Toronto Star – Worth A Dam

Mad beaver terrorizes Miramichi

The mad beaver of Miramichi wandered the streets this week, slapping its tail on the pavement and chasing one man down the street. And be warned: he’s still out there

The mad beaver of Miramichi, pictured here in a cellphone photo just moments before it turned aggressive, slapping its tail and hissing.

The beaver was a cute curiosity until it got mad. Then it was just plain scary. Terry Furlotte would know; he barely escaped without getting nipped.

He bent down to snap the beaver’s photo, but evidently the beast didn’t like it. “He slapped his tail, turned around with a big old hiss, you could see his teeth there sticking out,” said Furlotte, who was startled. “I had to turn and run away. . . . He chased me down the road.”

This story sickens me. A young beaver slapping the pavement because he thinks it will keep him safe. Like a child pulling the trigger on his finger over and over and saying “bang” and wondering why the attacker doesn’t fall over. Miramichi is east of Maine in New Brunswick, so not the smartest beaver player on the chessboard. But still, Mad?

Only if MAD is an acronym. Standing for

Misunderstood Adolescent Disperser. (M.A.D.)

The reporter in this [sic] tail exaggerated every possible detail or got it wrong, claiming beavers “live” in the dam, and are “kicked out by their parents” at age 2 and that the beaver is still out there and could return any moment. I guess we should be pleased they could be bothered to do a little research for this story.

Though it’s exceedingly rare, beavers have been known to attack people. Last May, a fisherman in Belarus died after being bitten by a beaver he was trying to photograph. An elderly Virginia woman was knocked into a lake and battled a beaver that had bitten her leg for 20 minutes in 2012. She managed to escape.

Sigh. I’m pretty sure there’s a contract clause we never hear about which rewards any reporter that manages to sneak those tidbits in. Luckily the police in Miramachi are way smarter (and kinder) than the reporters.

Once the mad beaver of Miramichi got aggressive, police were called to deal with the animal. They dealt with the scene by cordoning off streets to make sure the rodent didn’t get hit by a car, and waited for the beaver to wander back into the wilderness.

The beaver was allowed to waddle off into the sunset, while Mirachi residents were furiously texting their loved ones, and Mr. Furlotte was spared to live another day. In addition to the Toronto Star, this was also on the Huffington Post. Apparently the incident inspired many frenzied tweets as well.

Honestly, do they have nothing at all to write about in New Brunswick? No scandals or crime or evidence of climate change? Hmm, maybe it’s just things they’d rather not think about.

Why Toronto residents must embrace city wildlife

Gladstone thinks it’s only fair she puts out a welcome mat for urban wildlife. “We are taking over their habitats,” she says. “They will stay and we have to learn to live with them.”

Her view is embraced by naturalists and conservationists. Animal populations have rebounded in North American cities and everyone — two legged and four — must adapt. But this accommodation will take effort: “We’ve largely taken ourselves out of the working landscape and mostly forsaken both the destructive ways and the stewardship skills of our ancestors,” says Jim Sterba in his engaging 2012 book, Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds. “But the comeback of wildlife and forests all but demands that we reconnect to the natural world around us, relearn old stewardship skills and develop new ways of practising those skills better.”

It’s not the New York Times, or the Washington Post, or the Boston Globe. They (and countless others) reviewed Sterba’s handy published excuses for killing wildlife without so much as a single inconvenint fact check. We had to wait for the Toronto Star to put this brilliant piece together. Go read the whole thing all the way through, and email it to five of your friends. Then send a note of thanks to the author Liz Scrivener, who deserves a TON of credit.

Take the worrisome example of beavers.

“Beaver numbers are definitely high,” confirms manager Toninger. “We have beavers swimming around million-dollar yachts on the harbourfront.”

Most complaints are about beavers damming and causing flooding in recreation areas but on occasion the problem involves backyards. In the winter, problems associated with North America’s largest rodent concern damage to trees. “They can level a whole forest and over the course of a winter can take down hundreds of trees.”

Residents usually want beavers trapped and relocated. But that’s not the way nature works, Toninger explains.

“Our understanding of wildlife is scripted,” he says, referencing Walt Disney. “That you can trap him and somehow he’d be happy and frolic somewhere else. You’d be trapping beaver for the rest of your existence. Move him somewhere else and the beaver dies a lonely existence in an area it doesn’t know. It can’t set up a territory and can’t feed. They are not like deer. They need a home base, they need a lodge. It’s no different than a stranger picking up your teenage son and taking him to a country he doesn’t know.”

The conservation authority recommends installing a system of pipes called “beaver deceivers” or “beaver bafflers” so beavers can learn to live with lower water levels. Trees can be protected by wrapping them with wire.

Hurray for the conservation authority! Hurray for Liz and the Toronto Star! Honestly when I read this article I get the strangest feeling all over that there are a few reasonable humans in the world. It’s very, very strange, and wonderful!

I hope Mr. Sterba suffers from terrible indigestion today.

Our friends working on the beaver believers project have surface again after some much-needed rest. They posted this picture with USFS geomorphologist Suzanne Fouty.

Well this will certainly be a memorable summer for each one of them. I can’t imagine how Sarah is going to go through all that footage and end up with a 20 minute documentary, but I’m very intrigued to find out!

They also posted some stills of their interviews so far. You might recognize these folk.