. I suspect she was close to the maximum age for a beaver. The record for a beaver in captivity is 23 years. Beavers in the wild seldom attain half that age.

I wish I could say something that would soften this article for you. But I can’t. All I can do is remember this, the night after we lost mom and my long sniffling watch to see if her kits were cared for, I filmed these the night after mom died.

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In late November, after the first snow of the year, I heard a beaver’s tail slap warning when I arrived at the pond. Henry made a brief, nervous appearance but swam away again. Willow did not show up. I tried not to worry, but Henry’s anxiety was contagious.

The next night, I headed to the pond again hopeful that I would find the wayward beaver and prepared to search if I did not. Only Henry came when I called. I wandered downstream to previous ponds and back on the far side of the brook. I found no recent sign of Willow, but many reminders of the hours spent on those shores. When I arrived at the far side of their home pond, I could see young Gentian out on the ice processing a tree they had felled. From that vantage, I also saw the tracks of a bear. The bear had walked across the slushy surface of the pond the previous night and pawed at the roof of one of the beavers’ temporary lodges.

Willow was nowhere to be found but the next morning she came back to look closer at the bear tracks. I know, I’m crying too. And remembering this.
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The next morning I set myself the grim task of determining her fate. If I could not find evidence of a predator attack, I would assume that Willow had achieved the near-impossible—dying of old-age in nature. Frost crystals gleamed on the sedges by the pond, and a light skim of ice crystallized into snowflake patterns over the open water. I followed the beavers’ trails up the hillside again. I saw no evidence of predation. I returned to the place where the bear tracks left the scene. The tracks continued up the hill, went over a stone wall and up stone steps to a cellar hole. Bear feet left impressions along the edge of the foundation. At a corner, it looked like the bear paused to goof around with a branch since the tracks went back and forth, and a groove appeared beside them. As the tracks continued into the woods, the groove went with them. The bear was dragging something. I knew what I would find.

The pile of sawdust under a skim of ice looked like bedding from a squirrel’s nest at first. When it registered as Willow’s last meal, I dropped to my knees and howled my sorrow to the still forest. The depth of grief is a measure of love, so I welcome it. I loved that old beaver.

A week later, I made my sad return trek to the pond. The section of ice near the entrance to the lodge was slushy, and I made an opening with my ski pole. I called Henry and waited for many anxious minutes before I heard the gurgles that announced his approach. He rose to the surface wearing a cap of ice and then lumbered up the sloughing snowbank to beach himself, in magnificent portliness, for a treat. In his company by the moonlit pond, I found my farewells had already been said. The night demanded attention to what was there, not what was missing. I could feel Willow’s presence in Gentian, snoozing in the lodge nearby. Could she share her mother’s remarkable traits? If she does, she will live a long life — and she will share it with us.

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I will never forget the wrenching feeling in Lily pond reading as Hope watches her beloved beaver die, I don’t know why, but women mourn beaver matriarchs and that’s just how it happens. There is of course always the fear of what will happen to the children. But I’m sure you know they were cared for. That night we all commented on how the yearling was accepting the kit for a back ride. We rarely saw those two apart in the coming month.

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Patti, we are so grateful you allowed this beaver to touch your life. Your readers hearts and minds were forever opened because of it.

And thank you, Mom, and Willow.

Lastly; the Hubermans

Hans.

Papa

He was tall in the bed and I could see the silver through his eyelids. His soul sat up. It met me. Those kinds of souls always do – the best ones. The ones who rise up and say, “I know who you are and I am ready. Not that I want to go, of course, but I will come.” Those souls are always light because more of them have been put out. More of them have already found their way to other places. This one was set out by the breath of an accordion, the odd taste of champagne in summer, and the art of promise-keeping. He lay in my arms and rested.

Markus Zusak: The Book Thief

COMFORT AND PANIC

heidi08 Beavers and climate change March 5, 2019

Folks were apparently surprised by yesterday’s post. It got shared by our friends in the Netherlands and commented on by our buddies in Idaho. I guess it’s surprising to see it laid out in black and white, which explains why CDFW doesn’t do it themselves. Easier to keep granting permission for endless killing one at a time. I thought you might all need comforting this morning, which works out because everything Patti Smith writes comforts me. This especially so.

Patti Smith: A time for reflection under the Porcupine Moon

I know of no tribe who have called the February full moon the Porcupine Moon, but I think that from now on I will. Last week, when the full moon rose, I set out on skis to visit the ancient beaver, Willow. On the way, I would stop to see if the ridgetop porcupine den had an occupant.

The fresh snow muffled my approach to the den on the ridge, a cavity created when a red maple toppled, pulling its roots away from a vertical ledge. A roof of roots, soil and snow sheltered a spacious cave, just right for remodeling by a hobbit or a porcupine. I found it while tracking a porcupine I have known for several years, part of my winter census of local porcupines. Intriguingly, I had seen the tracks of a very small porcupine along with the tracks of the large porcupine on my last stop at the den. When I leaned down and shined my light in, I heard a whiny “Wah! Wah-wa-WAH!” I thought it possible that this complaint was directed at me, but given my previous interactions with porcupines, it seemed more likely that the wee track-maker objected to the movements of the adult porcupine. I left a couple of apples to make up for my intrusion and headed home.

If you ever, in your life, get an opportunity to go wandering with Patti Smith at night, drop everything that you might have been planning instead, forget about sleeping or doing the laundry and GO. Whether it’s to carry her notebook, bring her coffee or just hold her umbrella. She is a national treasure. Ben Goldfarb is still glowing from her treasure-laced journey. The rest of us will just have to live vicariously through her translucent writing.

As I looked around for a sitting spot where I would not be intruding, I noticed the muted eye-shine of a porcupine in the main chamber of the den. This porcupine was not going to wait for me to make myself scarce, he was too interested in the smell of the apples. I sat down near the entrance to the den and talked to the little fellow. I have had many conversations with porcupines in what I like to think is their own language. They hum when greeting each other or when maintaining contact with a friend. The hum is very nasal and is modulated to express mood and interest in precisely the way we modulate our own speech. As a foster mother to several porcupettes, I can vouch for this. The same is true for their squawking vocalizations. Like human squawks, they express complaints, from mildly disgruntled to outraged.

Porcupines appeal to me. They touch a similar chord as beavers. Their vocalizations. Their chewing. The problems they bring to dog owners. Did you know that there are only two animals in the world where young females in the species disperse for longer distances than the males to start out their new lives.?

Beavers and porcupines. Of course.

I needed a little porcupine therapy that night. I had just read the New York Times article on the insect apocalypse, one of many articles that have come out in response to research in Germany, research documenting a 75 percent reduction in flying insects over the past 30 years. A reduction of flying insects might sound good if you think of insects as pests, less good if you think of them as food, as nearly all birds do when they are raising their young. Such a loss is also less good if you think of the myriad services insects provide to keep life on this planet humming. The great unraveling is underway.

There is good news too. We finally have a group of politicians who understand the magnitude and urgency of threats to our planet and are responding accordingly. Children around the world, inspired by Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teen, are walking out of school to protest adult inaction on climate change. Girded by the courageous young heroes of our times, we have a last chance to redeem ourselves.

For some reason, Patti feeling hopeless is comforting to me. Her writing is often so idyllic I feel our wildlife experiences are on separate planets. What does she know about depredation permits or fighting city hall? But she’s on our planet in this passage. And it’s thrilling. Buckle up.

I coasted off on the ski-anywhere snow through the dazzling night toward the beaver pond. I wish I could say I felt only hope and tranquility but there remained a sense that I moved through beloved remnants of a besieged world. Perhaps these are not times for tranquility — these are times to act — to create a civilization worthy of our beautiful planet. My ideal future will have fluffy porcupines that waddle out of hobbit holes beneath the Porcupine Moon.

Amen! Let’s ring the bells and wake the townfolk. The world is on fire and we need beavers to help put it out. We need Patti too, because she can breathe new life into the one we preserve.

Thanks Patti.

IDYLLIC MEETS EAGER

heidi08 Beaver Book, Beavers January 5, 2019

Image result for beavers of popples pond — Patti Smith

If there were a single newspaper I trusted to cover beavers kindly it would be Vermont’s Brattleboro Reformer. They have dedicated beaver fans writing for them like Patti Smith, and even when they write about difficult beaver problems they are sure to include a positive voice.

And today is no exception.

Patti Smith: Heifer Hill: A New Year for beavers

On Tuesday evening I set off on skis to bring New Year’s tidings to my friends, Dew and Charley, at a remote pond. Those of you at lower elevations may be surprised to learn that there is still enough snow for skiing in Marlboro. The storm that delivered this bounty dropped the densest snowfall I can remember, ripping down branches, trees and powerlines. As I clambered through downed treetops in the topsy-turvy forest, I found myself visited by gloomy visions of future weird storms and the warm wet winters climate change will bring.

Fallen trees were not the only obstacles. Halfway there a new stream blocked my usual route to the pond. When the beavers relocated during the summer, their new dam shifted the stream into this new, more easterly drainage basin. This obstruction provoked no gloomy thoughts. I had just finished reading Ben Goldfarb’s book, “Eager: the Surprising Secret Life of Beavers and Why they Matter,” so I applauded the beavers’ contribution to the complexity of the stream system. In “Eager,” Ben writes vividly of the influence of beavers on the precolonial North American landscape. He describes a land of spongy, messy, complex waterways teeming with fish and wildlife. Because beavers were trapped out before European settlers began domesticating the wilderness, most landscape histories fail to imagine the richness of a beavered continent. I imagined such a primal place as I picked my way along the new flow to the pond.

Oh my goodness. All my favorite things in one place. How is this possible? I better drink some coffee slowly and savor this moment. I advise you to do the same. Patti Smith is writing about Eager!

I brought Ben out to meet Dew and Charley when he was in Vermont interviewing Skip Lisle for the book. Skip is a beaver habitat evangelist and has dedicated his career to developing solutions to beaver/human conflicts. Skip suggested Ben might like to meet my beavers while he was in the area, so the three of us met up one evening and hiked out to the pond. When we arrived, Dew, the matriarch, swam over to enjoy the apples we brought for her. The yearling, Charley, arrived a bit later, making his endearing squeak-whine greetings. We humans admired these two fine rodents and talked of the good works of beavers and the trials they face. We only got a little lost on the way home. I hope Ben’s wife forgave him for getting home so late.

Ahh again with the idyllic. So lovely to read. Such a charming way to understand beavers. I first read about Patti way back in 2011. Patti took the reporter on an a lovely expedition which she described thusly

As we walk, Patti and Luanne look for carnivorous sundew plants. Patti, who spends about two weeks camping near the beavers each summer, moves easily, sees the small treasures of the wetlands quickly, yet she lets her visitors make their discoveries in their own time. It is clear that, just as she visits the beaver’s house, we are in her house, and she is a gracious host.

Hearing her idyllic experience led me to contrast my own. I had to offer a rendition with some of the writing I remember most fondly on this website in over a decade, Here is my Martinez parody;

As we walk, Heidi and Cheryl look for carnivorous homeless while Jon stuffs the most noxious trash furtively into a plastic bag. No hypodermic needles tonight, and there is a feeling of cheer among the crowd to notice that there are three whole trees the city hasn’t yet vindictively trimmed into oblivion. A fight breaks out in the brew pub and the argument is briefly reflected on the water in a patch of rainbow oil. As the sun begins to set the wind stirs the smell of stale urine from beneath the bridges and raccoons emerge to pick through containers of abandoned cat food.

Ahhh I don’t mean to boast but I love that paragraph dearly. It brings back SO many memories of urban beaver watching. One time a homeless couple walked right by me and commented “She just sits here every morning, looking at the creek. Just talking to god.” I realized in that moment I had become a kind of ‘beaver shopping bag lady’. Whose quirky habits were even recognized by the homeless. HA! When I wrote the above paragraph I added at the time that it was too much fun and I had to stop myself. It was true. Even now I’m tempted to add a line.

No. Let’s just stick with Patti.

The changes we humans impose on this good planet cause irrevocable damage to its life-generating and -sustaining capacities. The changes beavers make enrich habitat for countless other species and mitigate the damage we cause. Which species has the higher claim to a disputed site? I know who I’d vote for. If you read “Eager,” I think you’ll agree.