turtles

The phrase “Busman’s Holiday” is an English saying referring to a vacation during which you engage in activities very like what you do for a living. Reading Lily Pond is somewhat like that for me, since pretty much every dramatic thing that happens in the book has happened for our beavers. For example, when vandals “destroy” the dam and the pond collapses, I remembered several similar actions to our colony’s real estate. Of course it was never vandals: (at least not by strict definition standards). It was always someone with a paycheck from the city, and it was always done on purpose, even if it was denied later.

The worst and most obvious was the night Skip Lisle took the dam down by three feet to install the flow device. That stressed our colony horribly. It was heartbreaking to remember how all 6 beavers worked all night, ripping up tules and mud and pulling sticks off their own lodge, to make repairs. The following day one of our kits nearly collapsed with exhaustion and had to go to the lindsay museum where he later died. The necropsy found lesions from roundworm parasite, that had even made him blind, but I’m sure the panicked night(s) of hard work didn’t help.

A lot of the author’s “discoveries” are common knowledge to us. Maybe because we were such novices to begin with, we didn’t have years of “PROVEN THEORY” to combat. We just watched and learned. Beavers make use of varietal feeding. Check. Beavers work on dams from both up and down stream. Check. Beaver kits are taken care of by the whole family. Check. Beavers solve arguments and assert their power though “wrestling” in the water which doesn’t result in bloodshed. Check. Muskrats live in and around beaver lodges. Check.Beavers vocalize while feeding, but also to socialize. Check. Beavers repair holes and leaks under the water, not just at the top. Check. Beavers are adaptive in their thinking and problem solving. Check.

One thing I love about the book, is reading about things we observe all the time, but never had a “name” for. Hope Ryden describes the beavers water wrestle as a “Push Match”, which is exactly what it looks like. She says of it

I have watched these matches many tmes and thought a lot about them. Any species that posses sharp teeth with which to obtain food must avoid using those hazardous tools against its kind, for doing so could bring about its extinction. Moreover, it is certainly not in the interest of an animal to kill a close relative whose hereditary make up (being similar to his own) offers a backup means by which his own genetic material may be propagated. Finally, only a colony that is able to live in peace is assured the help of many hands and jaws in the creation and maintenance of its waterworks. This it is not surprising that the beaver has evolved strong inhibitions against biting, together with a ritualistic means by which to safely settle disputes.

Hope Ryden: Lily Pond page 167

Martinez Beaver Push-Match:

In some ways, reading Hope Ryden’s book is like finding a loveletter written by your grandmother. It’s wonderful to know what went on in her head, and to see the parallel’s in how she was feeling and thinking. But its also confusing to realize that someone else had these feelings, allowed their life to be shaped by them, and ultimately moved past them. It’s like seeing a familiar production from back stage. You know the plot and how it ends, but its delightful to see how the cast puts it all together.

Is there a copy under your tree yet? You can get one here.

So here I am, a beaver advocate, who has resisted reading the most famous beaver story of all time; Hope Ryden’s Lily Pond. Everyone said it was sad and beautiful, and I had enough sad and beautiful right here in my own backyard thank you very much. I will say my curiosity was peaked when I learned that our German beaver friend and foreign correspondent Alex, had sent her a few of my columns. I later learned that Alex had spent a summer working with her and later Sherri Tippie in Colorado. Recently a beaver supporter sat me down with an original signed copy and insisted I read a little.

I’m so glad she did!

I am slowly savoring the earliest chapters, but I had no idea it was so science-thoughtful. It’s like reading Gorilla’s in the Mist or Never Cry Wolf. As the story opens she has obtained a permit from the Ranger to study a local colony in New York. She is waiting silently for a glimpse of a beaver, patient for hours, days, longer. Then sees a large beaver she calls the “Inspector General” who comes out at the same time every night to check the dams. At first he is the only beaver than can tolerate her approach and allow her to get closer.

It’s wonderful to watch her learn things that we have learned by accident, but I was most excited by her use of night photography. She was trying to take pictures without disruption and painstakingly used red lights and strobe lights so the beavers wouldn’t be upset by the light. (!) Then an accident happened and she turned light upon them, and lo! the beavers were unphased! and she learned that beavers have no Eye Shine!

In this moment she realized what we’ve long realized. When you shine a light in a beavers eyes there is no reflection. Nocturnal animals like raccoon, bobcat, deer and possum have light gathering crystals called tapetum lucidum. They evolved this ability to help them manage life at night. Hope wondered why beavers didn’t have it? Could it be that the species is too newly adapted to night life to have evolved the trait?

She did the work I admire and went searching through historic records. Early trappers often mention beavers out during the daytime, and even “Sunning themselves on their lodges“. She writes

If these descriptions can be believed, they raise another question: what would cause a diurnal species to become a nocturnal one? Could such a change have come about as a result of the extraordinary trappping pressure exerted on the beaver over three centuries?

Hope Ryden, The Lily Pond pg 45

She goes on to convincingly describe the horrific “beaver ethic cleansing” that was perpetrated by the Dutch, the Canadians, the French, and the Native Americans in service for all of the above. The market was already hurting because the European Beaver had been trapped to extinction in the 1600’s. So it was wonderful to find a new source for pelts and castoreum. There were no restrictions at all placed on the number of beaver. At the end of the 18th century there were so many beaver pelts on the market that 75% of the pelts taken were burned to hold the price of fur at a profitable margin. In fact, in 1811 John Jacob Astor’s fur trading post had taken all the beaver from Oregon and systematically removed every them from every last tributary in the Columbia River. By the time of the invention of the steel-jawed leg hold trap in the 1840’s, there weren’t many beaver left to trap.

In 1895, fourteen states announced they had no beavers at all. Not one. These included Massachusetts (where Beaver Solutions is located) Vermont (where Skip Lisle is located!), New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, delaware, Maryland, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, and Florida.

One can speculate that the few animals that escaped this continent-wide decimation must have been the wariest of their kind, deviants, disinclined to build conspicuous lodges. And inded, the late ninteeth-century reports of sightings describe the beaver as a reclusive bank-dweller. One can also speculate that these survivors escaped the notice of trappers by turning night into day, for by the end of the last century, no further mention is made of beavers “sunning themselves on their lodges”.

Hope Ryden: The Lily Pond pg 48

Okay, I know I’m a huge beaver nerd, but that’s FASCINATING. It makes so much sense to think of bank lodges as an adaption to hunting, and beavers being nocturnal out of necessity and not out of genetics. The book was written in 1989 and I haven’t yet heard what beaver-ologists like Muller-Swarze or Baker think about it, but you can be I’ll be asking them.

In the meantime, you can pick up your own used copy of Lily Pond from Amazon, and follow along at home. I am sure I’ll have more revelations soon.