When a huge crisis of our own making escalates to the point that we can ignore it no longer, there is only one thing to do that will allow us to avoid responsibility and resist changing our own destructive behavior. You know what it is. You must.

Blame the beaver.

There’s a massive beaver boom in Northwest Alaska, and scientists and locals have dam concerns

This is the craziest part. Not only do beavers hasten global warming but they natives are worrying they’ll block all the salmon. Because you know how beavers do that.

Henry Horner is the president of the Tribal Council for the village of Kobuk. He’s lived in the village since the 50s, and says that he remembers beavers popping up in the region periodically, but there are considerably more now. And they can be a nuisance.

“Where we subsist for fish and stuff like that, they’ll be blocking the creeks and stuff like that,” Horner said.

“Farther up [the Kobuk] river, I see where they’ve built dams, and the salmon have to start spawning elsewhere,” Horner said.

Horner says some locals think that eliminating the beavers is a viable solution to their concerns, though he doesn’t see it as very practical.

“Some of our elders would say, ‘kill the beaver,’ and they might get the beaver,” Horner said. “But while they think they’ve got it, another one arrives.”

Really? Your elders would say that? Gee do you think its possible that tribal knowledge might have LEAP-FROGGED a generation or two? I mean I’m willing to assume your tribe has learned something about salmon the past few centuries, but maybe, if new streams are welcoming new spaces that don’t freeze its a fairly new acquaintance. Because otherwise you’d know that baby salmon need DEEP POOLS that don’t freeze so they grow up fat and happy to swim to sea and become BIG salmon. And that means beaver ponds where there’s lots of real estate and plenty to eat.

And the more babies you have the more adults you’ll be able to catch later.

But sure. The elders probably know best. Beavers are probably causing climate change. Better kill ’em all

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Well let’s leave that annoying story behind us and talk about this amazing footage which was sent yesterday to Ben Goldfarb from some friends in Lithuania. He had this to say about it.

That beavers use saltwater to disperse between river mouths, and even build dams in tidal estuaries, is something that biologists have long recognized. Veterinarians in western Washigton have treated multiple beavers for salt toxicity due to prolonged exposure to Puget Sound. I even wrote a story about this quirk of beaver behavior:

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