Q. Whenever the subject of beavers comes up when I’m talking with my neighbors near Aiken, South Carolina, they insist that beavers are pests. I claim they do more environmental good than harm. What is your opinion about beavers?

A. I am on your side — and the beavers’. Years ago I wrote a column about beavers after a walk in the woods gave me the opportunity to witness one of nature’s marvels — the construction of a beaver dam. My first evidence of something unusual happening came in autumn after a monthlong drought. When I measured the water level of the stream, I was surprised to find that instead of having dropped, it had actually risen 2 inches in a week’s time. I attributed the anomaly to mismeasurement, until I took my walk.

Beavers are unquestionably keystone species in regions with small to moderate-size streams. They can not only modify the appearance of an environment but also alter it in ways that dramatically affect nearby plants.

Beaver activity can result in small trees being debarked for food or cut down for dam construction and big trees dying because of flooding. Upstream from where I stood, an abandoned beaver dam had covered several acres in water, leaving tall, barren sweetgum and pine trees that had begun life in a terrestrial habitat and could not survive in an aquatic one.

Ya see that beaver grooming alongside that wood duck? If those Alabama duckhunters want the duck they should try their luck with BEAVERS. Remember the Oklahoma article that said “Beavers are the cure we don’t want to take”. Yep. That was the truth.

Beaver behavior also affects animals. Large aquatic salamanders called sirens thrive in pools created by beaver dams. Frogs and wading birds frequent the margins. Cottonmouths, watersnakes and turtles are more apparent around beaver dams, which create areas for basking on sunny days.

Waterfowl, such as wood ducks, visit ponds that form above beaver dams. Clearly, beavers have earned their environmental engineering cred, and their dams set the tone of the neighborhood for many wildlife species.

Okay. we like that paragraph so much that I didn’t even read the next one until it made me spit out my iced tea. Seriously.

Beavers live 35 to 50 years in zoos and more than 20 years in the wild. The longest beaver dams, reported from Montana and from Alberta, Canada, are over 2,000 feet long. No doubt beavers across the continent are working feverishly to break that record. Beavers are usually nocturnal, but I have occasionally seen them during the day.

35 to FIFTY years? Where does that stat come from? I remember years ago the false prophet consultant Martinez hired to tell us beavers were bad told the editor that beaver breed for 50 years. I called the editor in horror and asked politely. is that a typo? Which made him call back the prophet again and question her stats which prompted her to not come to the subcommittee meeting because we were too HOSTILE.

Just so you know: There is a recorded account of a beaver in captivity living 19 years. In the wild 10-12 is about the limit.

One problem that excessive dam-building causes on our stream is to make it more difficult to navigate up and down in a canoe or kayak. As with virtually all native wildlife, my preference is to learn to live with them. Portaging a small boat around the end of a beaver dam to get to the other side of the stream is a minor inconvenience in return for getting to experience a natural phenomenon that can change the character of the habitat and its wildlife. That is, as long as I don’t see part of our cabin being used to build a dam.

Oh okay, It’s Alabama and South Carolina so we’re officially grading on a curve. Your list of what beavers are good for is far far too short. And your list of helpful facts about how long beavers live is far far too long. But you tried. We appreciate the effort.