Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Future production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, Beavers. That's it,
Speaker 1: That's what we're talking about. Just beavers, straight up beavers,
Speaker 1: whole time, A hundred percent beavers a hundred percent of
Speaker 1: the time. Present Beavers, Beavers Part one, Beavers, Part two, Beavers,
Speaker 1: Part three, More Beavers. It's all about beavers, our favorite
Speaker 1: architect of the world. We're going to discover that not
Speaker 1: only are they incredible animals just how they are constructed,
Speaker 1: but how they construct the world around them and shape
Speaker 1: the ecology and the environment, and they have had a
Speaker 1: surprisingly large impact on human history. Discover this more as
Speaker 1: we answer the age old question will God get mad
Speaker 1: at you for eating beaver tails? Joining me today is
Speaker 1: writer for American Dad and co host of Quick Question
Speaker 1: with Thorn and Daniel Sore and Booie. Welcome, Hello, Hello, Katie.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. The way that you were
Speaker 1: describing this episode, it made me feel like I was
Speaker 1: walking down the street in nineties seventies New York and
Speaker 1: just all these smut stores around me that are just
Speaker 1: like beavers Part one. Beavers, Beavers everywhere, Beavers all the time.
Speaker 1: That must have been what it was seven all beavers,
Speaker 1: no questions, asked, Well, I'm talking about beavers because you
Speaker 1: requested it. You asked for beavers. Yeah, I did. This
Speaker 1: is uh, this is like I got I don't know
Speaker 1: when it happened, but at some point my eyes were
Speaker 1: open to the beaver and I was like, this is
Speaker 1: the most important species in North America. I wouldn't and
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about it, and I had no
Speaker 1: opportunity because no one wants to hear about beavers outside
Speaker 1: of like these very specific circumstances. So I jumped at
Speaker 1: the opportunity. When you gave me, you gave me an
Speaker 1: animal to choose. Yes, this is the place for it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: beavers are surprisingly important, and I think that they're maybe
Speaker 1: like I don't know if goofy would be the right
Speaker 1: word for it, but they're just very affable looking. They
Speaker 1: don't look like, you know, it's not like a jaguire
Speaker 1: or a lion where you're like, oh, yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: keystone species right there. But here they are sitting with
Speaker 1: their little paddle tails and buck teeth nibbling on some twigs,
Speaker 1: and you're like, you're just a beaver, what's the big deal?
Speaker 1: They wait, they walk is very funny. They kind of
Speaker 1: lumber around and they did their tails too heavy to
Speaker 1: even pick up. They got to drag it when they swim.
Speaker 1: They're kind of silly looking because they only swim with
Speaker 1: their back legs. They're real fun. There's nothing elegant about
Speaker 1: a beaver. They're kind of scary. Have you ever seen
Speaker 1: one in person? No? I haven't. I've seen one. I
Speaker 1: used to work on golf courses when I was younger,
Speaker 1: and golf courses are like, well, beavers are the bane
Speaker 1: of a golf course because they can flood areas of it,
Speaker 1: and also they build a lot of the golf courses
Speaker 1: in like these low lands, these like the low flat
Speaker 1: areas at the beginning of the bottom of like glacier ruins.
Speaker 1: But um, they they are huge, like they're much bigger
Speaker 1: than you expect, and they're terrifying looking because their teeth
Speaker 1: are like this bright bright orange. Yeah. Yeah, they are
Speaker 1: not the cartoon beaver with the chubby cheeks in the
Speaker 1: bright white teeth who looks small and cuddly. They're huge
Speaker 1: they are hefty, and they have bright orange, sharp chisel
Speaker 1: like teeth, which are as terrifying as they sound. To
Speaker 1: be frank, like, you were right to be afraid of
Speaker 1: the beavers. Don't let anyone shame you for being afraid
Speaker 1: of a beaver. There's been at least one fatality from
Speaker 1: a beaver. A beaver, I believe, bit a man so
Speaker 1: deep it severed his femoral artery and he died. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, I think you're gonna tell me that a
Speaker 1: beaver laid some sort of McCaulay colkinto with a had
Speaker 1: a tree right right right, a sort of Rube Goldberg
Speaker 1: device of trees and twigs and a pine cone, and
Speaker 1: then just like a big boulder. Yeah. No, he just
Speaker 1: bait him real good and he died from being bit
Speaker 1: so bad. Yeah. I don't don't remember home alone entirely,
Speaker 1: so to be fair, still could be that could have happened.
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I definitely don't mean to make light
Speaker 1: of anyone's death. Every death is a tragedy, but God,
Speaker 1: that must have been award you know. It's like it's
Speaker 1: not the most noble of death, like I was talking
Speaker 1: about earlier. You get eaten by a jaguar or a lion,
Speaker 1: and you're like, he was malled to death by a line.
Speaker 1: It's like, wow, okay, what a way to go out,
Speaker 1: malled to death by a beaver. But you know, they
Speaker 1: are a keystone species, so maybe that's a consolation prize.
Speaker 1: Probably not. Probably not. Uh So, beavers are giant rodents.
Speaker 1: The are the second largest rodents in the world, beat
Speaker 1: out only by the cappy bara. So yeah, they are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they they are rodents. They kind of maybe tricky a
Speaker 1: little bit with the flat tail instead of the long,
Speaker 1: thin tail, but they're absolutely rodents and gross when you
Speaker 1: say rodents, I don't Yeah, I guess that's not. Like
Speaker 1: that's not my favorite aspect of the beaver, that they're
Speaker 1: part of that family. But I mean, I'm willing to
Speaker 1: live with it. But cappy barras are rodents and they're
Speaker 1: adorable and sweet. I don't know, I kind of get
Speaker 1: creeped out by cappy bars with it really strange to me.
Speaker 1: I do like that, like other animals seem so um
Speaker 1: disarmed by them that you always see like a bunch
Speaker 1: of other animals around them, just like, yeah, I love
Speaker 1: this thing, big stuffed animal, but I don't know. They're
Speaker 1: all of them look like they like a Civil War
Speaker 1: general to me, Yeah, well, colonel, looks like I'm going
Speaker 1: to eat some alfalfa. Ah. That's what they would say
Speaker 1: all the time you were a kid. You're great. Improbably
Speaker 1: this watering hole is full of gatas doesn't bother me none.
Speaker 1: So uh. There are two species of living beavers, the
Speaker 1: North American beaver and the Eurasian beaver the North America.
Speaker 1: The North American beaver lives in North America. The Eurasian
Speaker 1: beaver lives in Eurasia. So the North American beaver is
Speaker 1: longer with a wider tail, and the Eurasian beaver has
Speaker 1: a thinner tail and a longer snout. I can't really
Speaker 1: tell them apart, so they all look like beavers. I
Speaker 1: was pretty excited when I suggested this to think, Oh,
Speaker 1: I wonder if there's a bet as accounts from when
Speaker 1: they first came to the United States. And I was
Speaker 1: assuming at this point that because I live in the
Speaker 1: United States, there are no beavers anywhere else in the world.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I wonder what it was like
Speaker 1: for them to first encounter beavers, And so I was
Speaker 1: like I'll look up Wiss and Clark and see like
Speaker 1: they're accounting of it. And then I was like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: they all knew what beavers were. Everybody knew what beavers
Speaker 1: were for centuries because they're everywhere. But maybe, uh, something
Speaker 1: that you might like to hear is that, certainly monks
Speaker 1: that would be scribes they didn't know what beavers were,
Speaker 1: and their interpretation of the beavers were extremely funny. Uh, yes,
Speaker 1: I would like to hear. Yes, we we will talk
Speaker 1: about that later in the show. Um, but just a teaser.
Speaker 1: Monks didn't know how to draw beavers. They really, they
Speaker 1: gave it a they gave it the good old college, try,
Speaker 1: the good old monastery tribe. But no, no, didn't know
Speaker 1: what a beaver was, didn't didn't really grasp sort of
Speaker 1: the critical aspects of the beaver and how you would
Speaker 1: represent what a beaver is. Um. So yeah, there were
Speaker 1: there are definitely accounts of people who didn't know what
Speaker 1: the beaver was and what to make of it. Just
Speaker 1: some quick fun beaver facts. Beavers in the wild lived
Speaker 1: to be about twelve years old, but they can live
Speaker 1: to be almost twenty in captivity. Most adult beavers weigh
Speaker 1: around forty to seventy pounds, that's sevent they're they're they're
Speaker 1: big guys. You know, they're hefty. Uh. They can reach
Speaker 1: up to around four ft or one point two meters long.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it is correct to fear the beaver. They're big.
Speaker 1: They're really and like their their body is just like
Speaker 1: a big mound too. So when you see them, obviously
Speaker 1: the tail gives them some extra length and that's a
Speaker 1: little unnerving to see a big leathery thing d behind them.
Speaker 1: But like, they they're pretty tall when they get old enough,
Speaker 1: like they're as tall as a little as like a
Speaker 1: moderate moderately sized dog. Yeah. Yeah, In fact, old fat
Speaker 1: beavers because they keep they can keep just growing almost
Speaker 1: until they die. They can weigh up to a hundred
Speaker 1: pounds or so. Yeah, I'm just I don't know why,
Speaker 1: but I just because beavers actually formed these like cohesive
Speaker 1: family units where they're they're um um managma, what am
Speaker 1: I trying to say? Monogau Yeah, and they will have
Speaker 1: like these you know, sometimes live with their extended families.
Speaker 1: I'm just imagining this like old like beaver patriarch with
Speaker 1: like a stogie sitting on the front porch of the
Speaker 1: beaver lodge. Just this massive mound of beaver. It's like,
Speaker 1: lift up, pep PEPs. Tale left a log under there
Speaker 1: to chew on and I can't reach it. That's a
Speaker 1: good little beaver, thank you. But speaking of large beavers,
Speaker 1: an extinct species of be he was the giant beaver,
Speaker 1: which was a bare sized beaver that lived in North
Speaker 1: America during the Oh Boy pleased a scene around three
Speaker 1: million years ago and went extinct around twelve thousand years ago.
Speaker 1: So we definitely coincided with a giant, bare sized beaver. Uh,
Speaker 1: which you know, you're it's fair to say you're maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit cautious around normal sized beavers. Imagine a
Speaker 1: bare sized beaver with the teeth and the tail and
Speaker 1: just the beaver energy, but sized up, you know, to bear.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm looking at the skeleton of it and it's scary.
Speaker 1: This is great. I want these now, this thing is Oh,
Speaker 1: here's a woman posing next to a statue of one,
Speaker 1: so I can get some real context here there. Uh
Speaker 1: her their teeth are about this, like one of their
Speaker 1: teeth is about the size of her face. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, have you ever seen like a beaver with
Speaker 1: just like a little twig that they sort of snap
Speaker 1: in half and easily chew through and get all the green,
Speaker 1: nice lipping tissue out of. Imagine that, but it's instead
Speaker 1: of a twig, it's you. You a person. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: thing could bite with through my legs one easy easy.
Speaker 1: It could like flosce its teeth with your entire body,
Speaker 1: no problem. Weirdly enough, it turns out humans survived rather
Speaker 1: than the beaver, so when it was giant bare sized
Speaker 1: beaver versus humans, we came out on top, which seems
Speaker 1: improbable given that the the the bare sized beavers were
Speaker 1: around six ft long or almost two meters, and could
Speaker 1: weigh up to two pounds or so. They're also semi aquatic,
Speaker 1: just like their modern relatives. They could take a massive
Speaker 1: amount of oxygen and main underwater for extended periods of time.
Speaker 1: So you could be an ancient human living in North
Speaker 1: America just bathing in a river and then just a
Speaker 1: massive bear beaver comes up out of the water and
Speaker 1: looks at you with its bright orange teeth and beady
Speaker 1: little roading eyes. I mean, given how family oriented beavers
Speaker 1: are and how like they need that sense of affection,
Speaker 1: you could steal one of those baby beavers. I guarantee
Speaker 1: at some point ancient man tried to domesticate and then
Speaker 1: ride one tried to mount the beaver. Yeah, that probably happened.
Speaker 1: Surely they would. There's no other reason to domesticate it.
Speaker 1: I don't think other than maybe you could train, just
Speaker 1: train it. I am trying to think of like riding
Speaker 1: the beaver though it's like hi, ho beaver, and then
Speaker 1: it's just sort of wattles, you know. Yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: I don't know how fast these are not they probably
Speaker 1: can't cover much ground. Not too fast, no, um, but
Speaker 1: you know you could like put your that would be
Speaker 1: if you don't need to go too fast, you could
Speaker 1: ride the beaver and like set your kid up on
Speaker 1: its tail. Whole family to sitting on the tail you're
Speaker 1: on the beaver. You know, it's about the experience. You
Speaker 1: don't get a beaver to go from a to beat.
Speaker 1: I mean, you get a you get a beaver because
Speaker 1: that's like your fun ride. That's when you take out
Speaker 1: for like a real spit right exactly exactly. And they
Speaker 1: don't have like the upkeep of like a giant sloth,
Speaker 1: So you know, it's it's a good option for for
Speaker 1: a small family. I think, um, can I get you
Speaker 1: in one of these bad boys today? Sore? And you
Speaker 1: know what, I think? What do I have to do
Speaker 1: to get you onto one of these bad boys right now? Uh?
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's brain was smaller proportionally to its body
Speaker 1: compared to today's beaver, so it was a lot dumber.
Speaker 1: So maybe that's why it died out. Uh. Humans might
Speaker 1: have hunted it to extinction. I can't imagine, like wanting
Speaker 1: to face a beaver in combat, but it's possible. There's
Speaker 1: not really evidence of that. Uh, but somehow they were there,
Speaker 1: big and beavery and now they're gone. So who knows?
Speaker 1: It is said the savor two tigers got him? I mean,
Speaker 1: but I don't think they could, because it's sure saber
Speaker 1: tooth tigers they got the big teeth, but beavers they
Speaker 1: got even bigger teeth and just like they do rattling
Speaker 1: their teeth together like sabers. That'd be fun to watch them.
Speaker 1: Fascinating thing. So we go to the Libra tarpits is
Speaker 1: here in l A and I go there frequently with
Speaker 1: my child, and uh, I learned a fascinating detail about
Speaker 1: sabre tooth tigers. That is obviously tangential to this, but
Speaker 1: I think could help inform how the sabre tooth tiger
Speaker 1: might have killed the beaver, which was they didn't grab
Speaker 1: their prayer around the neck because like wily mamison stuff,
Speaker 1: had so much fur and everything around their necks that
Speaker 1: they weren't choking out there the same way like a
Speaker 1: tiger or lion. Now, just like the easiest way to
Speaker 1: kill something is just cut off in socks, so like
Speaker 1: they just bite hard enough to do that. But thet
Speaker 1: same to tire couldn't do that because everything in the
Speaker 1: ice age was so furry, like thick with with fat.
Speaker 1: So they would just jump on its back whatever it was,
Speaker 1: it's ground sloth or whatever, and they would dig their
Speaker 1: teeth in as far as they could and then just
Speaker 1: follow the animal as it bled out. So it's like
Speaker 1: like a capri son, you just punch, punch a little
Speaker 1: hole in it, suck out the juice, that's right, and
Speaker 1: you just wait. Yeah, well, maybe maybe a saber tooth
Speaker 1: tiger could just kind of do a capri son on
Speaker 1: a giant beaver. I don't know. I wasn't there speaking
Speaker 1: speaking of giant teeth though, beavers have some of the
Speaker 1: most interesting impressive teeth in the natural world, and I'm
Speaker 1: talking about present day beavers. Beaver teeth constantly grow because
Speaker 1: they do, indeed eat trees. This is one of those
Speaker 1: things that like as a kid, I was like, they
Speaker 1: eat trees, And then when I was like a young adult,
Speaker 1: I was like, there's no way beavers eat trees. That's
Speaker 1: got to be a myth. And then now it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they eat trees, you know. Uh, So like they do
Speaker 1: tree bark um. They are herbivores. They eat a bunch
Speaker 1: of different types of plants, like aquatic plants, lily pads, cattails, rushes,
Speaker 1: They'll eat roots, leaves, ferns, human legs. Uh. They eat
Speaker 1: tree bark and camby um, which is a fleshy layer
Speaker 1: just under the bark. It's full of sugars um. They
Speaker 1: use trees not just in their diet but in their
Speaker 1: construction project, which we're gonna talk a little more after
Speaker 1: the break that's coming up. But um, before we talk
Speaker 1: about that, the teeth, the teeth that allows them to
Speaker 1: cut through all this wood. They are amazing. Their teeth
Speaker 1: are constantly growing because of all the heavy duty chewing
Speaker 1: they have to do. If they your teeth didn't constantly grow,
Speaker 1: they'd wear their teeth down to useless nubs in like
Speaker 1: a month. I feel very um connected to beavers because
Speaker 1: I actually clench and grind my teeth. It's like I
Speaker 1: have bruxi is um So I'm just like constantly clenching,
Speaker 1: and every time I go to the dentist, they're like,
Speaker 1: you're just gonna have like nubs for teeth if we
Speaker 1: don't do something about this soon. Yeah, I guess I'm
Speaker 1: a little jealous of all the I think like rats
Speaker 1: are the same way, where their teeth just keep growing. Uh,
Speaker 1: And that sounds great, I mean, because I'm constantly having
Speaker 1: terrifying dreams about shattering my teeth or my teeth falling
Speaker 1: out more and more tooth. Behind all of that, I
Speaker 1: feel so much better. I mean, just the prospect of
Speaker 1: chipping a tooth now it seems like your screw you
Speaker 1: won't survive, you can't eat anymore. Yeah. No, I mean
Speaker 1: that it is a problem for a lot of animals
Speaker 1: if there's a problem with your teeth as a carnivore
Speaker 1: or a nerb of I mean basically anything that needs
Speaker 1: to use their teeth to eat, which is most animals,
Speaker 1: if your teeth go wrong, then you just you die
Speaker 1: because you don't have any method of eating. So with beavers, actually,
Speaker 1: if they are unable to wear their teeth down, they
Speaker 1: can also die because if their teeth are misaligned and
Speaker 1: they don't get that constant where their teeth still grow.
Speaker 1: And so what happens is their teeth just grow and
Speaker 1: grow and grow. And you know, have you ever seen
Speaker 1: pictures of like gross, really long nails, and how like
Speaker 1: when nails get long enough they start to curl. It's
Speaker 1: the same thing that happens with their teeth. It just
Speaker 1: they grow until they start to curl and they can
Speaker 1: actually grow up from their mouth and curl around and
Speaker 1: like puncture their own skull, which is horrible awesome. And
Speaker 1: so I I so I gave you a picture of it. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's oh god, oh he's not long for this world.
Speaker 1: That will just go right into his brain, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: it depends where it hits him in his skull, but
Speaker 1: probably yeah. I mean this one that kind of looks
Speaker 1: like it's getting him, getting him in the eye a
Speaker 1: little bit, which is not great. Uh, there's no it's
Speaker 1: also like, once that's happened, it's not very easy to
Speaker 1: eat or probably think with tooth in your skull. So
Speaker 1: if tooth in the school doesn't get him, probably the
Speaker 1: inability to eat well. So not not a great uh,
Speaker 1: not a good thing. This happens to uh any beaver
Speaker 1: that has a condition known as malclusions. So yeah, beaver
Speaker 1: retainers would potentially save beaver lives. But for a healthy beaver,
Speaker 1: their teeth will be worn down into a perfect tree
Speaker 1: cutting chisel shape because, like you mentioned earlier, sore and
Speaker 1: their teeth are bright orange, and that is because they
Speaker 1: are so rich in iron that they have this discoloration.
Speaker 1: So their enamel on the front of their tooth is
Speaker 1: packed with iron, and on the other side of the
Speaker 1: tooth it's softer, just made of dentine. So as they chew,
Speaker 1: it causes uneven wearing because the front wears slower than
Speaker 1: the back, and that causes an angle to form, and
Speaker 1: then that way, their teeth are actually shaped like chisels,
Speaker 1: and that chisel shape is much better at getting into
Speaker 1: wood and cutting into it like an axe. That's really cool.
Speaker 1: So it's they're just basically you're creating a sharp edge
Speaker 1: every single time, they's they self sharpened, they self sharpened.
Speaker 1: They're constantly growing and self sharpening. It's I mean, I
Speaker 1: wish I had kitchen knives, but it was just beaver.
Speaker 1: I guess that would be really good because then you
Speaker 1: wouldn't need to sharpen them. You just uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't need to get a new new beaver when
Speaker 1: it wears down. I guess you would need to get
Speaker 1: a new beaver like in twenty years when it dies.
Speaker 1: But no, that'd be great. Could you imagine how fast
Speaker 1: a beaver could like Julian a carrot perfect? Oh man,
Speaker 1: it would be so quick. Yeah. I So there's a
Speaker 1: documentary I think it's on PBS. It's on Nature where
Speaker 1: they that's the one where that maybe fall in love
Speaker 1: with beavers, And in it they're talking about how, uh,
Speaker 1: every single night, like a beaver can chop down tons
Speaker 1: of trees. And I thought I thought it took a
Speaker 1: beaver very very long time to chop down a single tree,
Speaker 1: like you think about the diameter of like a a
Speaker 1: birch or something that's maybe a foot or twelve inches,
Speaker 1: And it turns out that they could do that in
Speaker 1: like four hours. Yeah. Yeah, nothing to them. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: it's a small enough tree, they can sometimes fell like
Speaker 1: a more slender tree and just like fifty minutes. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, and they they will. The fact that each
Speaker 1: individual beaver can bring down a tree so quickly means
Speaker 1: that they will have huge, huge impacts in their environment.
Speaker 1: You know, you imagine just one beaver being able to
Speaker 1: take out multiple trees in a day, and then you
Speaker 1: increase that number two millions of beavers. They have just
Speaker 1: a massive, massive impact on the local ecosystem in what
Speaker 1: I considered to be a positive way. Maybe golf courses
Speaker 1: don't consider it to be a thing, but yeah, we
Speaker 1: will talk about the way that beavers are one of
Speaker 1: the world's most impressive environmental engineers. Right after, so excited,
Speaker 1: so excited. I so we we got a cat recently,
Speaker 1: a little kitten, and uh I for the first time.
Speaker 1: Put I haven't had a cat since I was a child.
Speaker 1: And I had to put fleet stuff on. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like just these little drops. So I like push
Speaker 1: as she's eating and very calm, I pushed this the
Speaker 1: fur up. I put squirre it on and they're like,
Speaker 1: be careful not to get this in your cat's eyes. Dude,
Speaker 1: it's very bad if you get this in your cat's eyes.
Speaker 1: So I squired it on there and I'm like, good done,
Speaker 1: and I put pull my hands away and she feels
Speaker 1: something wet on her neck, so she immediately shakes and
Speaker 1: it goes right in my eye. And I was like,
Speaker 1: oh God. So I run to the to the sink
Speaker 1: and I'm just splashing water in there, trying to get
Speaker 1: as much as I can in there. And then I
Speaker 1: read the instructions again. It was like, if you get
Speaker 1: this in your eyes, hold the eye open and wash
Speaker 1: it for fifteen to twenty minutes. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: the eyes gone. Then there's no way I could do
Speaker 1: this for fifteen or twenty minutes. And it stung and
Speaker 1: it didn't feel great the rest of the night, and
Speaker 1: then I went to sleep and I woke up in
Speaker 1: the morning and my eye was crusted shut, like to
Speaker 1: the point where I like pull out of my eyelashes
Speaker 1: and finally got it open and it was finding. But
Speaker 1: I was like, there was a perilous moment where I thought,
Speaker 1: that's it. That's it from my eye. At least you
Speaker 1: don't at least you don't have to worry about getting
Speaker 1: fleas in your eye though. That's that's a really nice
Speaker 1: silver lining, Kati, Yes, so so. And you know how
Speaker 1: Elon Musk is always talking about how he's going to
Speaker 1: terraform this, and he's going to terraform that. You know, No,
Speaker 1: but that seems like something he would say. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: just terraform Mars. We're gonna terraform, you know, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do some light terraform and over here, Uh, screw Alon Musk.
Speaker 1: The real terraform ers of the world are beavers. Uh.
Speaker 1: They have a complex social system and build structures that
Speaker 1: not only help them survive but shape the world around them.
Speaker 1: So as we all know, I think I think I
Speaker 1: can comfortably say, as everyone knows, beavers build dams the
Speaker 1: kind of they're defining characteristic um other than the weird
Speaker 1: tails in the big teeth. And they also build lodges,
Speaker 1: which are where the beavers live. The beavers don't really
Speaker 1: live in the dams. The dams are just to make
Speaker 1: their area of the water more comfortable for them. So uh,
Speaker 1: usually they will build in a freshwater area. Rivers, streams, ponds,
Speaker 1: and lakes are all candidates for beaver construction projects. Beavers
Speaker 1: will create a wooden fortress right in the body of
Speaker 1: the water. And this fortress where they sleep and they
Speaker 1: you know, raise their young and uh stay warm in
Speaker 1: the winter, is called a lodge. So the dam is
Speaker 1: basically just they don't like flowing water. One could say
Speaker 1: they hate flowing water. They hate the sound of it.
Speaker 1: The sound of it drives them to start building a dam. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the dam will slow the flow of water such
Speaker 1: that they have a nice serene, uh bucolic uh pond
Speaker 1: for them to build their residence. We talked a lot
Speaker 1: about their incredible memorial artery chomping teeth, and they can
Speaker 1: use these to carefully cut trees at a forty five
Speaker 1: degree angle so that they will fall down efficiently and
Speaker 1: in a predictable fashion. And they use a bunch of
Speaker 1: rocks as the base of their dam, and then they
Speaker 1: use those rocks to way down the logs that they
Speaker 1: stack up, and uh they use muddy grass to patch
Speaker 1: up the whole. So some real complex construction going on.
Speaker 1: And while it doesn't completely stop the flow of water,
Speaker 1: it slows it down enough that building a lodge is possible.
Speaker 1: So beaver lodges are where they sleep where they seek shelter.
Speaker 1: Some of them can be fancier as a beaver ages
Speaker 1: and gets more experienced, like more construction experience, their lodges
Speaker 1: and damn building will get better and they might add
Speaker 1: in like a dining room, maybe a foyer. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: maybe an alcove. Uh it's ah uh. So inside the
Speaker 1: lodge there's a raised floor above water levels, so they
Speaker 1: actually stay nice and dry even though there's no entry
Speaker 1: point outside of the water. So under the lodge you'll
Speaker 1: have usually a couple of entrances, if not more, but
Speaker 1: you have to dive under the water and swim up
Speaker 1: through a tunnel to get into the lodge. And inside
Speaker 1: it's raised up so they're dry. But nobody like unless
Speaker 1: you're aquatic and willing to swim under this construction, you
Speaker 1: cannot get inside at the lodge, so that keeps them
Speaker 1: safe from most predators. And they also will create a raft,
Speaker 1: which is a huge underwater mound of edible sticks and logs.
Speaker 1: It goes so deep underwater most herbivorous animals can't get
Speaker 1: to it. So during the winter, when a lot of
Speaker 1: animals are suffering from malnutrition or lack of resources, beavers
Speaker 1: are all set up. They have this great food supply
Speaker 1: that they can just kind of quickly exit their little lodge, grab,
Speaker 1: go back in, warm up, have a little cute little
Speaker 1: beaver time where they snack on all the logs that
Speaker 1: they've stored up. Uh. And so the only exception is
Speaker 1: like a novice beaver may build a pretty pathetic lodge
Speaker 1: and damn on their first attempts. It's definitely learning process.
Speaker 1: Usually young beavers will learn from the older generations, but
Speaker 1: it is sometimes a little bit pitiful, Like they'll put
Speaker 1: some sticks together and it immediately gets washed away, which well,
Speaker 1: they don't have to they don't always have to start
Speaker 1: from scratch. I mean, they're like they'll find there are
Speaker 1: a lot of like um, abandoned beaver lodges. But then
Speaker 1: a young beaver can come along and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: this looks like a nice fixer upper, and they can.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the reasons I like to beaver
Speaker 1: so much that I think that home renovation and monogamy
Speaker 1: are cool and that goes against the grid, and I
Speaker 1: think that if we can start telling everybody, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: these are actually cool aspects. These are character traits that
Speaker 1: are really cool, then maybe everyone would think a little
Speaker 1: bit more highly of the beaver. Who are you, Tim
Speaker 1: Allen in the popular nineties sitcom Boam Improvement. Does that
Speaker 1: answer your question? Um? Yeah, like they I guess they's
Speaker 1: some of the um abandoned ones that they've torn apart,
Speaker 1: the lodges. They found wood in there. That's like a
Speaker 1: thousand years like that. They just keep using these places because,
Speaker 1: like he, the beavers leave it when they run out
Speaker 1: of food in a particular area. But then the benefit
Speaker 1: of having this huge these like deep canals dug everywhere
Speaker 1: and like these swampy areas is that as soon as
Speaker 1: a beaver leaves, that place just reflourishes with all kinds
Speaker 1: of plants and stuff, and the next beaver can set us,
Speaker 1: set up shop and eat all over again. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 1: In fact, communal beaver dams and constructions can last for
Speaker 1: many decades. In fact, in Canada's Wood Buffalo National Park,
Speaker 1: beavers have constructed a damn about a half mile long,
Speaker 1: so that's just about under a kilometer and it's so
Speaker 1: large it can be seen from space, which I just
Speaker 1: love that. We're like, oh man, the Great Wall can
Speaker 1: be seen from space. Human constructions is just like beavers
Speaker 1: are over here going like, hey, us to look at
Speaker 1: what would made this out? Would check this out? Humans?
Speaker 1: Forget about the beavers. Don't forget about us. You're trying
Speaker 1: to forget about the beavers again, didn't you trying to
Speaker 1: escape on your little spaceships? Not this time. You're not
Speaker 1: helping me make the beaver cool? Just a cool voice.
Speaker 1: Sure I've been doing it all wrong. So yeah, they
Speaker 1: have been working on this construction since the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1: So this giant damn in would Buffalo National Park, it
Speaker 1: is uh from the nineteen seventies, if not older. And
Speaker 1: given that beavers only live an average of twelve years
Speaker 1: in the wild, this is the work of about four
Speaker 1: generations of beavers. So yeah, just they are absolutely capable
Speaker 1: of these massive, massive construction projects. Sometimes it's multigenerational, probably
Speaker 1: passed on from one family to the younger generation. Not
Speaker 1: only only can they make huge dams that will cause
Speaker 1: flooding and slow the movement of water, they can also
Speaker 1: create canals to other ponds, rivers, and bodies of water
Speaker 1: like you mentioned earlier. And they do this mostly out
Speaker 1: of laziness because they don't as much as we think
Speaker 1: it's cute to see them waddling on land, they don't
Speaker 1: like to do that. So they will build a canal
Speaker 1: from their pond to another body of water so they
Speaker 1: can easily just like zoom right to another source of food. Uh,
Speaker 1: just like a like a like a beaver hyperloop. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, suck on it. Elon the beavers. I just
Speaker 1: love that beavers are such a bane to rich people.
Speaker 1: They're flooding their golf courses, They're ruining their walmarts. They're
Speaker 1: constant reminder walmarts. Well they own the walmarts, right, we
Speaker 1: go to the walmarts, they on the walmarts. But yeah,
Speaker 1: like I love that they humiliate Elon Musk because they've
Speaker 1: done everything Elon Musk says he's gonna do, but can't do.
Speaker 1: What are they So they they're just not great walkers, right, Like,
Speaker 1: they just don't walk well on land. So is it
Speaker 1: that they're underwater they're just safer? Is that? Yeah, they're faster,
Speaker 1: they're safer. Uh, it's easier, takes less you know, effort. So,
Speaker 1: like to pull wood and vegetation from another place, pulling
Speaker 1: it on land is a lot harder course, So that
Speaker 1: makes perfect sense. Yeah, it's way easier to carry a
Speaker 1: whole tree underwater. Yeah, to try drag it across the land. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like a beaver interstate or I guess like inter
Speaker 1: inter pond, interpool, yeah, interpola. So all these beaver constructions
Speaker 1: have a massive effect on the ecosystem, which makes them
Speaker 1: a keystone species, which means a species of animal that
Speaker 1: has a disproportion effect on their ecosystem. So they are
Speaker 1: the biggest architects of the environment other than humans, which
Speaker 1: you know, we have a disproportional effect on our environment.
Speaker 1: But unlike the beaver's, uh, we're not maybe taking into
Speaker 1: consideration biodiversity when we're doing it, not that the beaver's
Speaker 1: really like sat down and thought about it, like we're
Speaker 1: going to be environmentally friendly, Like we we want to
Speaker 1: build a dam, and we want to build a big
Speaker 1: pile sticks in the middle of the pond, but we're
Speaker 1: going to do it in a way that's like helpful.
Speaker 1: I do like that. That's it's almost not even fair,
Speaker 1: Like we are basically this not to get too philosophical,
Speaker 1: but but that we are basically this parasite that we
Speaker 1: treat the earth kind of like a host where we
Speaker 1: just sort of like take, take, take, and and the beaver,
Speaker 1: like the beaver is relentless, like it's just it's cutting
Speaker 1: down trees all night. Face value of beaver does the
Speaker 1: sound great. It's damming up water so it keep water
Speaker 1: can't get to certain areas. It's cutting it on a
Speaker 1: bunch of trees at night. It sounds like, oh, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I can relate to that. That's what people do too.
Speaker 1: But no, like what they're actually doing is with these damns,
Speaker 1: they're creating these floodplains, and they're creating these areas that
Speaker 1: now allow tons of other life to sustain. Like all
Speaker 1: these other species now are can come to this one
Speaker 1: area because now it's much more lush and green than
Speaker 1: it ordinarily would have been. Just a straight channel river
Speaker 1: or stream was like flowing through it. And they're so
Speaker 1: good for the environment. Then they don't even eat the
Speaker 1: other animals either. They're just sitting there eating their sticks
Speaker 1: and they're content and in their big lodges in the
Speaker 1: middle of winter, they're like, oh, muskrats, would you like
Speaker 1: to come join us in our lodge? And the muskrats like, yeah,
Speaker 1: don't mind if I do well, family of rats, would
Speaker 1: you like to live in here too? And like these
Speaker 1: other they just these they build these boarding houses essentially
Speaker 1: for other animals. I'm just so mad, so mad that well,
Speaker 1: if it makes you feel any better. From the trees perspective,
Speaker 1: the beaver is the world greatest villain. That's true. That's true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: beavers and lumberjacks. So yeah, you're you're absolutely right. They
Speaker 1: create these huge wetlands single handedly, or like single potted
Speaker 1: lee single yeah, single tailedly. It's hard to decide that job.
Speaker 1: All terrible puns here, folks. But yeah, So they raise
Speaker 1: the water table, so that means that there's more access
Speaker 1: to fresh water above ground. In addition, their dams also
Speaker 1: filter out pollutants and helps slow the loss of soil
Speaker 1: through erosion, and this can change the environment chemically, like
Speaker 1: raising the levels of nitrogen in the soil, which makes
Speaker 1: it more fertile and increases the bio diversity of plant life.
Speaker 1: So beavers moving change up the water system and suddenly
Speaker 1: you just have all these new speech use of plants
Speaker 1: that are able to live there because the soil is
Speaker 1: much more nutritious, there's more access to water above the ground,
Speaker 1: accessible to plants and it's amazing. They just like make
Speaker 1: it verdant and full of plant life. Um. This also
Speaker 1: increases the number of aquatic life in the area, uh
Speaker 1: that thrives in the calmer waters that beavers constructs, so
Speaker 1: things like snails and earthworms, dragonflies, frogs, even muscles, um.
Speaker 1: And then once you get all of these little critters
Speaker 1: into the pond, then that has a cascading effect of
Speaker 1: inviting bigger animals in. So uh it increases like fish
Speaker 1: populations like salmon and trout, lots of birds, especially aquatic
Speaker 1: birds who love to come in and feast upon this
Speaker 1: like little biosphere that these beavers have created. Ah. And
Speaker 1: uh it can even have like these really unexpected effects,
Speaker 1: like increasing bat populations because bats like to often feed
Speaker 1: around water, especially where you're gonna have a lot of
Speaker 1: insect activity, and so you'll you'll have this increase in
Speaker 1: bat populations. And it's just it's like kind of a
Speaker 1: jump to get from like beaver cuts down tree, puts
Speaker 1: the tree in water, and now you have more bats.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, what's the problem. How is that hard to understand?
Speaker 1: The beavers make bats beavers? Yeah, yeah, I mean, like
Speaker 1: that's that's the thing right, So like bats like Batman
Speaker 1: is really cool, but really Beaverman would be uh, would
Speaker 1: be able to defeat Batman right by the laws of nature,
Speaker 1: young Beaman. Yeah, I guess like beaver probably, I guess
Speaker 1: in this analogy, I guess, um, you know what's his name?
Speaker 1: I was gonna say Jeeves, but I know that's not right.
Speaker 1: Batman's but alert Uh Alfred, yeah, Alfred right, yeah, Alfred,
Speaker 1: he would be Bieverman, right, because Alfred is the one
Speaker 1: who fostered uh Batman. Yes, so Batman, Bruce Wade wouldn't
Speaker 1: be here without without without biman ak Alfred, sorry, Bieverman.
Speaker 1: Beverman can't believe I keep calling, keep blowing his cover.
Speaker 1: It would be really funny to have Batman like putting
Speaker 1: on his mask Era and like putting on his coal
Speaker 1: and being like, I'm going to get in the car,
Speaker 1: and Alfred's like, oh true, forgeting something, Master Bruce, and
Speaker 1: he's just dressed as a bes like, I don't, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think maybe not tonight. Could you could
Speaker 1: you at least lose the teeth no muster booth that
Speaker 1: is an integral part of my costume, and Batman just
Speaker 1: doesn't want to go out with takes him out a
Speaker 1: couple of times just to be like, well, it's like
Speaker 1: doing your ride along with a cop. Like he's going
Speaker 1: to take him out just to let him see the
Speaker 1: sights and let him feel like he's being but like, really,
Speaker 1: Beaverman just kind of gets in the way. I'm the
Speaker 1: terror who slaps in the night. Do you have a
Speaker 1: warn for this, Master Ruse, I told you not to
Speaker 1: use my name most Bruce Batman Batman Master Bruce, I
Speaker 1: am so sorry, but yeah, Beaverman much cooler than Batman. Um.
Speaker 1: They have just an enormous impact on the ecosystem. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like anything that has an impact on the ecosystem.
Speaker 1: They can have a negative impact on some species, so uh,
Speaker 1: animals that would prefer a fast moving river to a pond,
Speaker 1: some migratory species of birds that want dense forests rather
Speaker 1: than wetlands. They'll have a negative impact on their populations.
Speaker 1: But in the balance, Beaver's increased biodiversity. So for every
Speaker 1: like species that is not pleased with what they've done
Speaker 1: with the place, there's like five others who are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is great, we love everything. Just being a big
Speaker 1: old swamp. There's like when they want to reintroduce wolves
Speaker 1: to an area in the United States, they're like, well,
Speaker 1: are their beavers there? It's like they need beavers there
Speaker 1: first before like wolves can be reintroduced. It's it's like
Speaker 1: they're connected to every other species and it's like it's
Speaker 1: like a big game of um seven six degrees of
Speaker 1: Kevin Bacon where they all lead back to the beaver,
Speaker 1: but it just takes a little while to figure out
Speaker 1: how to get there. How many degrees do you think
Speaker 1: Kevin Bacon is from a beaver? I could figure it
Speaker 1: out just one, right, It's just Bacon to beaver directly,
Speaker 1: there's no middleman. Yeah, I think it's probably true. Beavers
Speaker 1: have a direct line to Kevin Bacon and him right now. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they've got He was like, you are you do you
Speaker 1: like Kevin Bacon? You'll like, I can get you right
Speaker 1: and riding with Kevin Bacon. I could fite him over.
Speaker 1: We could be here by two o'clock. He loves swimming.
Speaker 1: I'll just put some put some logs on stoven. He'll
Speaker 1: come right over. Yeah. So yeah, it's there an amazing
Speaker 1: example of how it is definitely possible to drastically alter
Speaker 1: the environment without causing a total collapse of the ecosystem,
Speaker 1: which is something beavers have done. But humans, you know,
Speaker 1: m you know, we we got we got a few
Speaker 1: light issues with our like punching a hole in the
Speaker 1: ozone and papers are like, oh, you don't want to
Speaker 1: do that. Actually you don't know that beaver. Maybe some
Speaker 1: more species will really like this. No, that's not I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure. No. Have you thought about maybe just putting
Speaker 1: some sticks in the water. That's pretty nice. We tried
Speaker 1: and it was bull beaver. Well, when we get back
Speaker 1: right after the break, we're going to talk more about
Speaker 1: the relationship between beavers and people, and stay tunned until
Speaker 1: the end of the episode because we will be revealing
Speaker 1: the answer to last week's Mystery animal sound contest and
Speaker 1: giving you a whole new mystery sound to ponder over beavers, beavers,
Speaker 1: and some people. Yeah, so, beavers have had a very
Speaker 1: complex relationship with humans, going back to ancient times. We
Speaker 1: have often used beavers towards our own twisted ends, or
Speaker 1: thought of them as pests due to the flooding that
Speaker 1: they can cause, which I think it's sad. I like beavers,
Speaker 1: we hunted almost extinction. Yeah, I think that's I know
Speaker 1: it is sad, right, it's pretty sad. Uh. If you
Speaker 1: have listened to some of the older episodes of this show,
Speaker 1: or if you've send to Alex Schmidt's great podcast, secretly
Speaker 1: incredibly fascinating the episode on vanilla, which I'm biased towards
Speaker 1: because I was actually the gift on that one because
Speaker 1: he knew how much I wanted to talk about beaver butts.
Speaker 1: You may note that beaver anal glands secrete a musk
Speaker 1: that can be used as artificial vanilla flavoring. Yum, yum, yum.
Speaker 1: Give me some of that. But just imagining a farmer
Speaker 1: waking up in the morning, you know, the sun's rising.
Speaker 1: He goes out to the barn. It's filled with beavers.
Speaker 1: He gets out a little tiny pale. It's like, all right, chompers,
Speaker 1: it's your turn just expressing those glands. All right, let
Speaker 1: me just get right in here, choppers. I know, I
Speaker 1: know it's uh, and they makes such fundtle noises to
Speaker 1: beavers do kind of like a Yeah, in medieval times
Speaker 1: people mistook the beaver's anal glands for their testicles, and
Speaker 1: because in medieval times, actually people did want to use
Speaker 1: that anal secretion called castoreum for a variety of things, uh, perfumes,
Speaker 1: vanilla flavoring, probably an aphrodisiac. I actually don't know that.
Speaker 1: It's just most animal parts, most like weird animal parts
Speaker 1: where we're like, let's eat this. It's usually something like
Speaker 1: oh yeah, this, this will set them move some beaver
Speaker 1: anal gland juice. Uh is that what castor oil is? Then? No,
Speaker 1: castor oil is from castor seed, I believe, whereas castoreum
Speaker 1: is the beaver butt juice. So but yeah, in medieval
Speaker 1: times they thought castoreum came from beaver testicles, and so
Speaker 1: there was a myth about beavers chewing off their own
Speaker 1: testicles so they wouldn't be hunted. And gosh, many monks
Speaker 1: sure tried hard to draw this happening. They really did try. Uh.
Speaker 1: One guy said it like good enough for us put
Speaker 1: in the books. Yeah, I draw it. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: so I shared this with you. Sort of course it
Speaker 1: will be in the show notes. But it is a
Speaker 1: picture of a hunter on a horse, you know, majestic,
Speaker 1: beautiful stallion, and then a beaver. Uh it looks I
Speaker 1: don't know, kind of like a dog. Yeah, And it
Speaker 1: is chewing its own testicles off. That's the important part.
Speaker 1: Its tail isn't quite what one would consider a beaver
Speaker 1: tail to be. These kind of long, elegant lap back legs,
Speaker 1: some kind of like sharp ears and yeah, then like
Speaker 1: a little kind of like a whiff a whiff of
Speaker 1: a tail. Yeah, I guess they're trying to show that
Speaker 1: it's flat. It's not. There's there's not a lot of
Speaker 1: beaver connection I'm seeing to this. And this is a
Speaker 1: theme if you just google like medieval beaver drawing. Uh
Speaker 1: not many people past the test of you know, is
Speaker 1: this a beaver to the to the credit of the monks,
Speaker 1: I don't think they understand genitals generally, because there's something
Speaker 1: strange going on with the horse as well. And not
Speaker 1: that I'm like that's the first thing, right, kind of
Speaker 1: sounds like it, but you know, go on the horses.
Speaker 1: The horses genitals in this picture are also very confusing.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of like curls. It's a little bit
Speaker 1: of a sort of looks more like a note signature
Speaker 1: or something on a piece of music. It's not really uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and not I'm not you know, not to
Speaker 1: say like I would have preferred them to have lovingly
Speaker 1: crafted a very realistic horse apparatus. But you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: and they do have an interesting idea for because like
Speaker 1: the beaver is chewing off its own testicles, but the
Speaker 1: position of it is like not quite physically speaking, since
Speaker 1: making a testicles stone look qui, they look more like
Speaker 1: laby a major Yeah. It actually you know what, if
Speaker 1: you didn't know they were testicles, it kind of looks
Speaker 1: like an attempt to draw the big beaver teeth. Yeah, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's the most beaver aspect. You're absolutely right, that's the
Speaker 1: most beaver aspect of this entire picture. Right, But those
Speaker 1: are in fact actually testicles. Maybe that's why maybe they
Speaker 1: thought their teeth were testicles. Man, med medieval guys must
Speaker 1: have been really sick with something, so like it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what that's what they're looking down. Yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: a normal testicle looks like. That's what how they became monks.
Speaker 1: They realized early on, this can't be right, this can't
Speaker 1: be right. I'm just gonna go to a monastery. I
Speaker 1: don't think this is right. I'm not gonna put any
Speaker 1: more thought into it. This is just can't be it. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: in fact, you know, the not only do beavers not
Speaker 1: chew off their own testicles. Testicles have nothing to do
Speaker 1: with castrium. It is just the anal glands, the musk
Speaker 1: that they use for territorial marking. Nevertheless, people throughout history
Speaker 1: have tried castoreum for a number of uses for the
Speaker 1: treatment of ailments such as vertigo, flatulence, epilepsy, sciatica, hiccups,
Speaker 1: and toothaches. Uh. None of these I believe have ever
Speaker 1: been like backed up by any data that it works.
Speaker 1: It was also thought to be useful to treat toxic
Speaker 1: womb syndrome uh and hysteria in women, which were very
Speaker 1: very real diseases and not things doctors just made up
Speaker 1: to explain when like your wife didn't want to cook
Speaker 1: dinner for you every night. Uh. I just love I
Speaker 1: don't know, I love all the weird names we gave
Speaker 1: to like women just generally not being super happy with like,
Speaker 1: you know, just women star like, Yeah, get the general
Speaker 1: displeasure of the system that was built for them. I'm saying, Oh,
Speaker 1: I do think I might like the right to vote.
Speaker 1: Sounds like you've got a case of womb with legs.
Speaker 1: The case of the flying womb. Yeah, because wandering wounds
Speaker 1: syndrome was another one which I don't I guess they
Speaker 1: thought the womb went somewhere where it's not supposed to.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so apparently, uh, beaver anal beaver anal glands
Speaker 1: good for um, the disease that women would get when
Speaker 1: they were less than happy with medieval life. Um. So
Speaker 1: probably the beaver butt juice doesn't help with most of
Speaker 1: these ailments. But it does have a chemical composition that
Speaker 1: includes solicilic acid, which is from their tree bark heavy diet,
Speaker 1: which does make it somewhat chemically similar to aspirin. So
Speaker 1: maybe there were some legit uses for it. But disclaimer,
Speaker 1: like I wouldn't go around huffing beaver butt instead of
Speaker 1: just going to the pharmacy and getting an aspirin. Although
Speaker 1: the way things are going now, I just feel like
Speaker 1: that's going to be the next thing. Right. It's like,
Speaker 1: first horse butt medicine, now beaver butt medicine for like,
Speaker 1: you know, for just anything, any weird thing we can
Speaker 1: try to put in our bodies. Uh, as long as
Speaker 1: it doesn't come in like, you know, a pharmaceutical bottle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as long as the Western medicine didn't create it. I
Speaker 1: think that this is a good good thing to put
Speaker 1: away in your brain if you're ever in a hatchet situation. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're out there in the world and you got
Speaker 1: a headache by the beaver, give it a shot. When
Speaker 1: you survived the ordeal, come back and tell us. If
Speaker 1: a beaver choose off your legs and it really hurts,
Speaker 1: grab that beaver and rubb its butt against your face.
Speaker 1: You know, it's only fair beaver causes the problem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just like, look, you took my legs, now I'm taking
Speaker 1: your butt. Glance. Um. This is just kind of a
Speaker 1: fun little thing. In medieval Europe, beavers were not even
Speaker 1: really considered mammals given their aquatic nature, so their leathery, scaly,
Speaker 1: fish like tails were not considered to be red meat.
Speaker 1: They thought this is probably more like fish. So the
Speaker 1: Catholic Church allowed people to eat beaver tails during Lent.
Speaker 1: What a weird detail that they allowed to stay through history.
Speaker 1: Someone thought to write that down at some point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, we can eat beaver tails those that's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. I just love that. The Catholic Church just
Speaker 1: like all these parishioners going like, well, what about beaver tails.
Speaker 1: What do you mean what about beaver tails? Well, they're
Speaker 1: not really red meat right there, kind of fish. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess, so you can eat beaver tails. What about
Speaker 1: the fish part of the beaver. Yeah, the fish part
Speaker 1: of the beaver is fine. Eat that. What about its head? No, no,
Speaker 1: just the tail, that's the mammal part. What about its balls, Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: you can do that. Obviously it's balls. I'm so sick
Speaker 1: of answering these questions. Uh so. Yeah. Beavers were a
Speaker 1: major force in the history of North America, both before
Speaker 1: and after European colonization. Obviously, aside from the fact that
Speaker 1: they created these verdant oasis is of biodiversity that was
Speaker 1: very good for humans to be able to go and
Speaker 1: fish and live off the land. Uh. Beaver meat was
Speaker 1: very popular among many American Indian tribes and nations due
Speaker 1: to the fact that they remain well fed even in winter.
Speaker 1: So uh, you know, they have that larder of logs
Speaker 1: under the water that they have access throughout the wind
Speaker 1: throughout the winter, so they stay nice and fatty, whereas
Speaker 1: other animals might struggle more during the winter. So for
Speaker 1: a hungry human, finding a beaver a nice plump beaver
Speaker 1: during the winter would be a real real windfall. Now,
Speaker 1: after European colonization, the fur trade was a major driver
Speaker 1: of colonization and expansion. In fact, it was so profitable
Speaker 1: and so popular that it was the cause of the
Speaker 1: Beaver Wars also known as the French and Iroquois Wars
Speaker 1: from around sixteen hundred to seventeen hundred. If you're wondering, like, well,
Speaker 1: why were beaver pelts so popular? Were people just going
Speaker 1: around with like furry hats all the time? Uh, you
Speaker 1: could do a lot of modifications to beaver pelts. So
Speaker 1: they would actually make top hats out of beaver pelts
Speaker 1: by removing the guard hairs so it didn't look like
Speaker 1: a fluffy beaver coat. They would, you know, remove all
Speaker 1: the guard hairs and so you'd have this like tough
Speaker 1: but very shiny like material that they could make a
Speaker 1: fancy top hat. And so that's totally worth nearly driving
Speaker 1: a species to extinction and taking over the land of
Speaker 1: people who already lived here. Ah, Yeah, to get your
Speaker 1: shiny hats. Kind of what it boiled down to the
Speaker 1: beaver pelt was there are a bunch of different hats
Speaker 1: you can make like, um, the remember the Napoleon's type
Speaker 1: of hat, like that kind of hat like there they
Speaker 1: structurally held up very well, like they'd stick stick up
Speaker 1: off the top of the head very well. And it's
Speaker 1: just kind of like this nice felty material and hats
Speaker 1: were I guess really important. Yeah, it was like we're like,
Speaker 1: we went to war for hats. It's weird. We like,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe this is oversimplifying it, but we drove
Speaker 1: the Native American people from their homes partially because it's like,
Speaker 1: we can make a lot of money out of hats.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I saw it. When I did look up
Speaker 1: lou Sin Clark, I was amazed to see how much
Speaker 1: there was, how much they had written about the beaver,
Speaker 1: and it turned out that, like Jefferson, there's just tons
Speaker 1: of it. First of all, they did eat it a lot.
Speaker 1: The it was like their favorite thing to eat along
Speaker 1: the way. And then they also, uh, they talked about
Speaker 1: it a lot because I because I guess jeff Jefferson
Speaker 1: was really interested in the fur trade, and like that
Speaker 1: was part of the reason that you sent them out
Speaker 1: there through this huge exploration, not only to see how
Speaker 1: far the rivers go, to see how much land they
Speaker 1: had a mass but they were like, no, we need
Speaker 1: to set up our own fur trade, and so we
Speaker 1: need to find out how many beaver we have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is like one of the things that
Speaker 1: is frustrating to me about how like American history is
Speaker 1: taught in schools, because like I think, now it's not
Speaker 1: being whitewashed as much, but it's like, you know, when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, it was like, yeah, we we
Speaker 1: needed to find a place to escape religious persecution, and
Speaker 1: then so that's why we all we have America now.
Speaker 1: And then as you learn more about it, it's like
Speaker 1: we really wanted to kill a bunch of beavers and
Speaker 1: turn them into ass and and so we like so
Speaker 1: we like drove them nearly to extinction, like did a
Speaker 1: genocide just so we could have our cool hats. All right, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're like, we want to kill all these beavers, but
Speaker 1: there's all these people in the way. Just move them
Speaker 1: or kill them, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, it's uh yeah, cool, cool,
Speaker 1: cool history. Love. It really really fun than when you're
Speaker 1: in elementary school and you're like, all right, now you're
Speaker 1: the pilgrims, right, fun now fun? Yeah. So yeah, due
Speaker 1: to the fur trade, beavers faced near extinction. In the
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, beavers were nearing extinction in North America and
Speaker 1: in Europe. The Eurasian beaver population at one point dwindled
Speaker 1: to only about one thousand individuals, So we were very
Speaker 1: close to losing the best the mole in the world.
Speaker 1: And I'm not even being sarcastic, like without beavers there
Speaker 1: would be a lot less biodiversity, a lot of ecosystems collapsing.
Speaker 1: So after the fur trade became less popular in the
Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds, beaver populations recovered. So now there are over
Speaker 1: one million beavers in Europe, so not they didn't recover completely,
Speaker 1: but they did improve greatly. And in North America there
Speaker 1: are over fifteen million beavers, so that is quite an
Speaker 1: impressive recovery. Uh. Yeah, ecologists know the importance of beavers
Speaker 1: as architects of biodiverse, fertile areas. In uh A Kadian
Speaker 1: National Park in the US, in Maine, the reintroduction of
Speaker 1: beavers to the area doubled the amount of wetlands in
Speaker 1: only fifty years. So they're just incredible. Like when we
Speaker 1: talk about like, oh, we want to tear a form mars,
Speaker 1: like Okay, put a bunch of beavers on Mars. Then
Speaker 1: it always rubs me the wrong way when it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we gotta go colonize Mars. It's like, could we just
Speaker 1: like focus on one plan at a time, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm amazed that they also areas where they have a
Speaker 1: lot of drought. Like a way that you fix that
Speaker 1: is you just send beavers. Yeah, like they can fix it.
Speaker 1: Then they solve the problem of drought, which is crazy
Speaker 1: because you know, you're not getting any more rainfall or anything,
Speaker 1: but because they dig such deep canals and the and
Speaker 1: when they raise the water table that also helps. It helps. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so like the water sticks around a lot more and
Speaker 1: it's just love. I did too. Beavers are They're pretty cool.
Speaker 1: I feel like we talk a lot about like, oh,
Speaker 1: we could bring back the mammoth or like maybe more reasonably,
Speaker 1: like we could bring back the passenger pigeon, which is
Speaker 1: not as crazy an idea, but it's like maybe we
Speaker 1: should just slow down and start putting beavers in more places,
Speaker 1: you know, like just calm down a little bit, start
Speaker 1: on beavers, like before you know, we go to the
Speaker 1: mammoth or the passenger pigeon, because One of the problems
Speaker 1: with de extinction is that we got rid of the
Speaker 1: eco system that originally supported passenger pigeons, let alone of
Speaker 1: mammoth Like, we do not have the same territory for
Speaker 1: mammoths to be able to thrive. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've seen North America recently, but it's not exactly a
Speaker 1: mammoth haven. Uh So, like we always like these like
Speaker 1: cool ideas, and then if you're like, could we just
Speaker 1: put more beavers everywhere, you're like a boon nerd, you know,
Speaker 1: but no, seriously, we should be putting beavers everywhere. We
Speaker 1: are still we are sort of yeah, we're I mean
Speaker 1: they're doing some of that, that's which is great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just the humble beaver. It's like, you know, Canada doesn't
Speaker 1: seem as dorky now, does it with all their beaver emblems.
Speaker 1: They really do. Yeah, they're they're embracing of weird animals
Speaker 1: like the loon and the beaver. Is really inspiring to me, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because like they're willing to look past the silliness of
Speaker 1: the animal be like, look, this animal is important. Can
Speaker 1: we all just be adults about this? Yeah? I wish
Speaker 1: you know, because like in the us for like, oh,
Speaker 1: Paul Eagle, that's so metal, and it's like, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I mean bald eagles are really cool. I love bald eagles.
Speaker 1: But yeah, probably we should have gone with a beaver, honestly. Uh.
Speaker 1: And there's I don't I don't know if you are
Speaker 1: you are you planning to talk about the like areas
Speaker 1: that are now flooding and everything because of beavers, like
Speaker 1: residential areas that are flooding. No talk about it. Oh,
Speaker 1: so this is very exciting that beavers are You're excited
Speaker 1: for people being flood into beavers. Yeah, well, because you
Speaker 1: know when we hunted the beaver to almost death, that
Speaker 1: all of a sudden there are all these new like
Speaker 1: the place where beavers I'll live the most. If you
Speaker 1: can picture like a glacial region where a glacier went
Speaker 1: through an area, there's mountains on both sides and then
Speaker 1: there's a huge like horseshoe valley in the bottom of it,
Speaker 1: and that's like where beavers thrived. And when we killed
Speaker 1: off all the beavers, that just became grasslands, like dried
Speaker 1: out grasslands, and everyone was like, oh, this is the
Speaker 1: perfect place to build a city. This is the perfect
Speaker 1: place to build a town, and and that's where like
Speaker 1: golf courses go, that's where ranches go, because there's so
Speaker 1: much fertile and it's all fertile because beavers made it fertile.
Speaker 1: And so then when beavers are reintroduced or beaver numbers
Speaker 1: start coming back, they're building damns and anywhere that they
Speaker 1: hear water. And so when they're doing that, all those
Speaker 1: areas are flooding again. Everyone's like what takes the beavers?
Speaker 1: And the beavers will do it in a night to
Speaker 1: like people will go out there. They're like, culverts are
Speaker 1: a big problem underneath roads where beavers hear the water
Speaker 1: in the culvert, they damn up the culvert and it
Speaker 1: just floods the road. And so the next day people
Speaker 1: will come and like remove all the dam and overnight
Speaker 1: the beavers will just build it again. Such hard work.
Speaker 1: I love this. I mean, like I feel a little
Speaker 1: sympathy for just like regular people living there. But on
Speaker 1: the other hand, this is rad It's the radical change
Speaker 1: that like we need in politics. Uh. I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of arguments of like how
Speaker 1: how do you actually protest capitalism? I think just being
Speaker 1: a beaver, you know, there's a there's a guy in Ontario.
Speaker 1: I think he's on Ontario. He's just this French Canadian
Speaker 1: guy who his for a long time. His job was
Speaker 1: basically like, you gotta get the beavers out of this
Speaker 1: one particular town or this area. And he was him
Speaker 1: hunting and killing beavers for a while and trapping them,
Speaker 1: but he's trapping other things because it's really hard to
Speaker 1: trap a beaver. We end up catching like different herons
Speaker 1: and things like that. And he was getting really depressed
Speaker 1: by it. And then he was like, there's gotta be
Speaker 1: a way to work with the beaver. And he figured
Speaker 1: out that if he any area that was like a
Speaker 1: potentially could become this wetland area and they would end
Speaker 1: up flooding houses and things, he would put in the
Speaker 1: darts of what could be a great beaver dam, but
Speaker 1: with pipes at the bottom of it so that and
Speaker 1: then he would put um noise. He put it anywhere
Speaker 1: that he wanted the dever the beaver to build a damn.
Speaker 1: He just put a CD player that it was playing
Speaker 1: the sound of water, yeah, because they're they're actually triggered
Speaker 1: by the sound of flowing water. To start construction of
Speaker 1: the dam and then they're triggered. But the sound of leaks,
Speaker 1: so like if the dam is leaking, they'll go in
Speaker 1: and locate where the sound is coming from. It's like
Speaker 1: I hear the sound. I hear the sound. I need
Speaker 1: to pack more sticks where the sound is. It's a
Speaker 1: quote of living in a house with like a leaky faucet,
Speaker 1: where it's like I can't stand it. I won't, I
Speaker 1: won't live here having a beaver in the house and
Speaker 1: just just like a leaky faucet and you wake up
Speaker 1: and there's just a bunch of sticks in there. But
Speaker 1: by putting the pipes at the bottom of it, what
Speaker 1: he can do then is that once they build the
Speaker 1: dam in that area, if the water table ever gets
Speaker 1: too high, he just basically opens up the bottom one
Speaker 1: of these pipes and like lets out a bunch of
Speaker 1: the water and they can close it right back. That's
Speaker 1: perfect bottle and sell that nice good beaver water, beaver
Speaker 1: purified water. Just the tiniest bit of beaver piss. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just the little just a little chef's kiss of beaver piss.
Speaker 1: But I love that he's like figured out how to
Speaker 1: how to work with them. No, it's we have to.
Speaker 1: We we got to learn to live with the beaver.
Speaker 1: That's like, it's it's so important to recognize the importance
Speaker 1: of beavers because you know, we we talked about like, oh,
Speaker 1: it increases bio diversity and this is good for the environment.
Speaker 1: I think sometimes people get this perception that we're not
Speaker 1: really part of the environment, so we don't have to
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, oh, it's nice in theory to
Speaker 1: care about it, but you know, we're not. You know,
Speaker 1: when we're talking about biodiversity that doesn't really impact humans,
Speaker 1: but it does. Oh it kind of kids. Yeah, oops,
Speaker 1: we're kind of you know, we're all we're in it.
Speaker 1: We're in the environment. Uh. Also, yeah, now that it
Speaker 1: has actual like monetary um consequences, people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe beavers aren't so bad that they're like these ranches
Speaker 1: where there are droughts and then they're looking for anywhere
Speaker 1: to put their cattle that actually has water, and so
Speaker 1: like they'll find other ranches where they know that beavers
Speaker 1: have like a presence there, and they're like, Okay, can
Speaker 1: we send our cows to here ranch for a while
Speaker 1: to go graze and eat and everything, because they're like
Speaker 1: they're saving these ranches, there by creating water tables that
Speaker 1: are a little bit higher, and again fighting against drought.
Speaker 1: It is kind of sad though, that it comes down to,
Speaker 1: like we have all these droughts and like the sky
Speaker 1: is orange and we're like, maybe we made a mistake
Speaker 1: trying to kill off the beavers. I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: turn the beavers into half. It was fun, I'll admit that,
Speaker 1: though they were so shiny. Well before we go, UM,
Speaker 1: I do need to reveal the mystery animal sound from
Speaker 1: last week. So every week for this new season, I've
Speaker 1: been playing a little game with you the listener and
Speaker 1: you the guest, where I play an animal sound and
Speaker 1: you've got to guess who's talking, and if you answer correctly,
Speaker 1: and you write to me at Creature Feature Pod at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com, Creature feature pot on Instagram, or Creature
Speaker 1: feet Pod, that's eight that's something very different on Twitter,
Speaker 1: I will read aloud the names of the first three
Speaker 1: people to guess the sound correctly. So, uh, as of
Speaker 1: recording this podcast, actually nobody has guessed the right answer
Speaker 1: to last week's mystery animal sound, which is a first. Uh,
Speaker 1: everyone's been pretty good at guessing things. So I raised
Speaker 1: the difficulty level a little bit and um, maybe raised
Speaker 1: a little too high because a tricky one. This is
Speaker 1: a tricky one. Um, I will just before releasing this
Speaker 1: all oh, keep checking so if somebody giveses it right,
Speaker 1: I will answert it. Here. Hello, it's Katie. I'm speaking
Speaker 1: through a robot since I had to add this in
Speaker 1: last minute. Bee boo boop. Nobody guess the right animal,
Speaker 1: but good hustle everyone, bee beep, death to humans. Just kidding.
Speaker 1: So just to remind you and for you to listen
Speaker 1: to sore in, here is the sound from last week,
Speaker 1: and the hint was you do not want to get
Speaker 1: in a knife fight with this guy's yeah, oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, so that was the sound. So do you
Speaker 1: have any guesses? Yes, it's the frog that can uh
Speaker 1: can send its own bones through its skin. That is
Speaker 1: so interesting because I had been bowling on last week
Speaker 1: and he guessed the same thing, and gosh, darn itt,
Speaker 1: but you're both wrong. It sounds like megafauna. It sounds
Speaker 1: like something big. Maybe it is something big, but you
Speaker 1: want to hear what the answer is, Sorer, you got
Speaker 1: any more guesses? Alright? The answer is cassowary so I
Speaker 1: should have known that. Oh God, I'm an idiot. I
Speaker 1: love the cast wary. I will go to the zoo
Speaker 1: just to see the cast a wary because they're so
Speaker 1: piste off all the time. They're angry, angry animals. So
Speaker 1: castwaries are large, flightless, blue faced ornerary birds with a
Speaker 1: five inch long dagger like toe claw they can use
Speaker 1: to stab you. They grew up to six ft tall,
Speaker 1: which is about one eights and they way up to
Speaker 1: one and thirty pounds which is about fifty eight. You
Speaker 1: do not want to get into a fight with a cassowary. Uh.
Speaker 1: They are big living dinosaur wars. They will destroy you easily.
Speaker 1: They're the closest thing we have to a velociraptor in
Speaker 1: the modern world. And they have this prehistoric plate on
Speaker 1: the top of their heads, so confusing and weird. The
Speaker 1: cask yes, and they are unlike testicles hanging from their neck,
Speaker 1: which is also very strange, like these wattles whatever those are.
Speaker 1: And they are uh, super territorial, so like they're ready
Speaker 1: to kill anything. People get killed by these things in
Speaker 1: New Guinea all the time because at the water to
Speaker 1: a cassewary's territory. They'll just come and eviscerate you with
Speaker 1: their toe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they live in a New Guinea.
Speaker 1: They also, of course live in Australia. Australia has always
Speaker 1: got to have a little taste of some of the
Speaker 1: most dangerous animals. Um and they produce the lowest frequency
Speaker 1: bird call in the world. In fact, sometimes they're rumbling.
Speaker 1: Territorial call is so low it's beyond the range of
Speaker 1: human hearing. Sometimes it's one of those things where like
Speaker 1: young like kids can hear it, but adults can't because
Speaker 1: as we get older, our hearing gets worse and worse.
Speaker 1: So like sometimes like a young person will be able
Speaker 1: to hear the sound better than an older person. Uh
Speaker 1: but yeah, so you know, it is of part of
Speaker 1: the reason that they can produce this lot very loud
Speaker 1: and low frequency. Is that prehistoric thingy on your their
Speaker 1: head that you describe, It's called a cask. It is
Speaker 1: a hard, keratinist, thin like protrusion on the top of
Speaker 1: their heads that is hollow with some sort of fibrous
Speaker 1: tissue on the inside that helps amplify these terrifying calls.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it is definitely one of those things I mean,
Speaker 1: birds technically are dinosaurs. We don't really think of them
Speaker 1: as dinosaurs. Um. But when you think about like a
Speaker 1: t rex or a velociraptor and you hear a cassaware,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, that's a dinosaur. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the relationship is much much clearer. You think about like, well,
Speaker 1: would it really be too scary to live in dinosaur times?
Speaker 1: And you come face to face with the cassowary, and
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, no, it'd be bad. It's suck pretty hard.
Speaker 1: I encourage anyone to that knows that they have a
Speaker 1: zoo nearby with the castowary at it is to go
Speaker 1: see that zoo in that cast a wary, because they
Speaker 1: look like they want to murder everybody there. They're never
Speaker 1: at any point or they like that's fine, I'm just
Speaker 1: in this. Like all the other animals come to some
Speaker 1: sort of resignment where they just sort of sit there
Speaker 1: and they accept there in this cage, not the cast wary.
Speaker 1: The castowary will pace and look at you like it
Speaker 1: wants to kill you, because it does. Haven't forbid, I
Speaker 1: haven't forbid. You have other animals that like, are wild?
Speaker 1: Are the wild? At the zoo. Like somebody squirrels or
Speaker 1: peacock's getting these individual cages. You will be in luck
Speaker 1: because the cast wary will chase that and try and
Speaker 1: kill it. It's incredible. Yeah, yeah, it's uh. They are
Speaker 1: I think the most murderous uh animal in terms of
Speaker 1: I don't even know if they have the highest kill rate.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. That's probably like the small black
Speaker 1: footed cat or something. But they certainly have the intent.
Speaker 1: I think the most, the most blood lust of any
Speaker 1: animal I get just radiating off of a cassowary. I've
Speaker 1: changed my mind. No longer the beaver fan. I want
Speaker 1: a cast a wary. Between getting shipped by a cassowary
Speaker 1: foot and getting my femoral artery severed by a beaver tooth,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know what's what would be worse,
Speaker 1: but so uh, we have another mystery sound for you
Speaker 1: guys to try to guess for next week. Here is
Speaker 1: a hint for this one. They may sound like a ringwraith,
Speaker 1: but these passionate fellows have something other than Frodo on
Speaker 1: the mind. Yeah all right, so that's that's nice. That's cozy,
Speaker 1: relaxing nature sound. I love to relax with some nature
Speaker 1: sounds like right before going to bed. And just so,
Speaker 1: so when you got any guesses for who's talking, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I gotta guess. I'll bleep you out if you get
Speaker 1: it right, So don't hold back. Zebra, it might be
Speaker 1: a will to be I think it's a zebra. It
Speaker 1: is not a zebra. I guess I probably shouldn't have
Speaker 1: said that, but I guess that's another hint it's not
Speaker 1: a zebra. So there you go, but very good guess.
Speaker 1: Uh uh. And of course I will reveal the answer
Speaker 1: to the guests used talking contest next Wednesday on the
Speaker 1: new episode of Creature feature. Soar, and thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining me today to talk all about beavers.
Speaker 1: I feel like we could talk for hours about beavers.
Speaker 1: Just there's just so much to say. There's so much
Speaker 1: to say about the noble beaver. But so, where can
Speaker 1: people find you to give you all their beaver takes?
Speaker 1: You can find me. Uh well, First for you can
Speaker 1: listen to my podcast with Daniel O'Brien. Um. We talked
Speaker 1: about animals very rarely, so if you're having an animal overdose,
Speaker 1: you can come and visit. Sounds dumb and boring you
Speaker 1: can visit uh Quick Question with Soren and Daniel and
Speaker 1: you can also find me on Twitter at sore and
Speaker 1: Underscore Ltd. If you want to send in your guesses,
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, you can write an at Creature
Speaker 1: feature Pot at gmail dot com, Creature feature Pot on Instagram,
Speaker 1: Creature feet Pot on Twitter. That's eighteen. That's something very different.
Speaker 1: And if you are in join the show and you
Speaker 1: want to leave a rating or review, I do so
Speaker 1: appreciate it. I read all the reviews and they warm
Speaker 1: my heart. Uh and yeah, thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: And thanks to the Space Classics for their super awesome
Speaker 1: song ex Solumina. Freat show features a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard,
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or Hey,
Speaker 1: guess what where have you listen to your favorite shows?
Speaker 1: I don't judge, it could be anywhere. I um it's
Speaker 1: That's not my place to tell you where to listen
Speaker 1: to your podcast. See you next Wednesday.