Bring Back the Beaver

The “Bring Back the Beaver” episode of “The Positive Fantastic” podcast honors the North American beaver, in all its ecological keystone species glory. I chatted with Kate Lundquist, foremost beaver advocate in my neck woods (which are fed by the Russian River watershed), about how amazing beavers are, why we need them in our ecosystems, and the ways that new technology is helping create good relations between the humans and the beavers. 

Kate shares about the ways that beaver are amazing creatures in their own right, and also about the very real role they can play in helping to restore our ecosystems to help support, particularly, sustainable water stewardship. 

Kate has been working diligently for many years to help bridge the worlds between beaver habitats and governmental organization around how beavers are treated. This is a happy story my friends, with very good news. Beavers are becoming more protected, recognized for their contributions, and their numbers are steadily coming back from the brink after they were nearly wiped out for their very soft pelts. 

Additionally, Kate and folks like her have been able to create very clever ways to help farmers and land owners to work with, not against their local beavers so that successful coexistence is not only possible, but it is the way of the future! 

I have to say that while it’s never a good idea to pick favorites, I have been telling anybody who would listen that I was going to record a beaver podcast for the last several months. And, although we managed to record an entire episode without a single raunchy beaver joke, much to my dismay, don’t fret my naturalist dears, we do talk extensively about beaver anal secretions and how to sex a beaver. SO, there’s that that I can offer you when you tune into our podcast episode.

It was fun to joke with Kate about the future of beavers and how, when people realize how amazingly useful these animals are to the ecosystem, that there are going to be beaver match-making sites to help re-home beavers from areas where they are wreaking havoc to the areas where people desperately want them.

She’s already been getting a lot of text messages that make her feel like a beaver broker of sorts and Kate is wondering if a consequence of the state of California protecting these creatures more, we will see a kind of “beaver tinder” if you will, double entendre and quippiness intended. 

By the end of the episode, I think that you’ll become a beaver believer, an ally and advocate for the bring the beaver back movement!