Do you remember that game you’d play at school where someone whispers something into the ear of the child sitting next to them and the message goes on around the circle until the last child says what she heard aloud? There’s usually a l0t of giggling and no repeats so that by time it gets to the end the message transforms from “Every day I ride my bike to the store” to “Emma’s mom looks like a whore” or some such nonsense. Well that’s what I thought yesterday when I saw this headline in the New York Post.

Beaver waste can be used in baked goods, sweets

Beavers anal secretions smell similar to vanilla and can be used in baked goods and sweets, according to the Swedish National Food Agency.

These secretions are “WASTE” in about the same way as if you were a human organ harvester and found you had some teeth and extra bits left over. They certainly aren’t WASTE to the beaver. They are essential for his daily survival and something he would never part with willingly. The term WASTE refers to the industry who has already killed the beaver and sold the fur and has extra bits left over. It is coy to use this term and just wait for it to  get misunderstood.

Just as expected, I saw these headlines later in the day:

Beaver dung can be key ingredient for vanilla flavor in baked goods

An adding insult to injury from the Complex city guide:

This is what happens when you let Rick put Cheryl’s lovely photo on Wikipedia. It means AACUI. For the record, this is what beaver dung really looks like, and I don’t think anyone will be flavoring anything with it any time soon unless of course they’re making sawdust sandwiches.

Now for some good beaver news from the Economist of all places.

All creatures great and small

Biodiversity, once the preoccupation of scientists and greens, has become a mainstream concern. Liberal helpings of growth and technology are the best way of preserving it, says Emma Duncan.

Part of the reason is pragmatic: as man has come to understand ecology better, he has realised that environmental destruction in pursuit of growth may be self-defeating. Rivers need to be healthy to provide people with clean water and fish; natural beauty fosters tourism; genes from other species provide the raw material for many drugs. But man also finds it troubling to think that as the only species able to marvel at the diversity of creation, he should be responsible for killing it off.

Well,  okay it doesn’t mention beavers AS SUCH but it’s exactly the kind of article you hand to the frowning politician to get his attention before you give him the article that says beavers create biodiversity. Go read the whole thing, and make a beaver comment. Maybe we can sway the Economist into sniffing out this report for example.

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Now credit Cheryl for finding this great film of reintroducing beavers in 1938 in Idaho. Allow me to remark wistfully that not only did America used to know that beaver dams prevent erosion and silt buildup, we used to help them by making starter dams! It starts out with a nutria farm but trust me, it gets better.

Speaking of Nutria, yesterday a friend of the Scottish free beavers saw my picture from the beaver mistaken identity post and wrote me a helpful note on facebook explaining that the photo was actually a nutria not a beaver.

Sigh.

Gosh, someone should probably write something about that sometime.