Yesterday was my official day off. For the past week I’ve been rushing around with Christmas chores, getting dinner for the parents or things ready for the new calendar year at the office. Soon there will be a Worth A Dam New Years dinner to get organized but yesterday was all my own. And I spent it languidly with my very favorite subject.
In the morning I got an email from a wildlife rehab woman in Illinois who had been contacted by another wildlife friend who had taken in an orphaned beaver at birth. She was looking for some help with socialization and long term placement and did I know anybody?
Gosh. Illinois. My only contacts there were the friends of the Lincoln Park beavers and one benevolent reporter, but I didn’t think they could help. I put out a general APB to all the beaver contacts in the country, and one to Canada for good luck. I figured someone might know someone that could help.
Leonard Houston (who has got to have plenty on his mind with the upcoming State of the beaver conference), nevertheless offered to ask a ‘friend’ in the Chicago area. I didn’t think much of it until last night, when I heard that his ‘friend’ was Donald Hey the keynote speaker of the conference and the co-founder of the Wetlands Initiative.
He also is executive director of Wetlands Research, Inc., which manages the Des Plaines River Wetlands Demonstration Project in Lake County, Illinois, one of the nation’s first large-scale wetland restoration projects. He formerly was president of Hey & Associates, an environmental services consulting firm.
So Dr. Hey wrote Len back and said, I be willing to offer that beaver plenty of wetlands and lots of friends if he’s in good health and the caregiver can take care of the paper work! I wrote back the woman excitedly and heard this morning that they are starting the process to get things moving. Imagine, what better life for a beloved beaver than a trip to the nation’s first large-scale wetlands restoration! It’s like sending your daughter to Stanford. I can imagine the tearful goodbye as the foster-mom camps out at the thawing pond to make sure the little orphan is accepted by a colony. Sniff.
They grow up so fast.
In a second burst of good news I heard from the Tri-State Bird Rescue and spoke to Rebecca Dunne Senior Coordinator of the Oiled Animal program. Remember the beaver dam that stopped the fuel-oil spill in South Carolina? She was concerned about the beavers based on what she read and had not been contacted by any local agencies. She said that number 2 fuel oil is so toxic that the fumes make the beavers ‘drunk’ before they even exit the lodge. They have an immediate reaction and are frequently observed acting erratically. (Which is logical, given what a huge neural load their olefactory sense carries – the greatest proportion.) She said she would make a few phone calls to the wildlife agencies involved, but couldn’t jump in without being asked. I said I understood and encouraged her to contact the city who may not have any idea of the risk to these beavers.
I’ll send the info to the reporter and city engineer and see what I can do. Then it’s off to make shortbread beaver cookies for dessert at the fourth annual Worth A Dam Ravioli feast.
One last thing, Eric the beaver is sitting in a Scottish prison with no family this New Years. Why don’t you send him some good cheer?
If your house is as windy as mine is this morning, you might enjoy this.
