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Eager: The Surprise, The Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Import
By Ben Goldfarb
Chelsea Green. 286 p. $ 24.95
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Beavers, those builders of blade-tooth and paddle-tooth dams that we know in local ponds and streams, create chaos. They cut down trees, flood creeks and generally confuse the human needs for order and control. But in his new book, "Eager", environmentalist journalist Ben Goldfarb argues convincingly that we should change our view of this tumultuous behavior and recognize it exactly for what it is: animal engineering capable of restoring our environment sick.
"The surprising, secret life of beavers and why they are important", the book shows the many contributions of this oily rodent. Beavers create wetlands and create conditions for the growth of many animals. Beaver ponds and meadows store carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere and helping to counter the rising temperatures badociated with global warming. We must, according to Goldfarb, overcome our penchant for seeing beavers as pests – and too often killing them accordingly – and recognizing them as "the key species (BEGIN ITAL) keystone, (FIN ITAL)" indeed as "The animal that doubles as an ecosystem. "
Historically, beavers and their constructions have completely clogged the rivers, even Times Square in New York was once" a swamp of maple trees put away from rodents. " West complained of being forced to use deep-water channels for navigation because of beaver craft Despite these difficulties, Meriwether Lewis, of North Carolina The Lewis and Clark expedition aroused rare admiration by writing in a 1805 journal of impressive five-foot beaver dams on the Jefferson River in Montana
. "Murderous madness of the last century" that began in the 1500s and was exacerbated by the demand for fur coats and hats.The ecological results were disastrous. "The disappearance of beavers, writes Goldfarb, dried up wetlands and meadows, accelerated erosion , modified Over the course of countless watercourses and endangered fish, poultry and amphibians who love water. "
Where Beavers Are Reintroduced To better build their dams, the positive effects on ecosystems can be significant. To document these transformations, Goldfarb is touring the United States from the wilderness of the West to Walmart parking lots. In the state of Washington, under the guidance of a biologist, he climbs a cove to help release a pair called Sandy and Chomper in their new home. He attends the 10th Annual Beaver Martinez Beaver Festival in California, where he interviews many ecologists and Beaver Believer activists, including flow-tool inventors who partially drain ponds or prevent beavers from wandering. to contain culverts and to eliminate beavers. & # 39; lives. The result is a book that is a most unexpected gift: a wonderfully humorous page on the science of semi-aquatic rodents.
Goldfarb recognizes that it is impossible to return to the golden age of a "beautifully ponded world" before widespread trapping of beavers. But it shows how we can deploy non-lethal beaver management strategies, and relocate animals to diseased habitats and let them do their thing. Consider what has happened in Yellowstone National Park in recent decades. Yes, wolves reintroduced to the park in 1995 were credited with viral reports and videos of the "trophic cascade" in which elk movements moved, allowing trembling aspen and willow to regenerate and thrive. . What's missing in this picture, though? The beavers were first relocated to the nearby Absaroka-Beartooth Nature Reserve and eventually emerged in Yellowstone. Their history usurped by the most conspicuous wolves, beavers greatly help the regrowth of willows; tree roots are kept moist through beaver dams.
Elsewhere, beavers neutralize some of the most serious pollution from agriculture and fossil fuel emissions. Along the coastal plains of Maryland, the presence of beaver means reduced pollutants like phosphorus and nitrogen. In Colorado Rockies National Park, "active beaver complexes" on 27 water courses stored carbon equivalent to what 37,000 acres of American forest can do. Despite the myths, beaver dams do not prevent many fish from navigating the rivers; most fish find a workaround. In fact, in beaver habitats, the number of small invertebrates that make fish food is zoomed in.
Unfortunately, enlightened beaver politics is rare. For the year 2016 alone, reports Goldfarb, the Wildlife Services Branch of the US Department of Agriculture killed 21,184 beavers. Washington State has become "the hottest hotbed of beaver relocation" due to a 2012 bill that promotes the trapping and relocation of these animals. Yet even here, recreational trappers and those whose careers kill "nuisance" animals kill more than 2,500 beavers a year. Even in the state of Beaver, Oregon, the situation is lamentable. Beaver activism is beginning to revolve around these prejudices in some places, but progress is slow.
Goldfarb's obvious affection for beavers is reflected in the book. When he goes in tete-a-tete with beavers, their individual personalities pbad. Sometimes he races, as when he claims that because of the intensive wildlife management, the animal residents of Yellowstone are "only slightly more interested than the SeaWorld Orcs." Measure these orc tanks, and I doubt that you find this statement close to credible.
But here's the message to remember: Goldfarb has built a masterpiece of a treatise on the natural world, how this world is now and how it could be in the future if we protect the beaver populations. It gives us abundant reasons to respect the conservation Beavers of the environment and their behaviors, for their own good and for ours.
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King is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at William and Mary College and the author of six books on animals, including "How Animals Cry."
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