I’ve been bombarded in the past 24 hours with dire beaver stories, which prompted me to add the new feature to the website. Click on the icon in the left margin to find the ‘beaver-killing story du jour. I will try to add email addresses to the pdf so its easy to contact key players. I went through and tagged articles I’ve written for similar stories, and added them to the “series” articles. I’ve only made through two years so far, but I’m pretty happy with how it came out. I like the idea that foolish decisions get to be featured, and that there is a simpler way to show that these bad decisions are as common and unoriginal as dirt.
Today’s issue is about Comox Valley in Vancouver Island, BC. A family has been told that the ministry of the environment is sending a trapper to kill the beavers on their pond. One would think that one controls the residents of one’s own pond, but obviously the dam threatens the road which makes it government business. The human residents share our peculiar strain of thought that killing beavers is a bad idea, drowning them is a worse idea, and wouldn’t it be nice if there were another solution? They started a facebook page on thursday, that has about 650 members now. Go join them and add your support.
I have sent articles about the benefit of beaver and how to manage their constructions and I sure hope their job is easier because of it. The remarkable thing is that the driving force on this, Joey Clarkson, wrote yesterday that they might be able to save the beavers in her pond, but she was really thinking about ALL the beavers in Canada, and changing the way the MOE dealt with them forever. GO JOEY!!!! The article says she is considering trapping and sterilizing the beavers which we hope she reads a little and rethinks that position, but the first instinct, slow down, think about this and don’t be cruel, is spot on.
Sadly, not every story is as encouraging as Joey’s. Take, for example, the story of the Riga Canal Beavers. They announced last year that they had a huge beaver problem but wanted to avoid looking murderous to the voters so decided to hold a contest to solve it — (or rather to NOT solve it). (I always suspected that the silliest idea would get implemented and then they would wipe their hands and say “well we tried but it didn’t work! Guess we have to kill them.”) Remember our friend Alex traveled from Frankfurt to Latvia, toured the area, had lunch with the Minister of the Environment and hand delivered instructions on how to manage beaver conflicts humanely from Sharon Brown of Beavers:Wetlands & Wildlife? What do you suppose the ending to the story is?
FAIRY DUST!
Well, spruce dust actually. They’ve decided to sprinkle it on the banks to make the bad beavers go away. No I’m not kidding. The article’s in Latvian, but google translator gives us this. Lets hope there’s plenty of people to clap and think ‘happy thoughts’ because that intervention is beyond doomed. Hmm. Maybe those are the ‘happy thoughts’ they’re relying on. It seems to be a city standard: try an ostentatious and ineffective humane solution, and then say, well I guess there’s nothing else we can do…”
Thank you so much, Alex, for trying to offer a real solution, and for offering final proof to all of us back home that the contest was bogus. You did a beautiful thing for beavers and sent a message of responsible stewardship across the globe – even if it was unheard. Also you showed me something new about sheetpile, which completely blew my mind and is worth its own post tomorrow.
The little otter was seen again last night, (you won’t believe Cheryl’s picture), two kits up stream, and the smallest one and GQ downstream. The beavers made sure there were no more strawberries. Our favorite part was GQ lumbering out onto the dam and scrounging around in the dark for them. That is one big beaver! Just as we were getting ready to leave I head the distinctive low hoot-hoot-hoot of a female great horned owl so we scrounged about to find sign of her. Like most birds of prey the female is larger, so her voice is lower. Often you hear them in pairs, with a higher call answering as they roam about keeping track of eachother. This had no partner. We found her sitting in the tree behind the red tiled apartments on Escobar. She flew silently into the very tall deodora redwood across from the dam and was hooting there when we left at 8:15.
