I guess I’m dating myself here, but do you remember the character Julie from the Love Boat? Every episode she would create activities that introduced the inevitable couple who would fall madly in love and go on to become an item by the end of the episode.
Just call me the “Julie” of the Beaver-World.
In the last two days I have introduced soon to be friends of beavers in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Fairfield. I thought I’d tell you a little about it.
Last year I introduced you to Doug from Hanover PA who contacted me after reading Eager and wanted to learn more about the beavers in his area. He eventually went to BeaverCon as our Worth A Dam correspondent. Well he made some buddies in Mayayunk who were working to save the river trail along the Schuykill and restoring it by planting trees along the bank. They were concerned that some of those trees were getting nibbled by you know who. So this week Doug made a trip out to meet them, talk about why beavers matter, and help them figure it out.
Well they’re all believers now.
Just this month I was contacted from Josh in Alabama who asked if I knew any beaver believers. To which I replied good bloody luck, But then he wrote back saying his work was requiring him to spend time in Maryland and maybe I knew folks there? BeaverCon was held in Maryland but I didn’t have any immediate contacts for him so I asked about it on the Beaver Management Facebook group and immediately found two people that wanted to meet him and help educate folks about beavers. Last I heard they were planning an outing.
Closer to home I was contacted by a scout troop leader who was working on a virtual treasure hunt with her son. His job was to take 15 seconds of video of a beaver dam and she wanted to come to Martinez and film the famous beavers there. Alas I had to tell her we had no dam nor beavers, but I introduced her to Virginia from Fairfield who was monitoring 15 dams at the moment and suggested they connect. This visit is just for a single scout, but down the road she would like to bring the whole troop. I told Virginia it was an excellent time to invite a buddy on city council and the local papers and make everyone look good.
She thought that was an excellent idea.
So I’m pretty proud of the beaver “Dating service” I created. Now I just have to get people to stop using photos of Nutria when they talk about them. This recent travesty is from NPR in WASHINGTON state. It’s a good interview about our favorite subject with our favorite speaker. But I’m still mortified at the mistake. Stunning that he couldn’t get them to post an actual picture of a real beaver right in his HOME TOWN!
