I mentioned that the beaver was categorized as a fish in the middle ages, right? This clever move allowed good catholics to eat beaver meat during lent. Long before this bit of creative science there were the rumors that pregnant women shouldn’t walk over a dam, or they might miscarry: Castorum was recommended for all kinds of reproductive ailments. Misunderstanding beavers is nothing new. Even as late as the 1930’s Americans apparently believed that beavers could mistake actual trees for painted concrete. Hope that zoo had a great dental plan.

MURALS MAKE BEAVERS FEEL AT HOME
Beavers in a den at the Belle Isle Zoo, in Detroit, Mich., now cavort amid scenes resembling their natural habitat. To minimize the artificial appearance of the surroundings, an artist reproduced a colorful forest panorama, complete with pine trees, scrub brush, streams, and lakes, upon the concrete walls of the open beaver pit. Visitors are attracted by the novelty of viewing the animals against a woodland background. (Popular Science: 1936)

Pass an evening at the dam site and let yourself eavesdrop on some of the conversations going on around you. You will hear a host of beaver myths and myth-understandings, some that are alarming but intuitive and others that stretch the boundaries of common sense and make you smile. Most any time we spend at the site there will be moments of beaver watching and moments of beaver waiting, and I think this waiting period is what generates the imaginative explanations of their behavior. It has gotten better; last summer you might stand at the bridge and hear a dozen people talking about beavers eating fish. Martinez is much more beaver educated than it once was, but there is still room for growth. I thought I’d share some of the recent rumors that I have heard around town. I’ll start with the basics and then give you the more sophisticated fare.

• Beavers eat fish. False. This is a logical assumption in some ways since beaver dams appear to be designed to trap and increase fish population. Very often when I dispel this myth I am met with the followup question “Then why do they build dams?”. Beavers build dams to increase access to higher branches and because water to them feels like safety. They don’t always build dams though. There are plenty of beavers on wide rivers or in the delta that do just fine without a dam.

• There is another family living at Starbuck’s. False. Beavers are highly territorial and discourage other beavers from moving in by the use of scent mounds. Their territory is about two miles on either side of the dam. When our yearlings disperse they will have to go at least that far up or down stream.
• The baby beaver that died was poisoned. False. The baby that died in January died of roundworm parasite which had infected his brain and other organs. We are still waiting for results from the necropsy of the kit that died in April.
• Beavers have poison in their tail. False. I heard this from Luigi’s daughter who says it is the accepted explanation on the school yard of why beavers slap their tail to warn others away. She mentioned it when we were discussing beaver rescuer K.O.’s holding the beaver by the tail. I saw her blink and look a little horrified. “Aren’t they poisonous?” Don’t worry Luiza. Beavers have no poison and they slap their tail only because it makes a loud noise, just like a person clapping their hands.
• Muskrat tails grow up to be beaver tails. False. Bear with me here, this is complicated. I had a lovely chat at the farmer’s market with a very nice grandmother who told me about taking her granddaughter down to the dam. The granddaughter spied what most of us have at some time or another, and told her “I see a rat!” Grandma apparently laughed patiently and explained “No. It takes a while for their tails to get flat, honey. That’s a beaver.” Ahhh now that’s kind of precious, but no less untrue. Baby beaver tails start out flat and they grow up flat. Rat tails start out round and they grow up round. Different animal.
• The beavers will be better off on the reservation. False. I had to add this myth because it is the most potentially dangerous to our beavers’ well-being. Beaver trapping and relocation is a risky operation, and they would need to be quarantined for an unknown period and live in captivity. Even if the reservation had the right trees and ideal habitat (which no body knows because nobody has gone to verify this) it is a 5 hour drive to Plumas county, in a cage. Ask your cat how he feels about the drive to the vet and she can explain to you how this might be problematic.

Regular readers of this blog who are eager to show off their beaver expertise will soon have a “beaver quiz” to take here online. It’s in its final stages of launch, but it will definately give you a chance to demonstrate your hard won skills. In the meantime, keep your ears open for beaver myth-understandings, and do your part to gently dispel the rumors. Our beavers do all they can to make their behavior accessible, so it’s up to us to keep it real.

Quia cum vena torem se insequentem conovit, morsu testiculos sibi abscidit, et in faciem vena toris eos proicit et sic fugiens evadit

Turns out that complete misunderstanding of beaver behavior is nothing new. In fact the poor beaver has been miserably misunderstood since the middle ages and beyond. The above auspicious slander is taken from the Aberdeen Bestiary, which is a work documenting real and fictional creatures and their moral significance. The Bestiary goes back as far as the fourth century, although the addition of European animals like the beaver were added later.

To be fair, the bestiary was never intended as a “National Geographic of the Middle Ages”. It was a religious rather than a zoological text. But its pernicious misrepresentation of beavers lasted woefully to the Victorian era. Read for yourself:

Of the beaver There is an animal called the beaver, which is extremely gentle; its testicles are are highly suitable for medicine. Physiologus says of it that, when it knows that a hunter is pursuing it, it bites off its testicles and throws them in the hunter’s face and, taking flight, escapes.

So the story goes that the beaver is hunted for its castorum and decides to bite off its own testicles and throw them to the hunter rather than be killed. Check out the illustration of the same: (Yes that longlegged dog-looking thing is supposed to be a beaver)

This all comes about from mistaken entomology in which it is assumed that the beavers latin name (castor) is related to the root of castrate, and whimsy just takes over from there. The misconnection is untangled here.

Now I don’t know much about bestiaries and the middle ages, but I can only assume that every male of every species that has ever existed is partial to his own testicles and therefore unlikely to sacrifice them in favor of a protected aquatic life. I can’t fathom that anyone ever believed this, and can’t believe that it is quoted all the way up to 2008. Still the story served a particular need of a society that wanted to benefit from castorum and fur and didn’t much care about accuracy. People were able to ignore their own perceptions and experience of the world in order to see the impossible story that fit their needs.

I sure am glad that doesn’t happen any more.

Every now and then I am stopped at the farmer’s market by someone who mentions a story they read about the South American beavers. I always correct them instinctively that they must mean another species. Beaver range doesn’t even extend as far south as Mexico. Maybe they’re talking about capybara? Still, when Dr. Stack mentioned it again I figured I’d go google hunting, and lookie what I found! 45 breeding pairs of Castor canadensis (our beavers) introduced into Tierra del Fuego Argentina in 1946 for the purpose of starting a fur industry.

(Never mind that the very fur you are pursuing makes beavers a bad candidate for the temperatures there. Who cares if the beavers overheat as long as they breed and make nice felt for hats. Brilliant plan. How could it possibly fail?)

Now of course, they are complaining that the beavers are “wreaking havoc” on the ecosystem, have crossed the straights of Magellan into Chile and threatening the trees at Torres del Paine National Park, a UNESCO reserve. Hoards of angry beavers whose numbers have sky-rocketed because they have “no natural predators”, chomping their way towards the rainforests. How can they ever be stopped?

As if this wasn’t scary enough, the story goes on to describe that these uniquely destructive beavers have moved away from their traditional herbivore diet and are now eating fish! Their new diet makes them larger and ever more destructive with dams that stretch more than 100 meters! Super-beavers!

Where to begin?

Lets start with “no natural predators”. I understand since they are 5000 miles away from their natural predators they are not likely to get eaten by a bear. But hmm I wonder if there are any predators in Argentina and Chile that might like a little exotic beaver meat? Let me just check what’s around there, “87% of South America’s carnivore population occur in Argentina”. The maned wolf for one, and a variety of others. This book outlines seven species of carnivores living in the Pampas. Not to mention a dozen different kind of Caiman (crocodiles) that can be found anywhere there’s water. I guess no “natural predators” but a host of “unnatural” ones. And It’s not like beavers can offer much self defense.

Now for this “beavers eat fish” nonsense I went to the experts. I wrote our friends Skip Lisle, Sharon Brown and Jake Jacobsen. Is it possible? Have they talked to anyone who saw this? Here are their responses:

I wouldn’t be surprised if beavers eat a piece of carrion occasionally, but they don’t typically make a habit of eating fish, on any continent. I haven’t heard any Argentina beaver discussions with anybody for a few years.
Skip Lisle

The part about eating fish is not credible. We’ve heard other stories though that they’re downing trees in a reserve etc. All that needs to be balanced with the planned human devastation of that area—perhaps we’ll do an article about it in the next issue.

Sharon Brown

The wrecking havoc part is correct. Biology of the animal does not support the fish eating scenario. Beaver wreck havoc wherever they go. They are ecosystem engineers. That’s what that means. They change environments. The environment complains, but then adapts, and is improved (but only if you value wetlands). People are less adaptable.

Jake Jacobson

HOLDING, JOHN
Until retirement in 2002, John Holding, of Schomberg, practiced civil litigation with Borden & Elliot (later Borden Ladner Gervais). He currently practices mediation at ADR Chambers. Mr. Holding is former Director and Treasurer of the Advocates’ Society and Chair of the Committee on revision of rules of civil procedure. He is the author of the Canadian Manual of International Air Carriage, and an active member of the McMichael Gallery Volunteer Committee. Mr. Holding attended the University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall Law School. He was called to the Ontario Bar in 1959, and subsequently called to the Bars of Alberta and Yukon. In 1971, he was appointed as Queen’s Counsel.

And R. Garth Kidd? The other name in the article? Also an attorney at McTague Lawfirm in Ontario Canada. Hmm. Well okay, maybe they got lead astray by the beavers eating fish story and the “no natural predators” line, but they’re right about the “wreaking havoc on the trees” aren’t they? I mean beavers must be the most important threat to the trees of Argentina and Chile, right? It’s not like large money is cutting out forests everywhere to plant soya and other biofuel crops?

Oh.

And there you have it. Alarming lies about beavers told by attorneys to an obliging media who performs its steno-sue function and dutifully prints the unexamined story as it is explained to them.

I’m sure glad that never happens here!

Experienced and google saavy beaver fans will have seen this picture everywhere on the internet(s). In fact if you do a “search” for beaver images its the number one photo that comes up. (we’re on page three of google images, but moving in the right direction.)

The problem? It’s not a beaver.

For the first time today I really stared at this picture and remembered our beavers and their lovely canine noses. Even photographed upside down or dead our beavers don’t show that much nostril. Was this a Castor Fiber? (European beaver, nope they have dog noses too.) Capybara? (Nope they don’t have webbed feet) Photoshopped anomaly? No.

Its a Nutria.

Owen Brown of Beavers Wetlands & Wildlife set us straight. Nutrias were South American natives and introduced into the United states. Like the Star Thistle we thought was a great idea for growing cheap honey, or the Eucalyptus we bought from the Spanish for growing fast cheap lumber for ships, they didn’t work out so well. The animals turned out to be fairly distructive, and to breed like rabbits. Now there are nutria problems in all of these American states. Oregon fish & Wildlife goes so far as to call them a “Negative Keystone Species”.

The creation story says the Nutria (or Coypu) were introduced by the Mcillhenny Family of Tobasco Sauce fame, who wanted to start a fur trade on Avery Island. A few mistakes later the alligators are a lot happier and we are still dealing with their damage all over the United States and Europe.

Why is this a beaver myth? Because getting beaver confused with Nutria is like mixing up Goofus and Gallant and it happens all the time. People google the word beaver and find a picture of a Nutria, or the details of their constant breeding, or the fact that they harm the environment. I’ve encountered countless forums where people talk about beavers “not deserving to be protected” because they aren’t “native” and only hurt the environment. This is a case of dangerous mistaken identity. Sadly I realize even I have been fooled and a nutria picture is shamefully featured in the “muskrat” images from my second video.

The confusion doesn’t end there. How about this Peruvian Wikipedia page where every single picture of a nutria is actually a picture of an otter? (Turns out “nutria” is the spanish word for “otter”. That’s won’t cause any confusion right?) Or this picture of a man watching a “nutria” that is actually a Capybara? And the youtube abomination of “beavers holding hands” that is actually otters?

Martinez-Beaver fans all I implore you to always look carefully at the photo offered on the internet. Keep your critical thinking caps on when ever you see a beaver photo, and to paraphrase Jerry Macguire;

“Show me the tail!”

This unglamorous scientific name acknowledges that the first skeleton of the prehistoric GIANT BEAVER was discovered at the bottom of a peat bog in Ohio. The year was 1837, and remarkably we have no records of this bear-sized creature before that. The great creature started out about 3,000,000 years ago and became extinct after the last ice age about 10,000 years ago. That means that giant beavers roamed North America with early man, and yet we have no cave drawings or artifacts to tell us more.

Castoroides ranged from Florida to the Yukon, and from New York State to Nebraska, but it has not been found outside of North America. Giant beavers seem to have flourished in the region south of the Great Lakes toward the close of the last glaciation. In fact, three nearly complete specimens are known from Fairmont and Winchester, Indiana, and from Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Yukon-Beringer Interpretive Center

What we do know is that Castorides had bigger back feet and thinner vertibrae in its tail than our modern beavers. Sometimes it is shown with a muskrat-like tail in drawings, or a thinner beaver-like tail. Its big feet made it even more ungainly on land so it couldn’t disperse by walking and when the great lakes began to change it may have just been unable to adapt.

Aside from having people for neighbors, Castorides also had Castor Canadensis, whose smaller multi-function size survived the ice age and went on to great things. Ancestors of Canadensis were specialists rather than generalists. There were smaller beaver species that were strong diggers and larger beavers that were strong swimmers. There was even a beaver the size of a mouse! Castor Canadensis, by all accounts, had it all.

Today’s beavers “do it all” by digging, swimming, cutting wood with their teeth and building dams. Their ancient relatives, however, seemed to be divided up into those that were digging and burrowing specialists and those that spent more of their time swimming and munching vegetation.

Jennifer Viegas: Discovery News

For some reason, cave men didn’t draw pictures of beavers and we have no images to show us what they looked like. Apparently they didn’t even hunt beavers. Maybe there were so ubitous that no one thought to represent them….like parking meters…or maybe there were other reasons. Most historians speculate that the Algonquin myth about the fierce beaver-monster “Wishpoosh” (who refused to allow anyone to fish in his pond) is actually an echo of Castorides.

Now Wishpoosh the monster beaver lived in the beautiful Lake Cle-el-lum which was full of fish. Every day, the animal people would come to the lake, wanting to catch some fish, but Wishpoosh the giant beaver drove them away with many threats and great splashing. If they refused to leave, Wishpoosh would kill the animal people by dragging them deep into the lake so that they drowned.

Coyote and Wishpoosh

(Never mind that Castorides didn’t eat fish any more than Canadensis. Beavers were apparently always misunderstood. I guess if there’s a beaver myth right inside of an actual beaver myth we shouldn’t be surprised.)

Anyway the story says that Coyote felt badly for the animal people and took on this monster beaver in battle. They fought so hard that they splashed water everywhere and made the cascades and all the surrounding lakes, but in the end the wiley  Coyote was victorious, killed the monster and hauled the carcass up onto land where he cut it into pieces to become the tribes of the nation

Coyote was tired after his long fight with the monster beaver. He called to his friend Muskrat, who helped drag the body of Wishpoosh to shore. Coyote and Muskrat cut up the giant beaver and threw the pieces up over the land, thus creating the tribes of men. The Nez Perce were created from the head of the giant beaver, to make them great in council. The Cayuses were created from the massive arms of Wishpoosh, in order that they might be strong and powerful with the war club and the bow. From the beaver’s ribs, Coyote made the Yakimas and from the belly the Chinooks. To make the Klickitats, Coyote used the beaver’s legs, so that they would become famous for their skill in running. With the leftover skin and blood, he made the Snake River Indians who thrived on war and blood.

Coyote and Wishpoosh

Wishpoosh aside, a possible prehistoric lodge has been found in that peat bog in ohio, but no dams were ever located. Its speculated that Castorides didn’t have the skill to build dams.Imagine that, a giant beaver that doesn’t get noticed and can’t build a dam. Completely unlike Castor Martinium.

Giant beavers seem to have preferred lakes and ponds bordered by swamps as their habitat, because their remains have been found in ancient swamp deposits so often. Perhaps a rather sudden reduction of these surroundings due to changing climate linked with the giant beaver’s apparent inability to build dams like those of Castor canadensis and its inability to disperse readily overland to new drainage systems when drought occurred may have resulted in its extinction and the survival of the smaller, more adaptable modern beaver. Likewise, the Eurasian “giant” beaver, Trogontherium, gave way to the living Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber), but earlier.

If you’re curiosity about Castorides has been at all peaked, you must come see ol’ Wishpoosh at the Beaver Festival. I promise he won’t disappoint.

1 . wishpoosh R. M., Indian Legends. Lyons and Carnahan. 1925-1938. xvi, 366 pp; illus. Vocabulary. Index, [N 970.6 L98i] m_origin, c_Beaver, r_Interior Salish.

2 . wishpoosh Peery, Wilson Kimsey, And There Was Salmon. Portland, OR: Binfords & Mort. 1949. [96] pp; illus., [N 970.6 P346a] m_river monster, c_Spilyaay, c_Wishpoosh, r_Coast Salish.

Becky, get me gun I’m gaun’ to war!

Wow. Just wow.

I knew Pennsylvania was light years behind nearly every other state in beaver management, but I’ve never realized just how shockingly misinformed they were until today. Check out this article from New Castle News. Apparently beavers are blocking a culvert in Lawrence County and threatening the bike path there. The Conservation District of course has decided that the only solution is the final solution, and they’re bringing in a crack wildlife management team to solve the problem.

The oh-so subtly named, Crit R Done, was called. Wes Osborne was swiftly on the case. Seems Wes recently achieved fame when he trapped an alligator that was troubling firefighters in a burning building. imagine the footage! Fire! Gators! Chaos! Snakes on a Plane! The alligator was later blamed for starting the fire. (Smoking in bed?) But hero Wes was on hand to duct-tape its mouth and take it away. After admirable behavior like that, where else could anyone turn to solve wildlife problems?

Wes is the expert, so let’s see what he has to say about the soggy trail situation

Osborne’s intent is to trap the four ’soldier’ or worker beavers during the current trapping season that ends March 31. Then the rest of the colony ’ the grandfather, mother and young ’ will be moved to another watershed, with the help of the Pennsylvania Game Commission, she said.

Soldier beavers? Soldier beavers? Are you kidding me? Soldier beavers?  Look, Wes, I know your primary income is from termite control but these aren’t ANTS we’re talking about here. There aren’t warring colonies waiting just around the riverbend to throw mudballs at eachother that they then fight off with their clever dam structures. Soldier beavers? There are no soldier beavers. There are no worker beavers. There are only beavers. I’m reminded of a certain Carl Sandburg poem.

And Grandfather beavers? Honestly? Are you six? Where on earth could you possibly have acquired that notion if it wasn’t a saturday morning cartoon? Listen up, Wes. There are no “grandparent” beavers living in the colony with funny inter-generational sitcom dialogue being spoken in the lodge. “Eh! In my day we could fell twice that many trees!” Mature yearlings leave the colony to seek their own fortune, and the parents who no doubt become grandparents of sorts one day, stay behind.

Beaver behavior isn’t a mystery, (although I suppose if all you see of them is their broken neck in a snare it would be difficult to learn about). The idea that any public or private money would be paid to you so that you can continue to spread such spurious misinformation is horrific to me, and should be shocking to you. Every single person who has every gleaned any beaver fact EVER in the history of the world should write the conservancy and tell them so.

I did.

UPDATE:

Hmmm…the reporter wrote me back and is working on a follow-up for this story. Seems Mr. Osborne was upset by the misinformation in the article and swears he never talked about soldier beavers, and this is entirely the introduction of the conservancy. Oh so many people need to have letters from you today!

There is only one horse on the earth
and his name is All horses.
There is only one bird in the air
and his name is All Wings.
There is only one fish in the sea
and his name is All Fins.
There is only one man in the world
and his name is All Men.
There is only one woman in the world
and her name is All Women.
There is only one child in the world
and the child’s name is All Children.
There is only one Maker in the world
and His children cover the earth
and they are named All God’s Children.

Carl Sandburg, Windsong 1960

Beaver friend GTK wrote recently that the entire popular science archives are now available online. Surprisingly, there are several entries about beaver on Mars. Here’s a 1930’s favorite by Thomas Elway:

Check out the illustration in the center of the beaver-mouse-pig at the helm of some kind of fiendish beaver spacecraft. I haven’t yet stopped laughing at that. Thank you so much GTK for the best beaver image ever. The article is a little more thoughtful.

Read that last line again please. ‘evidence not accompanied by signs of intelligence’, ergo, it must be a beaver. Because certainly beaver don’t leave signs of intelligence like dams or lodges or canals that might be visible. They are too busy flying their spacecraft and plotting world domination.

Ahh given the myriad of misunderstandings beavers have been subject to, this seems like par for the course. Beavers eat fish? Okay. Beavers cause Giardia? Okay. Beavers flood cities? Okay. Beavers live on Mars? Why the hell not?

Okay, I woke up this morning ready to write a somber introduction to the fur trade in California with all the exciting new beaver murder mysteries I’ve been reading, but instead I got immersed in this paper sent to me this morning by our wikipedia friend. It is Grinnell’s chapter on the Beaver in the 1937 UCB zoology departement’s “Fur Bearing Mammals of California“. Grinnell is a very important author, recognized for his conservation, and an early advocate for beaver. I especially liked his illustration of the interior of a bank lodge.

The lovely conclusion of his paper says,

The beaver is one of our most popularly appealing native mammals and should be conserved and encouraged for this reason alone, when other considerations permit. It might be advisable, even, in certain districts where they are somewhat detrimental to the works of man, to condone their shortcomings on the score of their esthetic and educational value-to maintain them so·that they will be accessible for observation by the public at large, both adultsartd children. The latter, especially, find in beavers and their works a keen stimulus to wholesome enquiry.

Ahhh that pretty accurately describes our experience here in Martinez. I’d like it embroidered into the lining of the suits of our council members. Obviously the author had an affection for beavers and enjoyed watching them from time to time. He writes beautifully about kits and the experiences of folks who had the fortune to raise them. He describes what its like to see a beaver making a “V” in the water as it approaches and it is clear he’d feel right at home in Martinez.

Of course, he also notes that Golden Beaver don’t live above 300 feet elevation in California, that our beavers have lost their construction skills and don’t leave footprints, that dam building indicates no signs of intelligence in general and that beaver males fight to the death to mate with the “herd”. He added that, while females were home-loving and family oriented, males mated with everything they could score and had more injuries because of this.

Sigh. More beaver myths.

He ultimately talks about the good that beavers do in the environment and notes that some ranchers were particularly fond of their presence. When beaver dams caused damage to their crops or roads, they tried to discourage building by using a pipe to drain water. Apparently the clever creatures dammed up the pipe pronto. He writes of a particular landowner taking some rather usual measures,

Steel traps were then set in the shallow water of the irrigation canal where the beavers had a dam, and several of the animals were caught. These trapped beavers were soundly spanked by the rancher, who used a good stout board for this purpose. He had protected them on his ranch for years and still did not want to kill them. After they had been spanked and turned loose they stayed away for a while, but a few weeks later some of the same beavers, identified by the trap marks on their toes, were again caught in this canal.

For the record, beating a prone, helpless 40 lb animal with a board is called “clubbing” not “spanking”, and thank God it didn’t work…Good lord, don’t let the council read this. I can see one particular property owner right now out there with a paddle. This goes into the next article on “the history and invention of flow devices”. I’m sending it to Mike and Skip right away! Mind you, it’s all relative. Yes the beavers rebuilt the dam, but I’m sure they were really sorry about it.

Can we just say that there are flaws with the Grinnell article and leave it at that? Obviously California beavers build dams, leave footprints, eat vegetables, care for young,  and lived in elevations over 300 feet. All those trappers weren’t in our rivers for the view. If you’re interested in my  longer notes on the article drop me a line and I’ll send them to you.

Next?

Conrad Gessner was a swiss physician in the 1500’s who produced a five volume zoological text. He hired master woodcutters to manage the illustrations for his book but the results were often fanciful. There is a slide show of other specimens at the New York Times website, but this definitely got my attention:

The fierce beaver! I’m guessing that this is a hit at OSU and probably most city councils. The illustration is interesting to me because it has so many details that are accurate (small ears, webbed back feet, scaly tail) but is still so enormously “wrong”! I think this has to be due in part to the way beavers impact the lives of man. They are viewed with a general animosity as they chew down trees or flood roadways. The illustration clearly seems to be suggesting that they are doing this “on purpose” just to challenge man.

Even familiar animals, like the beaver, could offer a monster-like combination of body parts. The English translation of Gessner’s book describes its chimera-like anatomy: “Their forefeet are like a dog’s, and their hinder like a goose’s, made as it were of purpose to go on the land, and swim in the water; but the tail of this beast is most strange of all in that it comes nearest to the nature of fishes.“

I am reminded of the 30 something man I met at the Flyway Festival. He was drawn to the images at our table but shook his head, almost shuddering at what he saw. “They look cute, but those beavers can rip you apart. Don’t go near them. They could bite your arm off. I know, I’ve been there before.”

Being that he did not appear to have a wooden leg, I could only conclude that this was a powerful but inaccurate assessment. We’ve actually spoken to many people who have encountered them in traps or clinics and, while they certainly are not without defenses, generally noone but a willow would call them vicious.  This man returned to the table several times, almost scowling at us, as if we were a “defend rattlesnakes” booth, or an advocacy organization for some deadly bacteria.Why would we protect these vicious beasts?

I’m truly not not a Freudian, but sometimes the suggestion of castration anxiety is impossible to ignore.

Hat tip to Beaver-Friend Brock Dolman for the Lead!