For last night’s beaver viewing I brought a friend and colleague who had never seen the beavers but who has bemusedly observed their grip on my life and free time over the past six months. Of course it was mama beaver who obligingly gave the best display near the dam: reaching up for the choicest willow and snapping it down with authority.
“They so BIG” my friend gasped.
The size of adult beavers comes as a real surprise to most people. I don’t know what we expect, but something more like a water-daschund with a flat tail is probably close. It’s remarkable to see these solid bodies hall themselves onto the dam, with their great heads and strong jaws. Beavers have an elegant design which allows them to be almost entirely submerged in the water and still hear, see and smell. This means that often what we see is the top of a little flat head swimming at the apex of a rippling “V”. Every once in a while you get a glimpse of the adult beaver body, and the response is pretty universal.
“They’re so BIG!”
Yes, they are big. Beavers do big things, so size is important. They cut down trees many times their weight, and haul those trees in streams and sometimes over soil to get them into place. They move into the middle of strong currents and push logs into opposition of the stream until they form a dam. They excavate mud and move piles of it onto their lodges and dam. They dig canals and trenches which they use for hauling and feeding. In addition to being a keystone species, beavers are considered a wetlands engineer, shaping the landscape as dramatically as any contractor. Recently I read an article calling the beaver a “surrogate species” as well, since they can repair some of the ecological damage caused by man. That’s a post for another day, but beavers bodies are big because their work is big. It’s directly in proportion.
There is national and international interest in how the little town of Martinez handles its castor-challenge. People are watching to see whether we can take the opportunity for habitat restoration, education and stewardship these beavers create. They want to know if we can possibly protect and value a misunderstood species, and show that compassionate and intelligent humans who are smarter than beavers need not fear them. Maybe if we show we can do it, they might think they can do it. You see, our beavers are big in another way:
They’re a big deal.
