Hrmph. Yesterday I proudly finished my post and marched off only to notice an hour later that our entire sidebar on the website was gone. These are the kind of mysterious goings-on that make you crazy but I tweaked and scoured code and eventually found out if I took out part of what I wrote the sidebar was restored.

i still have no idea why.

Let that be a lesson to me! Don’t talk so much. Marching straight on to this fascinating column from Wade Robinson in Pennsylvania who thinks that beavers are ruining his fish time. (Yes, you read that correctly.)

Robertson: Beavers can impact one’s fishing — and the local

Since individual animals have personalities of their own, some bolder beavers have the ability to really irritate you at times. I’ve known several obnoxious ones who used their tails to repeatedly slap the waters where I’m fishing and, of course, this spooks the fish. The irate beaver isn’t interested in saving fish, it’s simply trying to force you to leave. In between powerful tail slaps, they can brazenly swim in tight circles, glaring at you, then another dive and explosion of water.
I’ve glared right back and had some choice words for beavers, but it never seemed to impress them.

Those obnoxious beavers! Slapping their tails and acting like they MADE the pond! Who do they think they are? Clearly Wade has a delicate understanding of the ecosystem services they provide. He even has a friend who was bitten by one. Seriously.

A close friend of my brother, a young woman weighing about 120 pounds soaking wet, was a very dedicated runner. She ran every day with her two large dogs and was quite health conscious. This particular day in early winter she and her dogs dropped down into a small valley and, lo and behold, there in the middle of the road was a beaver industriously dragging a 10 foot, thickly limbed, aspen branch across to the dam on the other side of the highway.

When the two dogs saw the beaver only 20 yards ahead of them they bolted forward to the attack, their jaws snapping. The slight woman was jerked off her feet and, unfortunately, had the short leashes wrapped around her hand and wrist. The straining dogs dragged her forward rapidly, constricting the leash tightly around her hand; she was unable to let go.

Before she knew what was happening she was the center of a swirling, tangled melee of leaping, growling dogs, snagging branches, twisted leashes and one very angry beaver.

Now, you may not think it, but a beaver’s tail can be a powerful weapon and those teeth, large and razor sharp, can bite through things other than wood.

In this tangled battle, two dogs, jogger and beaver all literally touching one another, the beaver chomped down on the poor woman’s knee, severing cartilage, tendons and scouring bone. It bit the dogs as well while simultaneously knocking the tar out of them all with its tail. It was over in seconds, the victorious beaver diving over the bank and into the water, the girl and dogs left to take stock of their wounds.

The single bite to her knee was very serious and painful; she couldn’t stand and was bleeding heavily. Luckily, within minutes, a car appeared at this incredible scene, untangled her from the dogs, put a tourniquet on the leg, lifted her into the car and rushed to the hospital. The surgeries needed to repair the knee were extensive and it was two years before she started running again.

So a woman who couldn’t control her dogs was dragged into a beaver attack? And in the tangle was bitten by the beaver? Goodness that’s a tangled mess of a story. It must have been terrifying. Apparently Wade was shocked to learn that an exposed threatened animal will defend itself. We, however, are not.

Once the beavers had exhausted the available food supply they abandoned the dam and moved on to another location. The abandoned dam soon broke and its bottom, now bare and covered with the highly fertilized silt quickly blossomed into a lush meadow. Their new dam repeated the cycle.

Beavers are a unique animal and fun to watch if you’re not fishing. Hopefully, you know a little more about them now.

However, I don’t suggest “tangling” with one, pun intended!

No mention of the valuable wetlands beavers create or the way they make habitat for birds AND fish. Obviously Wade has a cursory understanding of the role they play in creating the very scaled animal he is trying to catch. Apparently, they’ll let just anyone write a sports column in Pennsylvania whether they use paragraphs or not.

Speaking of the quality of writing, i was moved by this poem yesterday by author Debbie Slack with a nice beaver mention. It refreshingly has no knee-bitin at all.