What a fun night in Rossmoor last evening. A lovely theater, two smart techs to help me and a great supportive crowd. A sizeable speakers fee for Worth A Dam and both my mom and Cheryl’s mom in the audience! The questions were intriguing and the feedback glowing – only one gentleman asked afterwards if it was possible to EAT beaver, bless his heart. I smiled and said they weren’t poisonous but people tended to think of the meat as greasy: case in point when the mountain men were starving they at their horses, and ate their dogs, but they didn’t tend to eat the animal they were all busy hunting after.

I barely got home and sat down with my glass if chardonnay when the power went out, and stayed out for a good three hours afterwards. Thank goodness the candles still worked!

This morning we can only pity poor Kansas who is obviously very, very confused about beavers. They keep hearing all those nice things about them but they obviously still hate them very much. I will say this beaver article from Adaven Scronce  Diversified Agriculture and Natural Resource agent, is as CLOSE to being positive as any I’ve read from the state, but good lord its still pretty dire.

Busy beavers

Kansas State University Research and Extension

In Kansas, bobcats and coyotes are the only predators that will prey on adult beavers. Because of this, the beaver population can become over abundant at times. Beavers are one of the few vertebrate animals that can alter the environment to fit their needs. While beavers and the dams they build can benefit the land and conservation efforts, the dams can have negative impacts on the environment around them. Some of those include, flooded crop fields and roads. Flooding from a beaver dam can result in the flooding of large areas where only shallow and slow-moving water existed before. While some plants and animals are able to adapt to pond life and wetlands, depending on the location and size, beaver ponds can cause significant damage to human interests. The damages from flooding caused by beaver-dams can include removing pastures and crop land from production and drowning stands of trees. Beaver dens can also potentially decrease the stability of the banks of streams and ponds and increase the chance of these banks collapsing under the weight of vehicles and farm equipment.

Okay, we’ll get to the part about all the flooding and damage beavers cause, but first I have to ask Adaven about this sentence, Beavers are one of the few vertebrate animals that can alter the environment to fit their needs. Talk to me about the use of the word vertebrate?

Are you implying they are also invertebrate animals that modify the habitat to suit their needs? Or are you just using the word randomly to show off that you know these kinds of scientific terms and can use them at will? I guess maybe orb spiders are an invertebrate animal that modifies the habitat to suit their needs but I wouldn’t call them a keystone species.

Damaged caused by beavers can be managed by installing a beaver pond leveler, fencing off valuable trees and crops, and removing the local beaver population and preventing recolonization. Even though beavers and their dams have the potential to cause damage it is also possible to live with beavers if preventative measures are put in place to prevent beavers from damaging valuable resources. The Kansas Department of Wildlife notes the best way to prevent damage from beavers is through sustained population control and that pond owners should not wait until beavers become overabundant, because, at that point, damage has already been done. Keeping the beaver population under control not only benefits the land owner, but it benefits the remaining beaver as well.

The mind reels. The jaw drops.

Lets start at the beginning. Kansas is advocating using a pond lever! And wrapping trees! This is a very very momentous day. Congratulations Mike Callahan, you finally broke through the fourth wall! I keep pinching myself because I think I’m dreaming. But the very next sentence wakes me up to the bucket of cold water.

and removing the local beaver population and preventing recolonization

Not either try these things OR remove the local population. But AND.  Install the pond leveler AND kill the beavers also. Because you can never be sure. And the most important thing is to keep beaver from populating the area because by then its too LATE.

Never mind that beavers are territorial and the population will never grow because offspring will disperse. Nature acts differently in Kansas. Our text books told us so. Beavers are like house mice in Kansas. They breed and breed and breed and by the time you notice droppings on your kitchen counter its TOO LATE. They are already ruining the place.

You have to love this smarmy falsely-compassionate last line.

Keeping the beaver population under control not only benefits the land owner, but it benefits the remaining beaver as well.

Hear that? I’m doing this for your own good. Killing your mother or your children for your own good.I know beaver chapter said something about population density and that weird word ‘dispersal’ but there was a kegger at billybob’s house that friday and I never read that far,

Because. Kansas,