Beavers in Buffalo?

Ever since Baylor baseball players began feeding a beaver that wandered into their parking lot, the Bears haven't lost. (Courtesy, Baylor SID David Kaye)

Ever since Baylor baseball players began feeding a beaver that wandered into their parking lot, the Bears haven’t lost. The win streak was extended to 23 games after Saturday night’s 1-0 win over Texas A&M.

“We showed up to the field a couple of weeks ago and there was a beaver rolling around the parking lot, ” relief pitcher Crayton Bare told Waco television station KWTX. “A couple of guys would feed him a few acorns from the trees. He walks a long way over from the Brazos but I think the acorns keep him there.”

The Brazos river (the spanish explorers called it the “River of the Arms of God”) is the longest river in Texas. It flows from its headwaters in New Mexico to the gulf and recently sent one of its residents wandering into Baylor ball park which is in Waco. This story is almost inexplicable, but it did make me smile. I’m not wild about the fate of this dusty beaver sticking around to get fed for the winning streak, and not confident about his fate when things turn sour, but remember, this is Texas so the odds are this may very well be the HAPPIEST beaver in the state.

And winning keeps the Bears feeding the beaver. In fact, “Feed the Beaver” has become the new catchphrase around Baylor Ballpark, which sits on the banks of the Brazos.

“(Max) Muncy hit a home run and Josh Michalec from the dugout was like, ‘Feed that beaver!'” Bare said. “We were like, oh, hold on. That’s kind of catchy.”

Now there are “Feed the Beaver” T-shirts being sold and the players have developed their own “Beaver shake” hand signal, similar to the Texas Rangers’ claw and antlers.

Well, I can’t find the t-shirt or find the secret beaver handshake on youtube, but if you want to follow the twitterfeed, the hashtag is #feedthebeaver .

In the mean time, let’s hope junior takes advantage of his good fortune to hi-tail it back to the river, and that for a moment rabid bear fans will apply their unlikely reverence to every beaver they meet in the next few months because it MIGHT be the special lucky one.

Here at Worth A Dam we have seen more than our fair share of beaver stupid. We’ve seen folk insist they eat fish, harm salmon, breed like rabbits and tunnel under buildings. We’ve seen claims that they have poison tails, bite off their own testicles, and build with auto engines. I naively thought we had seen it all. Ahh no, this story from Texas takes the blue ribbon.

A beaver that city employees have dubbed “Rocky” built a dam in the middle of Edcouch’s northern drainage ditch that connects to an Hidalgo County drainage canal. The dam is preventing water from entering the larger drainage canal and if it rains, the ditch could overflow and flood a nearby school and neighborhood, Public Works Director David Alaniz said.

Alaniz does not want to kill Rocky, but he has not found a good way to relocate the rodent. Public Works employees broke up Rocky’s dam a few weeks ago, but the busy beaver built a new one within about a week, Alaniz said. Workers dismantled the dam again Thursday. They also have set a cage in the water to catch the beaver, but so far Rocky has not taken the bait.

“We put a can of beans in there, but I don’t think beans would attract him,” Alaniz said.

Beans? I’m sorry, beans? You know, the article doesn’t even say they opened the can. Stunning. I knew the story would be worth reading as soon as I saw the name of the town. Edcouch. Who names a town Edcouch? Couldn’t Mr. Alaniz ask around to his fellow public works directors in ‘Sam-chair’ and ‘Mark-table’ and figure out that beavers might not eat beans? I guess we should be grateful that it’s vegetarian.

Troy Allen, the general manager of the Delta Lake Irrigation District in Edcouch, said his crews have to clean out some areas of ditches and canals every three to five days to get rid of beaver dams. A few years ago, Delta workers used special traps and caught 10 to 15 beavers, Allen said. They killed some and relocated others.

“We don’t like killing them if we don’t have to,” Allen said, explaining that sometimes it is necessary because the beavers are difficult to trap. Delta employees also go out at night to shoot the nocturnal beavers, Allen said.

UPDATE: I thought I was being so snarky with my illustration. Turns out I was right on the money. Go watch the complete and surpassing footage by clicking on the picture:

I imagine it’s mighty hard to catch beavers if you are lacing the cage with beans. You are clearly working very hard to do absolutely nothing useful whatsoever so you can come out at night and shoot beavers. Could I possibly be forgiven for suggesting that this might be the morning staff meeting of Edcouch public works department?

I’ll track down the major players in the article, and introduce them to real solutions, but I have to admit I’m not hopeful.. In the meantime you might want to glimpse some real beavers working on the dam this morning, sin frijoles.