The fourth beaver paper published in the Journal of Fish and Wildlife by Rick Lanman hits VERY close to home. I am known to nod off reading academic papers but this had me on the edge of my seat all the way to its stunning conclusion. It looks specifically at Western Message Petroglyphs on a rock in fremont. These messages recorded on rocks probably by some white man who understood native writing. They have been extensively studied and this likely comes from the second half of the 1800’s.
If you are anything like me you immediately want to see the rock. But there’s some education that needs to happen first. Once thought to represent “Fake indian writing” we now know that there are 38 sites of WMP’saround the state and the were done by people with a great knowledge of native american symbols. They contained usually important messages of information that wasn’t intended for all eyes.
This means it’s write along your commute. Right in your fuckin backyard.
And it means that someone at the time knew that beavers mattered, and removing all of them from alameda creek was a really serious thing to do. That was going to have repercussions in the future for years and years to come.
So WMP’s are read like a message from left to write, and the comb figure was accepted to mean home or lodge. So this means:
Gee what would have possibly made a lot of beavers die in 18th century. I’m wracking my brain. Can you think of anything?
And because this is Rick Lanman writing this paper he left nothing to chance and outlined resources every step of his conclusions. So if you want to be convinced, impressed or just know more click on the title to go read the full article.
As for me I’m just going to stand stunned and think about someone knowing way back in 1860 that taking all the beavers out of Alameda Creek was going to be bad news for a rapidly drying state that was trying to populate itself. And I’m going to thank beavers lucky stars that Dr. Lanman got curious about them in the first place.
