This year’s festival was the first time I was ever contacted by Dan Logan, fisheries biologist of NOAA marine fisheries in Santa Rosa. (To be honest I actually didn’t even know there was a marine fisheries arm in Santa Rosa) . Dan made me very happy by asking for NOAA to have space at the beaver festival. Yesterday he passed along this wonderful new film from the good folk at PMSFC. Go get your coffee and your relatives and come back and watch. Then watch it again and send it to everyone you know. It’s that good.

Isn’t that wonderful? Give it up for the brilliant folks at PSMFC. It’s truly amazing what the right education, some good intentions and a handful of federal dollars can do. The videos can be shared or use in educational trainings everywhere. Their website politely calls the beaver myths “misunderstandings” which is more gracious than I have it in me to be. But I admire the way they say it  anyway.

Beaver Benefits and Controlling Impacts

But there is a lot of misunderstanding of beavers.   Beaver do not eat salmon or other fish (they are herbivores, eating plants) and dams generally do not impede salmon passage.  Salmon and beavers evolved together and are mutually beneficial. 

Despite their value, beaver activities can also create problems for landowners, leading to their killing or the destruction of their dams. But there are ways to live with beaver!  Join us as we begin a series featuring the benefits of beavers and the ways that landowners and beavers can co-exist.

Honestly sometimes it just feels like promotion of beaver benefits has is reaching a tipping point this summer. Yesterday I also received  my official copy of Ben’s book – Eager: The surprising Secret Lives of Beavers and Why They Matter and of course like any truly self interested and shallow party, I first flipped to the back and checked the index.

Nice, Notice if you add all those pages up it makes eleven. That’s 1 page for every year I’ve been involved with beavers. Kinda makes sense really, don’t you think?