I know we’ve had a lot of beaver radio lately, but I just have to share Ben Goldfarb’s and my interview with Mareen Nadini Mitra, the editor of the Earth Island journal, which aired on Terra Verde yesterday. In my time at this rodeo I’ve been on plenty of radio shows talking about our beavers, but this one I’m actually proud of. Ben was wonderful as usual, but I think his particular wisdom and scope played particular well against my quirky localized story.

If the beaver battle is about winning over hearts and minds in this drying world, I honestly think we crushed it.

On to a very nice article about beavers in Oregon from a former student who knows enough to see the ‘forest’ for the trees.

If you plant it, they will come: working with beavers to restore habitat

A few days before a volunteer project with students from Mt. Hood Community College, I walked down to a riparian area along Beaver Creek in Gresham. Trees planted five years earlier stood taller than me and began to shade out invasive grasses along the stream bank.

I returned three days later with the student volunteers. Instead of trees, we found tree stumps and the conspicuous beaver-chew stems: pointy and scribed with teeth marks. An equally conspicuous drag trail led to a newly constructed dam.

Gracious even in defeat the author, Kate Holleran, goes on

The masterful manipulations of the landscape by beavers result in well-documented benefits to watershed function and wildlife habitat. Beaver dams and habitat complexes increase water storage and base flows, create wetlands, increase habitat complexity, trap sediments and contaminants, capture woody material and foster nutrient recycling.

Beaver habitat is the original one-stop shopping center for hundreds of species. One of the most noteworthy is juvenile salmon, which use the slow water behind beaver dams for rearing periods and overwintering. Chinook and steelhead also use beaver habitat, as do amphibians like red-legged frogs and chorus frogs. Waterfowl and migratory birds find shelter and nesting sites in the shrub thickets along beaver complexes and protein-rich food for rearing young and refueling for long-distance travel.

Our ecosystems and wildlife evolved with beavers as significant sculptors of the land. Working with them to create healthy watersheds is the natural thing to do.

Kate is a very beaver minded woman working for a very beaver minded organization, Hurray for this article! Let’s hope the trees all coppice very soon and give her what she wanted to begin with.