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