Today’s beaver business takes us from the latte strewn streets of Seattle to the briney lobster traps of Maine. We are coast to coast here at all-beavers-all-the-time. Check out this  delightful up “aren’t we noble” update from Seattle’s publicly owned power company. Apparently in addition to providing electricity City Light also purchases and preserves wetlands to protect salmon AND BEAVER!

With this acquisition, the Endangered Species Act Early Action Land Program is now responsible for over 2,712 acres to date, protecting fish habitats (mostly for Chinook salmon, but also  protecting beavers, bull trout, steelhead and other species) and from pollution and destruction.

Take a moment to remember the trouble we had keeping LADWP from helicoptoring in to scrape out all the beavers in the Owens Valley and imagine what it would be like to have a power company bragging about saving beavers! The mind reels.

As we pass over the united states at a great speed I will just stop briefly over Minnesota to say that the reporter of the Humongous beaver article wrote me a kindly letter yesterday, ( which was surprising since I am  fairly sure I was not trying to be kind). I thanked him and wrote back that there are precious few beaver advocates out his way and if he ever wanted to join the club we’d save him a seat.

Okay now onto Maine, where they celebrated the end of leftover turkey with the charming old trapper who never did it for the money and just wanted to be out in nature. Remember him?

Maine Meets Martinez Beavers

It is unfortunate that Maine doesn’t know any other way to teach its children about nature; how to make them responsible and manage wildlife, other than by trapping. Since beavers create wetlands, augment fish and bird populations and increase wildlife, allowing these animals to maintain their habitat would improve the region’s game count rather than deplete it.

For the record, there are plenty of old-time trappers who have learned new tricks about humane wildlife management, and who make a better living solving problems than killing them.

Heidi Perryman, Ph.D., president and founder, Worth A Dam, Martinez, Calif.