{column1}I remember, I remember,
The fir trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now ’tis little joy
To know I’m farther off from heaven
Than when I was a boy.
Thomas Hood{/column1} {column2} I remember, I remember,
The beavers and the dawn;
I used to watch their swimming V
While stifling a yawn:
It was a magic moment,
But there is less a thrall
To know the creek was better off
When all the kits were small.
Heidi Perryman{/column2}
Just an introduction to this mornings sighting of a very confident kit returning under the Escobar bridge with a mouthful of tulles. Apparently winter’s increasing waters means that we are feeding upstream. Watch out lonely goose, you may soon be lonely no longer!
Because life never brings only good news, I thought I’d update you this morning on the super South American beavers, who, it turns out, are not really eating fish after all. Instead they’re munching their way through forests at a cheerful pace that has authorities up in arms. You see, trees in that region do not respond to “coppice cutting” by throwing out new shoots, so when the beavers take them, the forest doesn’t recover.
The article repeats the rumor that they have no predators and makes a case for the death penalty. Apparently the only solution is the final solution. A mass eradication effort is underway to halt the beavers before they get to chile.
Killing traps are one of the beaver control methods now being tested, in addition to adapting North American beaver control techniques using trappers, dogs, helicopters and boats. “We’ll have to move in on the beavers in a rolling front, going from watershed to watershed to remove them, with a massive monitoring program behind it to make sure they have all been eradicated,” describes Anderson.
I understand that conditions might be different in that part of the world, and that steps may need to be taken. Immunocontraception springs to mind, starting with the selfish entrepreneurs that brought them there in the first place. If you want to know more about the south american beaver plight, Canadian Geographic just did a program on them and its available for down load here.
