Originally published at: London gets some baby beaver for the first time in centuries | Boing Boing
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Welcome, new Kit.
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Your public domain beaver appears to be a marmot, which despite what Walter Sobchak believes, is not an aquatic rodent.
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Nah, it’s very clear.
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I wonder how long it will take for the beavers to turn 1/4 of England into swamp. It’s amazing how large an environmental effect beavers have.
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Now beavers in London can be found outside of attics.
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swamp? Wetlands perhaps, and what’s wrong with wetlands? The two bibby beavs are already stirring up fear in England.
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Beaver swamp is a pretty distinctive form of wetland:
Not that great for wildlife, because the water behind the dam, and the water downstream of the dam will be infested with Giardia-- a particularly unpleasant, and difficult-to-treat parasite transmitted in beaver feces which causes “Beaver fever”. General Information | Giardia | Parasites | CDC The best treatment requires a two week course of a particularly dire antibiotic that will leave your gut gasping for biota for months if not years. The video shows what is probably the area behind an abandoned damn. If the damn were intact, the water would be a foot or two deep. These trees have drowned.
Beavers prefer to construct dams that will drown dozens of of acres of trees because they feed on the bark. I guess it’s easier if you can swim to your breakfast without having to deal with the inconvenience of standing on your hind legs to kill a tree. Once all the trees have died, they’ll move on to find another location where they can repeat the procedure all over gain.
I can’t help thinking that whoever thought it was a good idea to reintroduce beaver into the UK has never travelled in the Canadian wilderness, where you get to see what beavers can do when left to their own devices.
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I have beaver fever right now!
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I guess it depends which wildlife you’re asking about? Most sources think wetlands are of great value and beavers are a great way to create them.
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Visiting my folks in the woodsy part of PA in the late 90s, I contracted what must have been giardiasis (it then being warned of in the local news.) The symptoms stayed with me for a few days, and I became intimately acquainted with cartoonishly exaggerated projectile vomiting on day one. Damn beavers! (But ya gotta love 'em!)
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