Speaker 1: Everyone. It's Josh, and for this week's Select, I've chosen
Speaker 1: our October twenty twenty episode on beavers because it's one
Speaker 1: of our best animal episodes, which is really saying something
Speaker 1: because our animal episodes are pretty great. And it turns
Speaker 1: out that beavers aren't just cute and diligent at work.
Speaker 1: They have a huge cascading effect, a positive one too,
Speaker 1: on the ecosystems that they move into. So behold and
Speaker 1: enjoy the Beaver.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
Speaker 1: there's Charles w Chuck Bryan over there, and there's Jerry somewhere.
Speaker 1: And it says, Steve, you should know the Orange Insizer's edition.
Speaker 2: No, I thought you're gonna make a bad naked gun joke.
Speaker 1: No, No, it's We've run through my head over and
Speaker 1: over and over and over and over and over and
Speaker 1: over again.
Speaker 2: Though it's hard though when you're at our age. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you saw those movies, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Dumb joke though, Yeah, Well, I mean it's a
Speaker 1: naked gun joke for Pete's saying, come.
Speaker 2: On, So this kind of ties in I think a
Speaker 2: little bit with our porcupine episode and that beavers are
Speaker 2: you know, they're porcupine esque in some ways.
Speaker 1: I think it ties in even more to our Wetlands episode,
Speaker 1: which gave birth to the idea for this episode. You know, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm pretty excited about this one. I think
Speaker 1: beavers are about as great as it gets because they're
Speaker 1: so studious and they also bend the world to their will.
Speaker 1: They shape things the way that they want them and
Speaker 1: I like that about them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I also love their familial aspects. Yeah, which
Speaker 2: we'll get to all this stuff. But what we're talking
Speaker 2: about is the largest rodent in North America.
Speaker 1: Which really demeans them, I guess.
Speaker 2: But yes, rodent's such a it's not a bad word.
Speaker 2: There's so many great rodents. Oh, beavers, porcupines, what else. Squirrels.
Speaker 2: I know you have a thing with squirrels.
Speaker 1: But well, I know I like squirrels now. Momo and
Speaker 1: I and you me sometimes comes with us to chase
Speaker 1: squirrels across the street in the park and feed them peanuts.
Speaker 1: We give them peanuts is like to kind of buy
Speaker 1: them off after mo chases them up a tree. But
Speaker 1: the squirrels across the way will actually come to you
Speaker 1: and eat peanuts out of your hand. So I'm kind
Speaker 1: of on squirrels now. Momo loves squirrels, chipmunks, mice, chipmunks too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Rodents are okay, Chuck.
Speaker 2: I think there are fewer terrible rodents, and the only
Speaker 2: ones I can think of that are terrible are those
Speaker 2: scary New York City sewer rats.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay, so rodents are all right up with rodents,
Speaker 1: I guess rabbits and I don't think they're rodents.
Speaker 2: They are you like a hamster?
Speaker 1: Sure, hamsters. I don't know if rabbits are rodents. Are
Speaker 1: they It makes sense that they would be.
Speaker 2: But it's what rodent dot com says.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, who am I to disagree with that? But
Speaker 1: we're not talking about rabbits. We're not talking about sewer rats.
Speaker 1: We're talking about beavers. And again, beavers are amazing, amazing animals,
Speaker 1: and like you said, you know, it's kind of related
Speaker 1: to porcupines, and that there's what you could call Old
Speaker 1: World and New World beavers. But there's really just two species,
Speaker 1: and one is found in North America and one is
Speaker 1: found in Eurasia. And it's easy, pasy, no fuss, no must.
Speaker 1: These are the beavers that are alive on the planet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we've got the American beaver. They weigh between
Speaker 2: fifteen and sixty five pounds, which is very large. If
Speaker 2: you've ever seen a large beaver in the wild, it's
Speaker 2: not scary because you know, and we'll get to whether
Speaker 2: or not they they're dangerous. They're really not. But it's
Speaker 2: such a large thing that you're like, wow, they're bigger
Speaker 2: than I thought. Usually has run through my head when
Speaker 2: I see a beaver.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean sixty or thirty No, yeah, sixty five
Speaker 1: pounds is about thirty kilograms.
Speaker 2: It's a big beaver.
Speaker 1: It is a big beaver. And I had to converty
Speaker 1: to kilograms for at least our friends in Canada because
Speaker 1: beaver's their national emblem. They have beaver on their nickel,
Speaker 1: which is amazing. Like, this just makes me love Canada
Speaker 1: all the much more, you know.
Speaker 2: So for that sixty pounds, you're going to be a
Speaker 2: couple of feet long twenty three to forty inches long. Hm,
Speaker 2: that's without the tail. You don't count the tail when
Speaker 2: you're measuring a beaver. The tail will talk a little
Speaker 2: bit more about it, But they're anywhere from seven to
Speaker 2: twelve inches. If you're Eurasian, you're about the same size. Mate.
Speaker 2: You can be a little bit smaller, Oh I thought bigger,
Speaker 2: Well you can be a little smaller on the I
Speaker 2: think the range is bigger. Okay, so you can be
Speaker 2: down in the twenties poundage wise, but up to the
Speaker 2: seventies poundage wise, and you're probably a little bit longer,
Speaker 2: and your skull and your tail are going to be narrower,
Speaker 2: or your tail's narrower and your skull is smaller.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but that tail is what everybody understands when
Speaker 1: they see a beaver. Just like with a porcupine and
Speaker 1: its quills, a beaver in its tail is they're just synonymous.
Speaker 1: Everybody recognizes a beaver because of its tail, and also
Speaker 1: the tails help make it cute. Even though if you
Speaker 1: zoomed in and took a really close look at the tail,
Speaker 1: you'd be like gross. You think, yeah, it's scaly, it's
Speaker 1: got sparse, coarse hair associated with it. It looks like
Speaker 1: a black jack that some old timy like ruffs would
Speaker 1: beat you up with. And yet it's one of the
Speaker 1: most amazing appendages any animal has as far as it's
Speaker 1: like a Swiss Army knife foot for tails.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're very useful in a lot of ways. They
Speaker 2: obviously if they're swimming, and beavers, by the way, can
Speaker 2: swim five to seven miles an hour. They have little
Speaker 2: web feet they have, they can close their ear holes
Speaker 2: in their nose holes, and they can roll their film
Speaker 2: over their eyeballs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, nictitating membrane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's amazing. So if they're gonna be swimming, then
Speaker 2: that tail is gonna be acting as a rudder and
Speaker 2: as a propeller. It's also if they're on land, it's
Speaker 2: gonna act as a little kickstand at times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when they stand up on their back legs, they
Speaker 1: use their tail to kind of lean against the balance.
Speaker 1: It's a big one for sure. They also, and this
Speaker 1: is a sure sign that you have frightened slash upset
Speaker 1: a beaver. They will slap the water with their tail
Speaker 1: in part to frighten you away, to say like, don't
Speaker 1: mess with me, but also to warn other beavers because,
Speaker 1: like you were saying, they're familial, they are actually fairly
Speaker 1: social animals and they live in family units, so they
Speaker 1: would want to warn like you know the wife and
Speaker 1: the kids back at the lodge.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And here's the thing. I spent a lot of
Speaker 2: time at a lake here in Georgia, and I have
Speaker 2: heard something which I thought was a beaver tail smash,
Speaker 2: but I'm not sure because I didn't see it. I
Speaker 2: have seen evidence of beaver eating tree stuff, oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: and which we'll get to. And one day when I
Speaker 2: was in the lake, I saw a mammal's head coming
Speaker 2: toward me and I don't know if it was. We
Speaker 2: also have river otter, so I don't know if it
Speaker 2: was an otter or a beaver, but either way it
Speaker 2: was it was a large head. And even though I
Speaker 2: know that they weren't going to like come after me,
Speaker 2: when that thing pops under the water, You're just like,
Speaker 2: where's he going, what's he doing? Where is he? Is
Speaker 2: he coming at me or not?
Speaker 1: Were you swimming in the lake at the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was swimming in the lake and I saw
Speaker 2: this large mammal head, you know, dumped under I could
Speaker 2: feel you. And if it was I'm not sure how
Speaker 2: long beavers can hold their or Otters can hold their breasts,
Speaker 2: but beavers can hold their breath for about fifteen minutes,
Speaker 2: which is pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1: I thought. I think remarkable too. I mean, it really
Speaker 1: just goes to show just how adapted they are for
Speaker 1: life in the water. And they are mammals, so they
Speaker 1: have lung so they need to breathe air outside of
Speaker 1: the water. But yeah, the fact that they can hold
Speaker 1: their breaths for fifteen minutes, that they have nictitating membranes
Speaker 1: that cover their eyes like little goggles so they can
Speaker 1: see and work underwater. They spend a significant amount of
Speaker 1: their time underwater. In fact, they're most protected in water.
Speaker 1: That's where they can move the fastest. They can swim
Speaker 1: pretty fast, way faster than they can waddle on land. Sure,
Speaker 1: and a lot of their predators won't necessarily come into,
Speaker 1: especially deep water after them. So when they're in the water,
Speaker 1: they're at their they're in their happy place most.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and imagine when they dive for fifteen minutes and
Speaker 2: are swimming around. What do you think those.
Speaker 1: Fish think, Oh, here comes a beaver.
Speaker 2: They do they know or are they just like, what
Speaker 2: in the world is that big hairy thing?
Speaker 1: I would guess that I would like to think they know.
Speaker 1: I like to think of communities of animals or ecosystems.
Speaker 2: Just they know each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they know each other. They know each other's foibles.
Speaker 1: They've come to accept one another. You know, they have
Speaker 1: their other things, but beaver foibles they always kind of
Speaker 1: you know, they in the end that when somebody, you know,
Speaker 1: like a human comes in and tries to screw things up,
Speaker 1: they'll all band together and you know, raise money for
Speaker 1: the community center so that the developer can't buy it.
Speaker 2: So if you are North American beaver, you can live
Speaker 2: pretty much anywhere in North America except for the desert.
Speaker 2: Because you want water around, you're probably going to be
Speaker 2: near pond or a lake, or a marsh or a
Speaker 2: swamp or a river. Eurasian beavers used to live all
Speaker 2: over Europe and Asia, but they were hunted over hunted
Speaker 2: because at one point in time, wearing beaver pelts and
Speaker 2: beaver hats was like a really high fashion. So now
Speaker 2: they're only found in Germany, France, Poland, Scandinavia, Southern Scandinavia,
Speaker 2: and Central Russia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and a lot of those are because they were
Speaker 1: reintroduced to the areas, Like I believe Germany had to
Speaker 1: have their population reintroduced because they were hunted to extinction
Speaker 1: and how many.
Speaker 2: Beavers used to be here, like four hundred million.
Speaker 1: That's the estimate is that in North America prior to
Speaker 1: Colombian contact, that there were about four hundred million beavers
Speaker 1: and they were hunted down to near extinction within the
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands from what I saw, and were luckily
Speaker 1: held back from the brink. And when I say luckily,
Speaker 1: I don't just mean for the beavers, but I mean
Speaker 1: for the planet as far as North America is concerned.
Speaker 1: Because one of the things that we are still learning
Speaker 1: but have come to realize, is that the beavers are
Speaker 1: probably the most useful species on the planet because they're
Speaker 1: one of the few species that alters their environment as
Speaker 1: radically as they do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what are they called.
Speaker 1: They're a keystone species species because when they are present,
Speaker 1: biodiversity thrives, and when beavers are removed from an area,
Speaker 1: biodiversity suffers. The presence of beavers makes life better and
Speaker 1: richer for entirely other animals and species, just because of
Speaker 1: what they do and how they do it.
Speaker 2: All Right, that's a great place to take a break.
Speaker 2: And I say, when we come back, we talk about
Speaker 2: the two fundamental fulcrumbs on which beaver life is based.
Speaker 2: The dam and the lodge.
Speaker 3: Okay, stop, stop, all right, we're back.
Speaker 2: And there are a couple of things. You know, you've
Speaker 2: heard busy as a beaver. Uh, it's it's I don't
Speaker 2: know if that's proven, but I think it is almost
Speaker 2: universally agreed that that phrase came about because beavers are,
Speaker 2: in fact very busy, and they work, work, work all
Speaker 2: day long, building their homes and building dams. Their homes
Speaker 2: are called lodges. And you've probably seen, if you've ever
Speaker 2: been hiking and stuff in America, you've probably seen a
Speaker 2: beaver lodge by a river, ear lake. It's a little
Speaker 2: little dome, a little hot out of sticks and grasses
Speaker 2: and moss and mud.
Speaker 1: Maybe you thought a local witch had built it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe it does look like a little Uh what
Speaker 2: do you call witch's houses?
Speaker 1: Witch's house? I think there's a cottage.
Speaker 2: Oh sure, I think there's a different name. But I
Speaker 2: thought so. Now I don't, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think so witch house.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm thinking of Coven's.
Speaker 1: House a day witch.
Speaker 2: No, there's a word. We just I just watched The
Speaker 2: Witch the movie again. I think there's a word for it.
Speaker 1: Man, I love that. That might be my favorite movie.
Speaker 2: We did a movie Crush Roundtable on that. By the way,
Speaker 2: it was really good.
Speaker 1: It is a good And that's the guy who did
Speaker 1: the Lighthouse, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Rob Potters, God bless that.
Speaker 1: Man. I can't wait to see his biking movie too.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I can't imagine. Okay, So the beaver lodge is,
Speaker 2: you know, about eight feet wide a few feet high.
Speaker 2: They're on the banks of these ponds or on lake shores.
Speaker 2: They have this is one of my favorite parts. Many
Speaker 2: of them have a little underwater back door.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's like sort of a ski in chalet if you're
Speaker 2: snow skiing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which makes sense because again, they spend so much
Speaker 1: time in the water, but also it protects them from
Speaker 1: terrestrial predators because they can get into the water and
Speaker 1: escape when a predators like at their door.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know this is they're nocturnal, they don't hibernate,
Speaker 2: but most of this action's going on at night, and
Speaker 2: everyone pitches in the whole family. I don't think we
Speaker 2: said yet. They live with their children till they're about two.
Speaker 2: And a beaver lodge you might find a mom and
Speaker 2: a dad who are monogamous mates for life, and they
Speaker 2: might have their three two year old almost two year
Speaker 2: old children, and then they might have their little grand babies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because when they have their their babies, which are
Speaker 1: called kits, which admittedly is not as cute a word
Speaker 1: as porcupets.
Speaker 2: No, but they're cute.
Speaker 1: But dude, just baby for press pause right now, everybody,
Speaker 1: and go look up some baby beaver pictures, little tails.
Speaker 1: They're cute. So they have baby beavers. And one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why they're so cute is because they stick
Speaker 1: around for so long, or they stick around so long
Speaker 1: because they're so cute. That's what I mean to say. Yes,
Speaker 1: but they do. They stay as part of the family
Speaker 1: unit and help work on the family lodge and damn
Speaker 1: until about two when they wander off, and then at
Speaker 1: three they start to mate. But they build their own
Speaker 1: lodge at age two, and from what I've read, it's
Speaker 1: usually very clumsy. It's not in the best place necessarily,
Speaker 1: and so they kind of learn as they go. But
Speaker 1: they also learn from their family unit first, which I
Speaker 1: think is super cute.
Speaker 2: It is I think we should talk about dams though.
Speaker 2: I mean, the lodges are are cool and it's a
Speaker 2: great place to live if you're a beaver. But the
Speaker 2: dams is where they really that's where they get their
Speaker 2: shining moment as a species. That really helps out the
Speaker 2: environment because they help create these wetlands, don't they.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So a beaver will move into an area that's
Speaker 1: dry as a bone, that's maybe crop land, that's maybe timberland,
Speaker 1: that is not at all flooded. There's no pond or
Speaker 1: wetland or anything like that, and they say, this can
Speaker 1: be better. And so they find like a source of
Speaker 1: moving water like a stream or a brook, maybe a creek,
Speaker 1: maybe a creek something like that, and they stop it up.
Speaker 1: They build a dam, and they build this damp so
Speaker 1: that the water backs up behind it and floods this
Speaker 1: area and turns it into a wetland. And they do
Speaker 1: this not to irk humans or just for fun. They
Speaker 1: do it because they're altering the ecosystem to better suit themselves.
Speaker 1: Like I said, they survive much better when they're in
Speaker 1: the water. They move faster, they can work faster. So
Speaker 1: they actually make this ecosystem into an aquatic ecosystem where
Speaker 1: before there wasn't an aquatic ecosystem. And they do it
Speaker 1: all by building this dam, and the way that they
Speaker 1: build dams is magnificent in and of itself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, you got your dam base, the
Speaker 2: foundation basically where you're going to use mud and gravel
Speaker 2: that you get from the stream, and you kind of
Speaker 2: work together as a family and with your tail and
Speaker 2: they're pushing I say, we're beaver's all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: and you're pushing this mud and gravel up from the
Speaker 2: bottom of the stream.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And if let's say it's a place where the creek
Speaker 2: is running a little bit too fast and there's too
Speaker 2: much flow, they're going to say, you know what, We're
Speaker 2: going to take these sticks. We're gonna pile these things
Speaker 2: up all along the bottom until basically it's like building
Speaker 2: from the ground up until they're strong enough to stay
Speaker 2: in place.
Speaker 1: Right. But they're so good at using their hands, and
Speaker 1: they're so strong. You said, you know, sixty sixty five
Speaker 1: pounds or about thirty kilograms. They're mostly muscle too. They're
Speaker 1: really strong little little rodents, especially for being like herbivores.
Speaker 1: You know, they're like those vegan body builders. But they
Speaker 1: can take they'll take sticks and like plant them in
Speaker 1: the bottom of this stream or whatever and start forming
Speaker 1: a lattice work that they weave in between and fill
Speaker 1: up with mud to really stop up some you know,
Speaker 1: fast moving current. That Like, that's the level of manipulation
Speaker 1: that they're they're doing. They're they're building a dam that
Speaker 1: they they eventually successfully back up the flow of water from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is I've tried to do that before, and
Speaker 2: it's hard to do. Yeah. My buddy Scotty and I,
Speaker 2: you know, we went camping once in California, and it
Speaker 2: was when I was young in the film industry, so
Speaker 2: there was a lot of time between jobs, and we
Speaker 2: just decided to stay and keep staying, and I think
Speaker 2: we ended up staying for like eleven or twelve days wow.
Speaker 2: And we wanted to build a waterfall next to our campsite,
Speaker 2: so it sounded better. So we spent days and days
Speaker 2: with sticks and big rocks and trying to reroute and
Speaker 2: change the river. And it was some of the hardest
Speaker 2: work I've ever done.
Speaker 1: Imagine doing that at like forty eight inches long and
Speaker 1: only sixty five pounds.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So they're not only building this thing up, they
Speaker 2: got their little kits and their children helping, like bringing
Speaker 2: up sticks and mud saying paw mas is okay, and
Speaker 2: they say, yeah, add it to the pile. And then
Speaker 2: once they're done, they like, there's a periodic like inspections
Speaker 2: that go on, Yeah, because they got to make sure
Speaker 2: that it stays strong, because that current just keeps going
Speaker 2: and it's very easy to wiggle the right stick loose
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden it starts crumbling down. So
Speaker 2: they basically inspect these things every so often and check
Speaker 2: it for leaks and bring in mud and patch it up,
Speaker 2: just like it's like a human might do.
Speaker 1: Oh, I saw that they do daily maintenance on it.
Speaker 1: That one way to tell whether beavers are in the
Speaker 1: area is to find their dam, make it like a
Speaker 1: little miner hole in it, and then go back and
Speaker 1: look the next day, and if it's patched up, the
Speaker 1: beavers are around there and giving you the middle finger
Speaker 1: right exactly like okay, yeah we're here, you've figured it out,
Speaker 1: Please leave our dam alone. But yeah, these things are
Speaker 1: like water tight for the most part, or they allow
Speaker 1: very little water through, or I guess from what I
Speaker 1: can tell, as much water as the beaver wants through.
Speaker 1: Like they're very willfully deliberately constructed structures. That will turn
Speaker 1: a dry area into a wetland. And when that happens,
Speaker 1: one of the things that they used to build the
Speaker 1: stuff with their trees around the area, they can they
Speaker 1: use their teeth, those really really sharp, strong teeth that
Speaker 1: I said are like kind of orangish at the very
Speaker 1: beginning of the episode, and they're very they're orange because
Speaker 1: they have so much iron in them, which actually gives
Speaker 1: them that much more strength.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're up to an inch long. They're super strong.
Speaker 2: They they actually sharpen as they gnaw on trees, so
Speaker 2: it's not like it'll dull their teeth out. It actually
Speaker 2: sharpens them. And the other thing they're doing is they're
Speaker 2: eating that tree. They're one of the few mammals that
Speaker 2: are maybe the only mammal that can actually digest cellulose.
Speaker 1: Well, porcupines can too, remember, Oh that's right, Yeah, they can.
Speaker 1: They can digest cellulos because they probably have a very
Speaker 1: similar kind of bacteria that helps them helps digest it
Speaker 1: for them. But they digest a lot of the cellulos
Speaker 1: that they eat, and it's really hard to break down
Speaker 1: normally for mammals though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but like you know, you said, they're essentially creating
Speaker 2: these wetlands. They're preventing erosion, they are helping to pure
Speaker 2: the water.
Speaker 1: Oh, let's talk about what the dams can do. Okay, Chuck.
Speaker 2: I mean it's amazing there. It's like a little environmental
Speaker 2: coalition that goes into the woods to make things better.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I think in the Wetlands episode, I said
Speaker 1: something like a beaver creates the equivalent of some like
Speaker 1: a five million dollar wastewater treatment plan or something like that.
Speaker 1: I could not find that again to save my life,
Speaker 1: but I think that was roughly Yet, they create this
Speaker 1: this structure that creates the artificial wetland, and in doing so,
Speaker 1: it filters the water because it slows the water down
Speaker 1: so much that the stuff can trickle down to the bottom.
Speaker 1: It turns a normal terrestrial piece of land into a wetland.
Speaker 1: So aquatic plants come. And they've also found out that
Speaker 1: not only does it filter water of like sediment and particles,
Speaker 1: it also is capable of handling farm runoff fertilizer, which
Speaker 1: is really pernicious because you know, when all that fertilizer
Speaker 1: makes its way into watersheds and wetlands, it creates algae blooms,
Speaker 1: which suck up all the oxygen and kill off a
Speaker 1: bunch of fish, right, which is a big problem. They
Speaker 1: figured out that beaver dams actually work against that by
Speaker 1: fixing nitrogen excess nitrogen from fertilizer. It prevents it from flowing.
Speaker 1: Bacteria chomps down on it and releases it as nitrogen
Speaker 1: gas into the atmosphere, and the stuff the bacteria doesn't
Speaker 1: eat floats down to the bottom gets eaten up by
Speaker 1: aquatic plants, which when they die, lock it into the sediment.
Speaker 1: So this farm runoff that's a huge problem as it stands,
Speaker 1: is actually mitigated by beaver dams. They've recently found out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and talk about just what kind of impact it
Speaker 2: has on who lives there. I mean, it's basically like
Speaker 2: an invitation to nature that says, hey, we got a
Speaker 2: good scene going over here. If you're an invertebrate that
Speaker 2: doesn't feel like they have a home, you're welcome here.
Speaker 2: If you're a new speci he's a bird that didn't
Speaker 2: think that you would flourish here, time to change that attitude.
Speaker 2: If you're a duck or a goose, you can nest
Speaker 2: on top of our lodge because our lodge is super
Speaker 2: warm because it's full of beavers and you can nest
Speaker 2: on top of there and stay warm, and especially if
Speaker 2: it's out in the middle of a pond or something,
Speaker 2: you're gonna be safer.
Speaker 1: What else, if you are a woodpecker and you're like,
Speaker 1: all these trees are too healthy, there's no insects in them,
Speaker 1: well just wait because flooded timberland doesn't stand up very
Speaker 1: well to standing water, and so some of those trees
Speaker 1: die off and they get they provide housing for insects,
Speaker 1: which in turn provides food for the woodpeckers.
Speaker 2: What if you're a moose, let's say, probably no good
Speaker 2: for you, right.
Speaker 1: No, you're gonna love this if you're a moose, so
Speaker 1: buckle up, because the beaver has turned it into a wetland.
Speaker 1: It's now an aquatic environment, and moose like aquatic plants
Speaker 1: that grow on the edge of like marshy areas. So
Speaker 1: these plants that weren't there before are suddenly there for
Speaker 1: the moves. And it gets even better because when the
Speaker 1: beaver family finally like is you know, moves away or
Speaker 1: they die off and the whole thing gets abandoned. The
Speaker 1: eventually the dam's going to break without regular maintenance, and
Speaker 1: when it does, the place is going to go back
Speaker 1: to how it was before, but it's going to go
Speaker 1: back to better than it was before because think about
Speaker 1: all that nitrogen that was fixed in the sediment, all
Speaker 1: the erosion that was prevented, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you have a lush, beautiful meadow that deer can come
Speaker 1: eat on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Like they they help out all
Speaker 2: these animals and introduce all these new animals that can
Speaker 2: live together, and then once it's done, it becomes a
Speaker 2: flowery meadow for deer.
Speaker 1: They leave it better than it was when they first
Speaker 1: got there.
Speaker 2: Amazing.
Speaker 1: It is amazing. The problem is is that humans frequently
Speaker 1: have much different plans for those same areas, and beaver
Speaker 1: want to foul them. I say, we take a break
Speaker 1: and we come back and talk about that after a break.
Speaker 1: Like I just said, what do you think? Answer now? Yes? Okay?
Speaker 2: Stop stop stop.
Speaker 1: Shut all right? So we love beaver. You love beaver.
Speaker 1: Everyone out there listening, there's a lot of people who
Speaker 1: don't love beaver.
Speaker 2: Is it beaver?
Speaker 1: It is now okay? And the reason why is because
Speaker 1: if you own like a stand of timber, your plan
Speaker 1: is to eventually cut that timber down and sell it
Speaker 1: for wood planks or books, you know, like stuff you
Speaker 1: should know. Calling an incomplete compendium of mostly interesting things
Speaker 1: available everywhere you get books to pre order. Now, there's
Speaker 1: things you can do with trees that you grow. And
Speaker 1: if beavers move into your area and they build the dam,
Speaker 1: those dams are effective. This isn't like a little puddle
Speaker 1: we're talking about. They can create basic basically like lakes, ponds,
Speaker 1: like enormous wetlands. And when you have standing water over timberland,
Speaker 1: those trees are not They're not aquatic trees that you're
Speaker 1: growing there, so they actually die again, remember they die
Speaker 1: off and bugs move in and woodpeckers eat the bugs. Well,
Speaker 1: if you're trying to make money off of those trees,
Speaker 1: you don't really want the beavers to do that to
Speaker 1: your timberland.
Speaker 2: No, And I think how many tens of millions of dollars.
Speaker 2: I think it was like twenty million dollars a year
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 1: I think more than that because I think I saw
Speaker 1: Alabama alone suffered like fourteen million dollars in law really
Speaker 1: from timberland, just Alabama.
Speaker 2: From beaver damage. And not only that it'll it'll flooding
Speaker 2: for crop. It can make what was ordinarily a very
Speaker 2: stable bridge or road now unstable and cause damage to
Speaker 2: roads and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: From like saturating the soil that was holding it up
Speaker 1: just fine before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the good news is back in the old days,
Speaker 2: there would just you know, they would just cull as
Speaker 2: many beavers as they could to get rid of them.
Speaker 2: These days, and this is kind of a weird stat
Speaker 2: but it says seventy five percent of beaver human conflict
Speaker 2: can be resolved without trapping or killing the beavers. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I take that as in they will somehow move them
Speaker 2: along in a way that's humane.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know if that's even the case. I
Speaker 1: think that more often than not, the first question is
Speaker 1: is the beaver really causing a problem or is it
Speaker 1: that there's beavers and they've created this wetland and that
Speaker 1: wasn't there before, and you're taking it as a problem.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing that I'm seeing that it seems
Speaker 1: to be like the new paradigm for viewing beavers as
Speaker 1: far as their relationship to humans. It's like, really, what's
Speaker 1: what's the problem. If it's yes, they're damaging crop land. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's a problem. If they're killing timberland, that's a problem.
Speaker 1: If they've if they're washing out a road, that's a problem.
Speaker 1: But if they just created a wetland that wasn't there
Speaker 1: before on your property where you bought the property and
Speaker 1: it was dry and now there's a wetland there that
Speaker 1: you didn't plan for, is it really a problem? And
Speaker 1: I think that's what they're saying, is that seventy five
Speaker 1: percent of the people who are asked that question will say, actually,
Speaker 1: I guess it's not. I'm going to learn to love
Speaker 1: the beaver. I love beaver.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know, it really gets my dander up
Speaker 2: when I this lake that I go to the Facebook page,
Speaker 2: there are people, you know, people post like, hey, it
Speaker 2: looks like I have a beaver eating on my trees,
Speaker 2: and you know these some of these people literally are like, yep,
Speaker 2: I'll take care of that with my twelve gageah. And
Speaker 2: it's just like, you don't. I've never understood the people
Speaker 2: who want to move to nature to kill the Yeah.
Speaker 1: I know, it's just it's.
Speaker 2: Unnerving and I have seen some beaver damage and I
Speaker 2: love it. I welcome it, So yeah, you eat all
Speaker 2: you want.
Speaker 1: You would be one of the seventy five percent who
Speaker 1: would say, like, no, it's no problem whatever. You probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't even say it was an issue. You wouldn't even
Speaker 1: be asked that question. You would just know from the
Speaker 1: outset that it's not a problem.
Speaker 2: I call that a beaver beavering.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: Beaver's going to beaver.
Speaker 1: And so we know now that, like they are a
Speaker 1: keystone species. They're so important that it's great. The impression
Speaker 1: I'm getting is it's kind of like, no, it's not
Speaker 1: really a problem. So you can't touch that beaver, don't
Speaker 1: shoot that beaver. You're going to get in big trouble
Speaker 1: depending on where you are for shooting a beaver when
Speaker 1: it wasn't creating a problem, which I love because they
Speaker 1: should be protected because again not just the fact that
Speaker 1: they were almost hunted to extinction. They provide so many
Speaker 1: really important services. I don't even know if we talked
Speaker 1: about it. There are two others, Chuck, They prevent flooding.
Speaker 1: Three others. They prevent flooding by slowing the flow of
Speaker 1: water so things downstream from the dam don't get overwhelmed
Speaker 1: as much. Right, the stuff in the dam helps recharge
Speaker 1: aquifers below. Whereas before there's just a little stream trickling
Speaker 1: over it was doing jack for the aquifer. Now the
Speaker 1: aquifer is getting recharged on the daily. And then the
Speaker 1: third one is they provide natural fire breaks, which helps
Speaker 1: cane forest fires. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I have a feeling when we're done, we're gonna be
Speaker 2: mad because there were like three more things we didn't
Speaker 2: think about.
Speaker 1: That happens to me a lot and drives me nuts.
Speaker 2: Here's some of the things that people do try and
Speaker 2: do though to mitigate their what they perceive as their
Speaker 2: beaver problems.
Speaker 1: Yet Yeah, no, because they do create some problems as
Speaker 1: far as human settlement is concerned.
Speaker 2: They will use beaver pipes, and this is basically plastic
Speaker 2: pipes that you put in a beaver dam to route
Speaker 2: that water to where you want. It helps control the
Speaker 2: flooding that beavers can cause.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like so long that the beaver's like it
Speaker 1: doesn't think to go to the end of the pipes.
Speaker 1: It just sees that there's something around its dam, and
Speaker 1: it probably dams up around the pipe, but that still
Speaker 1: lets the flow of water go through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is kind of cool. They will build a
Speaker 2: pre dam If they want beavers away from a certain
Speaker 2: place and in a different place, they'll basically say, hey,
Speaker 2: look over here, we got this fence. It's like a
Speaker 2: foundation for your new home. Right, It's kind of you
Speaker 2: got ten percent of your work is already done. Why
Speaker 2: don't you to start here. So they'll do that, Yeah,
Speaker 2: the beaver says, hot dog. And then another thing is
Speaker 2: to design that. Well, there's two times of fences. There's
Speaker 2: the pre damn fence that encourages them to come, and
Speaker 2: then there is another kind of fence to keep them
Speaker 2: from building there in the first place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those are called beaver deceivers, and they are. It's
Speaker 1: just basically so like a culvert is a frequent place
Speaker 1: that a beaver likes to dam up, and that's where
Speaker 1: it causes a lot of damage because culverts are helped
Speaker 1: are to help drain water, to keep roadways stable and
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Right, So you would just basically
Speaker 1: put a fence radiating out from either side of the
Speaker 1: culvert outward and an angle kind of like in a
Speaker 1: V shape, and then those two fences are connected by
Speaker 1: another fence between the two. So it's just basically like
Speaker 1: a triangle that ends in the culvert. The key is
Speaker 1: if you make those fences long enough, I think twelve
Speaker 1: feet minimum or something like that, the beaver is going
Speaker 1: to be like nuts to this. This just isn't even
Speaker 1: worth it. I'm not going to try to build a
Speaker 1: dam here, or if it does start to build a dam,
Speaker 1: it's going to give up eventually, and your culvert is
Speaker 1: saved without the beaver being hurt or harm. The beaver
Speaker 1: just moves on to a different spot that it likes.
Speaker 2: Right, And if you have a tree that you really
Speaker 2: love that you see has some beaver activity, you can
Speaker 2: wrap like chicken wire around the base of it if
Speaker 2: you want. There's also some special paint that you can
Speaker 2: paint on the trunk that apparently beavers don't like. If
Speaker 2: you want to protect a certain tree.
Speaker 1: It's like the nail biting stuff whole bit.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, somebody wrote in about that.
Speaker 1: What did they say? I didn't see, though.
Speaker 2: I think they were just asking, like what it was.
Speaker 2: I'm sure they still have it, but I don't remember
Speaker 2: what it was.
Speaker 1: I believe remember lee press on nails. I think they
Speaker 1: had a sideline in that stuff.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it was. It's probably just like clear nail polish. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it tastes like garbage. Yeah, that tasted really bad.
Speaker 2: Tasted like what what I thought, it was like hot? No,
Speaker 2: it was bitter.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, yeah, I wouldn't like that at all.
Speaker 2: That was very bitter. I don't think we mentioned the
Speaker 2: I mean we should talk a little bit. We talked
Speaker 2: about the kits. But they do live in large groups.
Speaker 2: They're very social. They're called colonies, and they mate in
Speaker 2: the winter during the first few months of the year.
Speaker 2: The Eurasian beaver gestates for sixty to one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty eight days and have one to six little babies,
Speaker 2: and the American beaver's gestate from one hundred to about
Speaker 2: one hundred and five to one hundred and seven days,
Speaker 2: again one to four little kits, and they are weaned
Speaker 2: around two weeks of age, whereas the Eurasian beaver is
Speaker 2: weaned it about six weeks of age.
Speaker 1: Right, And so, Chuck, I saw that beavers tend to live,
Speaker 1: like you said, they were monogamous typically. I said that
Speaker 1: they live about ten to fifteen years in the wild,
Speaker 1: which is so cute. But you can also build a
Speaker 1: pretty respectable dam in that time too. And I think
Speaker 1: actually the largest dam that they've ever seen. Is they
Speaker 1: think it is from many, many, many generations of beavers
Speaker 1: staying and working on it in Alberta.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it's huge, and I guess everyone just got
Speaker 2: in on the party.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They think since the seventies that some beavers have
Speaker 1: been keeping it very appropriate. Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 2: And those little kids, by the way, can swim about
Speaker 2: just one day after they're born, they're already swimming around.
Speaker 1: Right, So, like we said, I think that they are.
Speaker 1: I think that they become sexually mature at age three.
Speaker 1: On that time they're going to start producing something called
Speaker 1: castorum or castorium, right, yeah. And castorium is like a
Speaker 1: lot of people think that it's like the origin of
Speaker 1: castor oil. It's not correct. From the castor bean. I
Speaker 1: believe this stuff is like the opposite of castor oil.
Speaker 1: It actually like tastes and smells like really good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean it's it's used. It's the FDA says
Speaker 2: you can eat it. It's one of those grass remember,
Speaker 2: generally recognized as safe ingredients. And the thing is that
Speaker 2: there's just not a lot of it. It's very tough
Speaker 2: to and it's a lot of work to go out
Speaker 2: there and try and extract this flavor ingredient from the
Speaker 2: beaver tail. I think it says two hundred about two
Speaker 2: hundred and ninety two pounds annually total, so imagine it's expensive.
Speaker 1: It is very expensive, and you can still find in
Speaker 1: some places. I think I saw a whiskey that uses
Speaker 1: it Chanelle's perfume. What is it called kar de RUSSI.
Speaker 1: I believe it still uses it, really, And it's a
Speaker 1: flavor ingredient too, because it's like you're saying, it's generally
Speaker 1: recognized as safe, but it also adds like a vanilla
Speaker 1: raspberry flavor. That's what it tastes like to humans. And
Speaker 1: they think that there are some ice creams out there
Speaker 1: that still may use that, like old timey ice creams
Speaker 1: that use beaver castorium, like beaver scent. It's what it is.
Speaker 1: It's beaver musk. Yeah, it just so happens that beaver
Speaker 1: musk tastes like raspberry vanilla to humans. Yeah, but they
Speaker 1: were hunted for a really long time, which kind of
Speaker 1: led to this one myth, didn't it.
Speaker 2: The testicle myth?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Up until about the eleven hundred's, people thought beavers
Speaker 2: eight or bit off their own testicles, and apparently this
Speaker 2: has its origins in ancient Egypt. In medieval Europe it
Speaker 2: continued where I think the what they said was that
Speaker 2: beavers knew that hunters were coming after them because of
Speaker 2: that castorium which originated in their testicles. And none of
Speaker 2: this is true. I think their testicles they don't even
Speaker 2: have hangers, right, No.
Speaker 1: They don't, They're located inside them, which automatically disqualifies it.
Speaker 1: But also so the beavers were basically saying like, no,
Speaker 1: you can't have my tastorium. I can't have it anymore either.
Speaker 1: I would rather bite off my own testicles than let
Speaker 1: you have them. I guess maybe as a survival mechanism,
Speaker 1: like they thought that the body would leave them alone
Speaker 1: if they didn't have testicles. But maybe no, that's not
Speaker 1: true at all. And then there's one other great fact, Chuck,
Speaker 1: that I think you got to take to take us
Speaker 1: out with.
Speaker 2: The Yeah, the pope in the sixteenth century said, you
Speaker 2: know what, that tale is pretty scaly, and they sure
Speaker 2: are in the water a lot. So during the fasting days,
Speaker 2: go ahead and eat that beaver.
Speaker 1: It's close enough to yep, exactly. It qualifies as a fish.
Speaker 1: So you could eat beaver back in the sixteenth century
Speaker 1: thanks to the pope.
Speaker 2: That's right, as far as I know, it teased early
Speaker 2: if they were dangerous, they're not. Beavers are very nice
Speaker 2: little fellas and ladies. And if there is a beaver
Speaker 2: that attacks somebody, it will make the news because it's
Speaker 2: so rare, and it probably means they're really sick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they, like all mammals, can get rabies, but like porcupines.
Speaker 1: I get the impression that that's one of the few
Speaker 1: diseases you can get from a beaver. The thing is
Speaker 1: is if they are rabid and they do charge at you,
Speaker 1: they can do some serious damage with those teeth, Like
Speaker 1: they can chew through three foot diameter trees, they can
Speaker 1: bite through your skin, and so if you get too
Speaker 1: close to a beaver, it can have bad effects. It's
Speaker 1: just like you said, it's extremely rare. But I saw
Speaker 1: at least one guy's died from them in the last
Speaker 1: decade or so, right.
Speaker 2: That was just bad luck.
Speaker 1: So a guy, Tila Russ was trying to get a
Speaker 1: picture of a beaver and got too close and the
Speaker 1: thing bit him in his thigh and bit through his
Speaker 1: femoral artery and the guy bled to death from a
Speaker 1: beaver attack. He died from a beaver attack. His family
Speaker 1: has to live like that for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1: Beaver attack, I don't know, and there's been some other
Speaker 1: attacks too, But yeah, I think they just kind of
Speaker 1: give beaver's bad name unwarrantedly. Don't you shot through the
Speaker 1: flag and you're too blame you give beaver's a bad name.
Speaker 1: Oh goodness, Todd, Well, I guess that's it for beaver's Huh,
Speaker 1: that's it. I'm glad we finally got to do this one.
Speaker 2: Leave them alone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let them do their beaver thing. Beaver in, like
Speaker 1: Chuck says, be's going to beaver if you want to
Speaker 1: know more about beavers, So then by God, you go
Speaker 1: find some beavers and study them from afar because they
Speaker 1: are nature's miracles. And since I said that, it's time
Speaker 1: for listener male.
Speaker 2: All right, I'm gonna call this Brave Angels. Hey, guys,
Speaker 2: listen to your episode on Swing States. You mentioned the
Speaker 2: dangerous level of polarization going on between reds and blues
Speaker 2: in America.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, thanks for reading this one.
Speaker 2: You're welcome. And I wanted to let you know that
Speaker 2: there's something we can do about it. There's a great
Speaker 2: grassroots organization with a specific goal of depolarizing America called
Speaker 2: braver Angels, which organizes events to bring reds and blues
Speaker 2: together to have real, nuanced discussions about things they disagree
Speaker 2: about and help us understand and respect each other.
Speaker 1: That's great, It is great.
Speaker 2: That's quite yeah. I would love to peek in on
Speaker 2: one of these meetings and maybe go to one. They're
Speaker 2: doing a lot of online events now due to COVID
Speaker 2: and among other things, just launched a campaign called Hold
Speaker 2: America Together to prepare a response to potential election related
Speaker 2: conflict in November. Could you please tell your listeners about
Speaker 2: Braver Angels. Yes, and help keep our country together because
Speaker 2: America needs this. Love to all the reds and blues
Speaker 2: out there, and you guys are great at what you do.
Speaker 2: Join the braver Angels. That is from Christa, and just
Speaker 2: go to braver Angels dot org. B A R A
Speaker 2: v E r A n g e l s dot org.
Speaker 1: B R A v r A n g e l
Speaker 1: s dot org.
Speaker 2: That is correct.
Speaker 1: Okay, cool, that's fantastic. Thank you, Christa, and thanks to
Speaker 1: all the braver angels out there who are trying to
Speaker 1: keep the country together because, like Christa said, we kind
Speaker 1: of need it right now.
Speaker 2: And it is brave, it's it's uh, it's daunting to
Speaker 2: step outside your echo chamber.
Speaker 1: Oh man, it is. And it's just harder and harder
Speaker 1: because you know, the echoes have gotten stronger and stronger,
Speaker 1: so to hear something other than that, it's like just
Speaker 1: almost like makes your brain melt, you know.
Speaker 2: Pretty neat all.
Speaker 1: Right, Uh, Well, if you want to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us to let us know about some group or
Speaker 1: service the country or the world is in dire need of,
Speaker 1: we want to hear about it, you can send us
Speaker 1: an email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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