Sometimes it’s hard to get past that negative initial impression and accept all the good things a person (or article) has to offer. Sometimes that first jarring meeting is so irksome or inappropriate that you can’t calm down and discover all the special treats a messenger brings to the table because they’ve already rubbed you the wrong way. But it’s our job as humans, as consumers of beaver news, to give people a chance, to take a very deep breath and read past the initial headline, no matter HOW provoking it may be.
How a local young, orphan beaver learned life skills from a bunch of otters
An orphaned young kit, little more than a year old, is there for care and rehab before release to back to the wild.
Scouts honor that’s the headline and lead photo of this article about an orphaned beaver being raised at Sonoma Wildlife rescue. No word yet on what exactly the magical otters are actually teaching said beaver – surely not how to swim because beavers can swim from birth – and not how to fish, because beavers don’t eat fish.
How to mug for the camera and steal all the attention?
I swear to god I sometimes think otters are just trolling me now, They know they get more credit for being cute than beavers do for saving the entire frickin’ planet. Did you know National Geographic just bought our friends at River Otter Ecology Project a submarine? So they could film underwater of course. Because otters lead charmed lives.
And beavers, well, you know.
The orphan at the rescue center isn’t a local. She was found in central California, near Madera. A backhoe operator clearing a drainage ditch there apparently swiped the bank where the beaver were denning, killing the parents and siblings, leaving one survivor.
A few months old, she was delivered to a local veterinarian, then volunteers from the Fresno Wildlife Rehabilitation Service picked her up, and she came into the care of Cathy Gardner, the wildlife center’s director.
“Normally”, Gardner says, “baby beaver are cross, cranky, temperamental. They will throw their bottle away, make noises. This one was sweet, very different.” Unfortunately, she was also ill. Beaver urine is caustic. In water, where beaver normally live, it’s rapidly diluted. But penned up, the baby beaver’s tail and feet were badly burned. Gardner nursed her through the resulting infection, changing pads around the clock.
Those rotten beavers. Snarly and temperamental with caustic urine. Never mind that the noises a baby beaver make are endearing. And that a healthy unfrightened kit is so adorable that they certain tribes would give them as a consolation to a squaw that lost her child so she could raise the snuggling bundle.
Boy this article is making itself hard to love. Deep breath. Another deep breath. It will get better. It has to.
Human efforts are focused on moving water efficiently down narrow, well-defined channels, steering it to orchards, vineyards, farms and towns, or draining it rapidly away to prevent flooding, opening land for cultivation or construction.
Beavers treat water very differently. Their waterworks do pretty much the opposite. Their ponds spread water out, slow it down, blocking narrow channels. Their dams traps silt and encourage the growth of trees and plants. The result is widened and overgrown water channels, broad shallow wetlands and meandering streams.
That sounds better, Oh good they have more photos buried in the article.
Not surprisingly, beavers’ unique engineering talents have also made them very popular with modern conservationists and resource managers. Beaver ponds, for example, are essential shelter for juvenile salmon, trout and other fish, providing pools of upstream water even in drought years.
The ponds stop snowmelt and heavy rains from rushing downstream too swiftly, allowing it to recharge and replenish groundwater along the way. Where beaver live, they’re a keystone species, altering the environment in ways that provide habitat for a rich and diverse network of plants, insects and other animals. Beaver wetlands are also proving to be a bulwark against wildfires in western states, where they’re being managed.
Hmm lots of groundwater talk. I’m guessing the author interviewed some watery friends of ours.
At the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, Kate Lundquist and Brock Dolman, co-Directors of the OAEC Water Institute, have been active for more than ten years in efforts to Bring Back the Beaver to their historic range in California, in places they can provide maximum benefit.
According to Lundquist, beaver fall into the public’s blind spot and restoring their legacy in the state has been challenging, since for many decades they’ve been cast as vermin, or mistakenly, as non-native.
Dolman says other states are amazed at just how hard and complicated it is to try and restore beaver to California. Across the west, in Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and other states, managed beaver re-introductions have been occurring for years, demonstrating multiple benefits to watersheds, to the delight of ranchers and conservationists alike.
It can be frustrating, Dolman notes. “We spend tens of millions in efforts to save Pacific salmon as they continue to disappear, trying to restore degraded habit and drought-proof pools, and repair erosion-cut streambeds, when the beaver will work for free.”
Well that’s better. Recognition of their importance and some argument about what a resource beavers are.
Solutions range from simply painting tree trunks or vines with sand and paint (the beaver hate it), to using pond leveler devices, and other beaver-proof systems. One vineyard installed an electric fence four inches off the ground to keep the beaver out — it works because they can’t jump.
“What we need now is an endowment or bill to fund a Beaver Management Plan for the state that will ensure all interests are protected, while providing suitable habitat,” Lundquist says.
Engaging wildlife to protect declining fisheries, restore water resources and defend against wildfires may be the most sensible and cost-effective approach to problems that widely impact human populations.
Endowment? Good luck with that. How about a tax credit for individual taking steps to live with beavers on their land? How about a fire safety credit for active dams? Just this week we were in the foothills working towards fire-safety for my parents land. Some firemen came to do an inspection of defensible space so we can hopefully renew her insurance another year. What if having beavers in your steam was acknowledged as a step towards that?
Well, all in all this article ended up in a much better place than where it started. I’m counting my blessings as we speak. I know that the person who writes the headline is not usually the person who writes the article. So I’m not blaming Stephen Nett for saying that otters teach beavers. He is a naturalist and science writer so he knows better and seemed to get the environmental benefit of beavers down pat. And good for Kate and Brock for steering him in the right direction.
I guess you really shouldn’t judge a book by its cover – or an article by its headline.
