There’s a lot of beaver news from our friends lately. I’m falling behind. Yesterday a story ran about the Port Moody issue and Judy and Jim again were at the forefront. The B.C. city is finding out that actually DOING the right thing is significantly more complex than just “acting like you’re doing the right thing” which is all they had really signed up for last year.
Thank goodness our award-winning nature hero friends at on the case.
PoMo beaver plan needs science say advocates
Two Port Moody advocates hoping their city does right by beavers that take up residence in the city’s waterways are “cautiously optimistic” it is heading in the right direction with a management plan for the industrious creatures.
Judy Taylor-Atkinson said she and husband Jim Atkinson came away from a meeting Tuesday with Port Moody’s city manager, Tim Savoie, feeling better than a week prior, when they expressed their concerns about the process the city was following to develop its plan during a public presentation to city council.
If you’ll remember, the city hired an expert that “accidentally killed’ one of the kits last year by live trapping it in a pipe the beavers flooded? After that fiasco the then-mayor talked a good game of being sorry and vowing to work with the beavers and said they would create a beaver management plan for the future. Then he turned down all the informed help and hired to salmon experts to who voted to rip out all the dams to save salmon.
In the meantime there was an election, and the town got a new mayor that Judy and Jim helped elect, but before he could step in, the DFO ripped out two beaver dams and the beavers have been surviving in a wading pool.
“What seems to be fading is any pretext toward acceptance of beaver as another ingredient in the wildlife urban melting pot,” Taylor-Atkinson said.
Meanwhile, the beaver family has moved on from Pigeon Creek to take up residence in nearby Suter Brook Creek, where it has constructed a new den near the public works yard and is in the process of raising a new kit that was likely born in the middle of last summer.
Taylor-Atkinson said that’s later than usual, so the young beaver is smaller than it should be heading into winter. She said the adult pair likely mated later than its typical January season because of the stress caused by the city’s interference and the subsequent move and establishment of a new home.
Taylor-Atkinson said because the base of knowledge surrounding beavers and the impact they have on their habitat is still growing, it’s important the city’s plan promote co-existence.
“It will come around to seeing beaver as a benefit to stream systems,” she said. “That’s why it’s important to have the best science.”
Ahhh Judy! I’m so impressed to see you on this journey we know so well. From enchanted to hopeful to heartbroken to angry to determined to clear-eyed steely resolve. We know its a treacherous path. We tried to leave little clues along the trail, but it’s a hard clamber and too few come out the other side. Just remember my favorite riddle.
How far can you walk into a forest?
Only half way. The other half you’re walking out. Congratulations on getting the story into the paper and keeping everyone’s feet to the fire. You are making a huge difference in the lives of these beavers and in the lives of the people who care about them.
Meanwhile author Ben Goldfarb is in Montana getting ready for a talk in Missoula this weekend. Here was his radio interview yesterday. It is a very good interview with a smart host, but there was one little part that didn’t sit right with me and I’m sure you can guess what it was.
‘The Surprising, Secret Lives Of Beavers’ With Ben GoldFarb
Sara Arason at the Write Question :“Eager” is the powerful story of how nature’s most ingenious architects shaped our world, and how they can help save it—if we let them. Ben Goldfarb’s captivating book reveals how beavers transformed our landscapes, and how modern-day “Beaver Believers”—including scientists, ranchers, and passionate citizens—are recruiting these ecosystem engineers to help us fight our most pressing environmental problems. The Washington Post calls it, “A masterpiece of a treatise on the natural world” and The Boston Globe calls it, “The best sort of environmental journalism.” 
Ben is doing such an important of telling the beaver story, and so many people are learning how to live with beavers and why they matter. Incidentally also hearing our story for the first time, which has resulted in some unexpected blessings. I’ve gotten a few “fan letters” from folks who loved the book and yesterday worth a dam got a large donation from a man I’ve never met in Maryland!
I plan to retire early if this keeps up.
