There has been such a horn-of-plenty full of great beaver news lately; beaver removing nitrogen and beavers saving LA. If you’re like me, you probably get this tingly, turning-a-corner feeling. Like the SEA CHANGE we need in beaver thinking is FINALLY here. That were steps away from changing beaver policy in California, the west, – even the world. At last, things are starting to take root and penetrate the richer soils where they can sustainably grow and reseed generations. We start to see headlines like this, and get really excited.
Bullish on Beavers
While some cattle ranchers scorn the giant rodents, others are putting beavers to work Mellen is one of about a dozen ranchers in a four-county area of south-central Idaho who are bullish on beavers. While some folks scorn the big rodents for their propensity to choke culverts and clog irrigation ditches, ranchers are discovering that beavers can be a valuable tool for restoring riparian areas, the green strips of vegetation that border waterways and provide most of the habitat for wildlife along Rocky Mountain streams and elsewhere in the West.
Mellen and his neighbors are not alone. Ranchers in Colorado, Oregon, Montana, Wyoming and Nevada are also working with federal officials to rejuvenate riparian areas with beavers. “Beavers are now looked upon as an integral part of stream recovery,” says Wayne Elmore, a national riparian restoration expert for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Prineville, Oregon.
Slowly, public-land officials, along with some ranchers, are working on ways to reverse a large part of the damage. In 1990, the BLM and Forest Service developed tougher regulations for riparian areas on public lands. And last year, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt announced a plan for range reform on most public lands that includes higher grazing fees and penalties for land abuse.
In practice, to restore riparian areas, federal range managers must gain the cooperation of ranchers who hold grazing permits-and that’s not always easy. Ranchers often harbor a distrust of the government; some consider public grazing allotments to be their own land. And ranchers often detest beavers. “I don’t know why some people have such contempt for beavers,” Pence laments. “It’s hard to get people to let loose of that. Heck, there’s even some people in my agency that think I’m crazy.”
Probably no one can convince a cowboy of anything as well as another cowboy. Retired Colorado rancher Bill Barnard has won numerous awards for turning the Cathedral Bluffs BLM grazing allotment near Meeker, Colorado, into a shining example of range stewardship. He gives beavers a heap of credit for his success. He says of fellow ranchers, “Maybe they don’t like beavers, maybe they don’t want beavers, but I tell them maybe they’d better try beavers or they’ll be out of business.”
Fantastic! Getting a cowboy to talk sense to other cowboys. BLM has the sense to use a trusted voice to promote a very suspicious product! It seems like there is a real recognition that human psychology is the biggest obstacle to our seeing beaver as a resource. How exciting to come across such an encouraging article. I guess we can expect many more to come!
There’s just one little problem.
Read the date again.
If you were reading this article in the delivery room after just having a beautiful baby girl she’d be sipping her first chardonnay by now. Bill Clinton was president. Friends had its first season. Whitney Houston was winning the grammy for singing the song you never need to hear again. And everyone who didn’t go to Two Weddings and a Funeral was watching Pulp Fiction.
In other words, this was a long fucking time ago.
Now I’m fairly used to finding brilliant remarks about beavers from 100 years ago, in the writings of Grey Owl or Enos Mills. I’m even used to reading them surprisingly from Fish and game in the 20’s and thirties. But reading something THAT smart from our recent past makes me realize that we’ve been ‘turning the corner’ on beavers for such a ridiculously long time. Frogs, salmon, water, carbon. We’ve turned ‘more corners’ than the media reporting on Iraq. We’ve turned ‘more corners’ than an octagon riding a tilt-a-wheel. We’ve turned all the corners. There are no corners left to turn.
Which doesn’t mean I’m giving up. Just taking a slightly longer-term view. It’s not about getting better science. It’s not about telling better stories. It’s not about proving that we can. The next time I’m inclined to hold my breath because ‘its finally happening!’ I’m going to make myself watch this.
