Do you remember the condominium group in New Hampshire that worked to solve their culvert problems without killing beavers? They had at least one retired engineer on board who was fascinated by the puzzle. He worked with Mike Callahan to chisel out solutions, and recently brought him a donation of Beaver Beer as compensation. Well, encouraged by his success he has now started a beaver blog! It’s called “Sherwood Beavers“. Here’s the story and the first blog entry.

It’s May, so I can’t think of a better time to start a beaver blog. The story is about to get very, very interesting! Art’s profile says he recently retired from teaching schools how to better teach technology. Lets hope he is inspired to keep teaching how to live with beavers! Welcome aboard Art. Great first act! Here’s a sample of what you’ll see soon.

Now for the ‘foe’ part of the title there’s this headline from the BBC:

‘Secret Tay beaver cull plan’ claim denied

Wildlife campaigners have said they fear landowners may be planning a secret cull of beavers living in the wild on the Tay, with the approval of the authorities. The Scottish government insisted the claims are untrue, but said the animals do not have full legal protection.

Ugh. So our hard working champions in Scotland are worried that even though the government has said ‘lets not kill them and study them for now’ they’ve had secret contact with worried farmers and given consent to kill them anyway. Let the farmers take the heat and get the government outta the crosshairs to put the beaver firmly back in the crosshairs where it belongs.

Louise Ramsay of the Scottish Wild Beaver Group said: “The Scottish government’s official position is that it doesn’t consider the beavers to be protected, although it wants landowners and farmers only to use lethal control as a last resort.

“But we have had two separate reports that the Scottish government wants the beavers dead and would like landowners’ support in conducting a cull, but keeping it quiet.”

First horror and then praise! GO LOUISE!!! She is doing such a remarkable job! They’ve been worrying about the protection issue for a while. See native wildlife is protected in Scotland, but evil criminally released beavers are NOT. That’s why I’ve been worried about the meme that the they know the beavers were deliberately released (not escaped) which suspiciously appeared at the very same time the ‘beavers have been spared’ announcement came.

So the original beavers were the result of a criminal act and all the subsequent generations of beavers are therefore not subject to the same protections as innocent wildlife. The sins of the father shall be visited on the sons.

To say this article has created a stir is an understatement. But the Ramsays are being so clever here I honestly can’t tell if they’re terrified or getting ready to say ‘check mate’. I know I’d feel very threatened if I were in their situation, but I’m not from a 1000+ year old prominent family descended from the physician to the king. With the recent panic in Devon when they learned that the discovered beaver wasn’t the LOST beaver, I would expect this to get more complicated before it gets less. We’d better all stay tuned!