Beavers predict shorter, milder winter for northeast

Predicting the climate is tricky business, and this is my sixth attempt. There are four parts to the winter prediction. First, contact was made with David Phillips from Environment Canada. He has been a climatologist for 50 years, a longitudinal study in himself.

The most important thing, Phillips says, is related to climate change.

“For more winters looking ahead, it will not be so much about the amount of snow, but the increase in the frequencies of freezing rain with milder trends,” he explains. Hudson Bay is the second largest inland sea in the world and since the mid-1990s ice cover is so much thinner than it once was as winter nights are getting warmer.

Well now that we finally found some winter ourselves I guess I’ll pay attention. What else tells you what to expect?

A local void in climatic prediction was created in March 14, 2013, when longtime weather prognosticator Gord Restoule of Dokis passed away. He was regarded as a wealth of what he would call “common sense,” but what scientists now refer to as “traditional knowledge.

Restoule used the simple beliefs of his ancestors who lived and survived through a relationship with their changing environment. I learned a great deal from my mentor.

Like homebuilding contractors, there are good and bad beaver lodge builders.

You have to examine many beaver lodges to make a seasonal prediction. But the feed beds seem smaller when compared to other years and so does the amount of mud on the lodges – signs of a shorter and milder winter.

My my my. What would it take for a beaver to ‘sense’ a milder or colder winter back when that beaver is building the food cache and lodge in the fall. Any reliable sign that the beaver could be aware of would likely be something we could tell too. Unless it was something that mostly only beavers know, like colder water temperatures or drier willow leaves.

I can’t imagine that even the brightest beavers have much inclination before the freeze hits how long it’s going to last. They do their best to store food and mud the lodge and then they role the dice and take their chances just like we do driving to work or getting on an elevator.

If food and fat reserves last longer than the winter, they win to play another round next year. And if the freeze last longer then their food supply they lose: significant weight, a family member, or even their own lives.

A very harsh winter produces few survivors and teaches little.

Yesterday Devon farmer Chris Jones posted  a facebook photo I thought you would enjoy seeing. It’s of the beaver “Trevor” whom he introduced with “his name is Trevor. He lived in Bavaria before becoming an educational exhibit. He likes going into schools and visiting community halls where he can meet local people who are beaver-curious.”

Now as a general rule I’m not a fan of ‘display beavers‘. I think it’s too stressful for the animal and too overwhelming for the audience to be strictly educational. But the photo reminds me that on June 26 of 2010 we lifted mom beaver out of the water when she was ill and drove her in my green subaru to the wildlife hospital. After all the mornings we had spent together over the past three years, it made perfect sense to see her in the rear view mirror sitting peacefully in my car.