063: Beaver Believers I

Episode Transcript

[0:00:37 – 0:00:41] Adam: Welcome, welcome to Tumble Home.
[0:00:42 – 0:00:46] Adam: Welcome to Tumble Home, a Boundary Waters podcast.
[0:00:47 – 0:00:48] Adam: Are you still warming up?
[0:00:48 – 0:00:49] Adam: That’s the intro.
[0:00:50 – 0:00:51] Adam: Double whammy intro.
[0:00:52 – 0:00:57] Adam: My name is Adam, and I’m here in Studio K with my good friend Eric.
[0:00:57 – 0:00:58] Adam: Hello.
[0:00:58 – 0:00:58] Adam: Hello.
[0:00:58 – 0:01:00] Adam: Eric, I thought we’d…
[0:01:00 – 0:01:00] Adam: Welcome.
[0:01:00 – 0:01:01] Adam: Welcome.
[0:01:02 – 0:01:02] Erik: Okay.
[0:01:03 – 0:01:03] Erik: That’s real.
[0:01:03 – 0:01:04] Erik: That all just happened.
[0:01:04 – 0:01:06] Erik: So we’re done warming up?
[0:01:07 – 0:01:07] Adam: That’s it.
[0:01:07 – 0:01:07] Adam: We’re good?
[0:01:10 – 0:01:11] Erik: Boundary Waters podcast.
[0:01:12 – 0:01:20] Adam: Tumble Home is, of course, sponsored by our friends, our Patreons, and our listeners.
[0:01:20 – 0:01:20] Adam: Thank you.
[0:01:21 – 0:01:21] Adam: Patreons.
[0:01:22 – 0:01:23] Adam: The Patreons.
[0:01:24 – 0:01:29] Adam: And without you and the park, this show would not be possible.
[0:01:30 – 0:01:34] Adam: We’re here live in Studio K, and it’s middle of summer.
[0:01:35 – 0:01:35] Erik: It’s been a while.
[0:01:35 – 0:01:37] Adam: We got both the pets in here.
[0:01:37 – 0:01:37] Erik: Yeah.
[0:01:38 – 0:01:45] Adam: And so that’s just a way I wanted to get to this point was we’re talking about our next spinoff podcast.
[0:01:45 – 0:01:47] Adam: It’s going to be called Petscast.
[0:01:48 – 0:01:49] Erik: It should be called Pets Sounds.
[0:01:49 – 0:01:52] Erik: Do you think Brian Wilson would have a problem with that?
[0:01:52 – 0:01:53] Erik: Yeah, I think Pets Cast.
[0:01:54 – 0:01:55] Erik: He’s probably in bed.
[0:01:55 – 0:01:55] Erik: He wouldn’t even notice.
[0:01:56 – 0:02:09] Adam: And so it’s just me and Eric and Doris and Ayla and Arrow and the cat Agnes, who is here in Studio K. She’s sitting up by the signed Aaron Rodgers up there on the top shelf over there.
[0:02:09 – 0:02:11] Erik: You may hear some distant panting.
[0:02:12 – 0:02:13] Erik: That is, in fact, from Agnes.
[0:02:14 – 0:02:15] Adam: And so we just talk about current events.
[0:02:16 – 0:02:17] Adam: You know, pets’ voices.
[0:02:17 – 0:02:20] Adam: Well, we talk about them, and then we interject with pet voices.
[0:02:21 – 0:02:21] SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
[0:02:22 – 0:02:22] SPEAKER_00: That’s neat.
[0:02:25 – 0:02:25] Adam: See?
[0:02:25 – 0:02:26] Erik: It’s pure gold.
[0:02:26 – 0:02:29] Erik: That’s a kernel of something that will never happen.
[0:02:30 – 0:02:30] Adam: Someday.
[0:02:31 – 0:02:33] Adam: And we’re also joined by some new wines.
[0:02:33 – 0:02:35] Adam: We have a new Cadun special.
[0:02:35 – 0:02:37] Adam: You may hear that bubbling in the background.
[0:02:37 – 0:02:39] Erik: Adventures in homebrewing.
[0:02:40 – 0:02:52] Adam: And the episode tonight will be revolving around all waterways, really, but it really begins at the Cadunce River, which is…
[0:02:52 – 0:02:57] Adam: Just out back, flowing peacefully out the back door here.
[0:02:57 – 0:03:02] Adam: And I got a chance to go out there in a kayak about a week and a half ago now.
[0:03:04 – 0:03:05] Adam: And did a little paddling.
[0:03:05 – 0:03:07] Adam: And we’ve been living here quite a while.
[0:03:07 – 0:03:09] Adam: And I’ve never actually, you know, I’ve gone down there and I’ve thrown a worm in.
[0:03:10 – 0:03:11] Adam: It’s supposed to have broke trout.
[0:03:12 – 0:03:14] Adam: And I’ve never caught anything back there.
[0:03:15 – 0:03:16] Adam: It’s just kind of flat.
[0:03:16 – 0:03:18] Adam: And, you know, there’s not much current there.
[0:03:20 – 0:03:22] Adam: It’s just flat and deep and looks like it’s going to have a mucky bottom.
[0:03:22 – 0:03:27] Adam: It’s kind of surrounded by the tussock, like lumpy grasses.
[0:03:27 – 0:03:28] Adam: It’s really hard walking.
[0:03:28 – 0:03:30] Adam: And so, you know, it’s pretty to look at.
[0:03:30 – 0:03:32] Adam: Not really much for recreating.
[0:03:32 – 0:03:35] Adam: Or so I thought, you know, there’s a trail that goes down there.
[0:03:35 – 0:03:36] Adam: It’s kind of the winter trail.
[0:03:38 – 0:03:39] Adam: Comes out below the beaver dam.
[0:03:40 – 0:03:45] Adam: And when we moved in here, that beaver dam was decrepit.
[0:03:45 – 0:03:50] Adam: We moved in in the spring, and I went down there, and there’s this, like, wrecked beaver dam.
[0:03:51 – 0:03:53] Adam: And I said, oh, interesting.
[0:03:53 – 0:03:58] Adam: And then a couple weeks later, went down there, the grass is a little taller, and there’s definitely been some work done.
[0:03:59 – 0:04:00] Adam: So there’s active beaver back there.
[0:04:01 – 0:04:02] Adam: I was like, well, that’s kind of neat.
[0:04:02 – 0:04:04] Adam: And now, like, this spring, it didn’t blow out again.
[0:04:07 – 0:04:28] Adam: excuse me it uh it’s like two feet taller now and so they’re like you know the traditional wetlands out behind the house are starting to like they’re remaining wet all summer this year whereas last summer it all kind of dried up by this time because the dam was much lower it was in disrepair and just kind of coming back so um
[0:04:28 – 0:04:30] Adam: You know, we got some active beavers out back.
[0:04:31 – 0:04:34] Adam: And I’m reading this book, which is the topic of tonight’s show.
[0:04:35 – 0:04:35] Adam: It’s beavers.
[0:04:36 – 0:04:38] Adam: Topic of tonight’s show is beavers.
[0:04:38 – 0:04:39] Adam: And I’m reading this book about beavers.
[0:04:40 – 0:04:44] Adam: And so there’s a couple different angles of what got me interested in…
[0:04:44 – 0:05:07] Adam: in doing a whole show on beavers and why i wanted to read the book eventually but that’s kind of the start of it where i was you know first time where i’ve really been appreciating like watching a beaver work able to observe the same site over and over again on daily dog walks yeah um and then finally culminating just a bit ago here with taking out the father-in-law let me borrow his kayak
[0:05:07 – 0:05:14] Adam: Shout out to Ty and took that sweet little blue kayak out back there and kind of paddled up.
[0:05:14 – 0:05:20] Adam: And on Google Earth, you know, there’s a bit of a stretch here where it looks like it’s above the beaver dam kind of open.
[0:05:20 – 0:05:22] Adam: And I was able to paddle quite a ways.
[0:05:23 – 0:05:27] Adam: And there is two lodges above this dam.
[0:05:27 – 0:05:31] Adam: And then eventually it goes all the way up to the main road.
[0:05:31 – 0:05:33] Adam: And I got within, I could see the road.
[0:05:34 – 0:05:36] Adam: So, and there’s kind of this old oxbow.
[0:05:36 – 0:05:40] Adam: You can go around and then come back to the main channel and paddle back.
[0:05:40 – 0:05:45] Adam: So you can kind of paddle up from here and it’s go up and around the oxbow, a little loop.
[0:05:45 – 0:05:48] Adam: And then there’s another lodge up in that little island.
[0:05:48 – 0:05:50] Adam: So that is formed by the river.
[0:05:50 – 0:06:01] Erik: Well, if I ever have to go back through and do a subsequent addition to beer sponsorships, I would be very frustrated at this point.
[0:06:01 – 0:06:04] Erik: We should get to that before we move too much farther down the line.
[0:06:04 – 0:06:05] Adam: Oh, right on.
[0:06:05 – 0:06:07] Adam: And I didn’t acquire any beaver duck.
[0:06:07 – 0:06:12] Adam: We were up in Thunder Bay on Canada Day, and everything’s closed on Canada Day.
[0:06:12 – 0:06:15] Adam: You can get a beaver duck on tap, and I guess the brewery was open.
[0:06:15 – 0:06:17] Erik: I was looking for a Beaver Island at the Muni.
[0:06:17 – 0:06:20] Adam: There’s many and we don’t have any beaver themed.
[0:06:20 – 0:06:20] Adam: That’s fine.
[0:06:20 – 0:06:22] Adam: They have a big sign out front.
[0:06:22 – 0:06:25] Erik: It says Beaver Island but there’s no Beaver Island beers.
[0:06:25 – 0:06:29] Adam: Sleeping Giant had like an event going on up there during Canada Day.
[0:06:29 – 0:06:30] Adam: We just like
[0:06:30 – 0:06:32] Adam: Had too many other things going and never made it there.
[0:06:32 – 0:06:33] Adam: Had to get back.
[0:06:33 – 0:06:44] Adam: So we skipped that, but we did have a beaver duck with lunch, but it is not here today in Studio K. But we have so many beers from our multiple sponsors.
[0:06:44 – 0:06:47] Adam: Yeah, we don’t need a beaver duck or a beaver island.
[0:06:47 – 0:06:57] Erik: Yeah, I was like, do I want to spend the money on a beer that has a beaver on it, which I actually couldn’t find, or do I want to use one of the beers from our great friends?
[0:06:57 – 0:07:21] Erik: absolutely dropped off beers and this one is uh one of the more mysterious ones we’ve received i think tell me mentioned this one in the past about how i was just walking through the parking lot oh yeah and it was like the back window of like a like a like a mirrored window yeah like and then an arm just a a dark arm came out with a hand hanging on to like a like here’s like just like
[0:07:21 – 0:07:21] Erik: Yeah.
[0:07:21 – 0:07:25] Erik: I’m like walking from the lodge over to outfitting and then just an arm comes out of the back.
[0:07:25 – 0:07:27] Adam: Like a limo with a hot tub in the back?
[0:07:27 – 0:07:28] Erik: Yeah, it didn’t even fully stop.
[0:07:28 – 0:07:30] Erik: It just kind of slowed.
[0:07:30 – 0:07:32] Erik: He’s like, this is from a friend of mine.
[0:07:32 – 0:07:33] Erik: He lives in Minneapolis.
[0:07:33 – 0:07:35] Erik: He’s a huge fan of the show.
[0:07:35 – 0:07:35] Adam: Wow.
[0:07:35 – 0:07:36] Adam: And that was it.
[0:07:36 – 0:07:38] Adam: It’s way better than anything from…
[0:07:38 – 0:07:42] Adam: But it does say Josh on the top.
[0:07:42 – 0:07:42] Erik: Oh.
[0:07:44 – 0:07:45] Erik: I didn’t write that.
[0:07:45 – 0:07:47] Erik: So… Hmm.
[0:07:47 – 0:07:47] Erik: A clue.
[0:07:47 – 0:07:49] Erik: Whether or not it’s from Josh.
[0:07:49 – 0:08:00] Erik: Josh, if you’re listening or if you’re watching, this is an Oliphant Brewing Lizard Eyes Marijuana’s Hazy IPA.
[0:08:00 – 0:08:01] Adam: Hazy…
[0:08:01 – 0:08:03] Adam: So I better get rid of those hams I’ve been sipping on.
[0:08:03 – 0:08:05] Erik: Yeah, just dump it on the carpet, whatever.
[0:08:06 – 0:08:09] Erik: Yeah, so that’s a beautiful looking can.
[0:08:09 – 0:08:10] Erik: We’ve had the Oliphant.
[0:08:10 – 0:08:11] Erik: There’s one more.
[0:08:11 – 0:08:13] Adam: With the camera now, we can show off these beautiful cans.
[0:08:14 – 0:08:14] Erik: I know.
[0:08:14 – 0:08:21] Erik: And we’ve got that one can of Oliphant still in our fridge that I cannot wait to get pulled out at one point.
[0:08:21 – 0:08:23] Adam: But they’ve always got the greatest artwork.
[0:08:23 – 0:08:25] Adam: Are these regular size cans?
[0:08:25 – 0:08:26] Erik: These are regular size cans.
[0:08:26 – 0:08:27] Erik: You can’t tell?
[0:08:28 – 0:08:28] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:08:28 – 0:08:30] Adam: Now that I’m looking at them, I’m like, are they?
[0:08:30 – 0:08:30] Adam: Smaller?
[0:08:31 – 0:08:31] Adam: Bigger?
[0:08:31 – 0:08:32] Adam: Are they wider?
[0:08:32 – 0:08:33] Erik: They’re regular size cans.
[0:08:33 – 0:08:34] Adam: They’re regular height for sure.
[0:08:34 – 0:08:37] Erik: Maybe it’s because there’s lizards in spacesuits that’s throwing you off.
[0:08:37 – 0:08:38] Erik: But here we go.
[0:08:38 – 0:08:38] Erik: Might be.
[0:08:39 – 0:08:40] Erik: That’s not the actual cracking of the beer.
[0:08:40 – 0:08:42] Erik: That’s just the cracking of the four pack.
[0:08:42 – 0:08:43] Adam: Just getting them off the fourie.
[0:08:44 – 0:08:45] Adam: Oliphant brewing.
[0:08:45 – 0:08:47] Erik: We’ve had good things from these folks in the past.
[0:08:48 – 0:08:48] Erik: Thanks, Josh.
[0:08:48 – 0:08:50] Adam: Thanks to Josh, a.k.a.
[0:08:50 – 0:08:52] Adam: the mysterious stranger in the limo hot tub.
[0:08:53 – 0:08:53] SPEAKER_00: Lizard eyes.
[0:08:54 – 0:08:55] Erik: Marijuana’s.
[0:08:55 – 0:08:56] Erik: I love a hazy IPA.
[0:08:56 – 0:08:57] Erik: Here we go.
[0:08:57 – 0:08:57] Erik: Stereo.
[0:08:59 – 0:09:01] Adam: I kind of covered mine too much.
[0:09:02 – 0:09:02] Adam: We’re out of practice.
[0:09:02 – 0:09:03] Adam: Back thumbs.
[0:09:04 – 0:09:04] Adam: Cheers, brother.
[0:09:05 – 0:09:06] Adam: We’ve been drinking too much wine.
[0:09:08 – 0:09:09] Adam: Yeah.
[0:09:12 – 0:09:16] Adam: It’s been like… Did you enter this onto tumble taps yet?
[0:09:16 – 0:09:17] Erik: Not yet.
[0:09:17 – 0:09:18] Adam: I wonder what the grade is.
[0:09:19 – 0:09:25] Adam: Well, we’ll give it a grade after the show, and then we’ll see how it looks compared to the overall grade.
[0:09:25 – 0:09:26] Erik: You want to grade it right now?
[0:09:26 – 0:09:27] Erik: It’s very hazy.
[0:09:27 – 0:09:28] Adam: I need one more.
[0:09:28 – 0:09:29] Adam: That’s for sure.
[0:09:33 – 0:09:36] Erik: And I don’t know if we, yeah, we did mention that we are recording this.
[0:09:36 – 0:09:38] Erik: We’re doubling down on the GoPro.
[0:09:39 – 0:09:43] Erik: I disparaged it like a bunch just in general up to this point.
[0:09:43 – 0:09:50] Erik: And then there was a RBWCA question about like GoPro Hero Black 7, like question mark.
[0:09:50 – 0:09:51] Erik: How does this thing work?
[0:09:51 – 0:09:52] Erik: And I was like.
[0:09:52 – 0:09:56] Erik: it gets hot, it doesn’t record for very long, and the screen cracked in a second.
[0:09:56 – 0:10:01] Erik: And somebody was like, hey, maybe you should adjust the settings so you’re not recording at like 4K.
[0:10:01 – 0:10:02] Erik: Think about it.
[0:10:02 – 0:10:03] Erik: 900 frames per second.
[0:10:04 – 0:10:07] Adam: Yeah, but this hair deserves 4K.
[0:10:07 – 0:10:08] Erik: Well, yours does.
[0:10:08 – 0:10:19] Erik: We move really quick when we’re recording in the studio, so I need it to be… No, so I have adjusted it down, and it seems like it’s going to maybe record for closer to an hour.
[0:10:19 – 0:10:20] Erik: I hope it’s a little more stabilized, too.
[0:10:21 – 0:10:27] Erik: That too, that was the other thing is like somebody was like, yeah, it seems like a lot of the footage you’ve had is like not as stable as it should be.
[0:10:27 – 0:10:28] Erik: Too wobbly.
[0:10:28 – 0:10:35] Erik: And I was like, oh, that auto stabilization doesn’t kick in when you’re recording at that high of a resolution.
[0:10:35 – 0:10:41] Erik: So we’ve got it at a little bit more of a normal feature setting.
[0:10:42 – 0:10:48] Erik: which should be higher quality than the streaming that we did just straight off the laptop on YouTube.
[0:10:49 – 0:10:50] Erik: So we’ll see.
[0:10:51 – 0:10:54] Erik: It’s a work in progress, as with everything.
[0:10:55 – 0:10:56] Erik: Yeah.
[0:10:56 – 0:11:00] Adam: Should have strapped that on the noggin for the old round of golf we played beforehand.
[0:11:01 – 0:11:01] Adam: Yeah, it should have.
[0:11:01 – 0:11:05] Adam: It would be interesting to see it in the brush, looking for discs in the lawn grass.
[0:11:05 – 0:11:07] Adam: The grass is taller than I am now.
[0:11:08 – 0:11:34] Adam: up here in the dog yard um so we were playing the old home course uh trying to just uh get a quick round in before recording today it’s hot out it’s hot it’s summer it’s uh it’s hot and it’s summery i’ve always wanted to get the the drone out to do those like pga tour style yeah you gotta you hit me to that where you’re like that’d be cool to do and i was like i gotta come back in the fall with the drone that’d be so much fun just like yomez yeah
[0:11:36 – 0:11:37] Adam: Shout out to Yomez.
[0:11:37 – 0:11:38] Erik: Par three.
[0:11:39 – 0:11:41] Erik: Hole four is a dog left left.
[0:11:41 – 0:11:42] Erik: Dog leg left.
[0:11:43 – 0:11:44] Erik: You’ve got to watch the pond here.
[0:11:44 – 0:11:46] Adam: You’re going to want to throw a mid-range forehand.
[0:11:47 – 0:11:49] Erik: Midway down this course, you will find a pony leg.
[0:11:51 – 0:11:52] Adam: There’s a pony leg.
[0:11:53 – 0:11:56] Adam: But we’re not really sure where it came from.
[0:11:56 – 0:11:57] Adam: I think we have a good idea.
[0:11:57 – 0:11:58] Erik: A good idea.
[0:11:58 – 0:12:01] Erik: Before we get just straight into the beavers, it is beaver related.
[0:12:02 – 0:12:22] Erik: For me personally, I thought that the beaver talk, the book report, which I’ve so far really liked and I’m looking forward to doing more of, for me came to be when we were on the Big Heart of the Park trip.
[0:12:22 – 0:12:23] Erik: It was just like…
[0:12:24 – 0:12:35] Erik: All of a sudden, it was one of those things where you’re paddling, and hey, there’s a beaver lodge, and oh, that thing, that beaver lodge, it looks like there’s some stuff cached up under next to it.
[0:12:35 – 0:12:38] Erik: You’re always asking yourselves these questions, but then all of a sudden, you’re like, well, wait.
[0:12:39 – 0:13:09] Erik: why why what why do they do it that way or how does it work and i was just like there’s got to be a book out there that explains like why some of these lodges look the way they look or why some of these dams are like why do they dam the water up it’s like cool to make more habitat for it’s like well when you actually really think about it i was like i don’t think i actually know the answers to any of these questions i was it was on that trip for sure we were going through like the phoebe yeah legendary legendary yeah horrible loop
[0:13:10 – 0:13:13] Adam: It’s horrible to legendary with a feet of V in between.
[0:13:13 – 0:13:18] Adam: It was in there somewhere where we saw this monster tree down.
[0:13:19 – 0:13:22] Adam: It was like, well, do they… For me, it was like that one tree.
[0:13:22 – 0:13:23] Adam: It was like, well…
[0:13:24 – 0:13:26] Adam: Are they actually planning to use a tree that large?
[0:13:26 – 0:13:28] Adam: That seems comically large.
[0:13:28 – 0:13:31] Adam: Are they just taking the branches off of it once it’s down?
[0:13:31 – 0:13:31] Adam: Yeah.
[0:13:31 – 0:13:34] Adam: Are they using this tree to, like, sharpen their teeth?
[0:13:34 – 0:13:35] Adam: Yeah, those big ones.
[0:13:35 – 0:13:38] Adam: Is it practice, or are they just doing it for fun?
[0:13:38 – 0:13:40] Adam: What are these beavers even up to out here?
[0:13:40 – 0:13:42] Adam: You know, I’ve done the Frost River in the last couple years.
[0:13:44 – 0:13:47] Adam: You know, that section of that trip was pretty narrow.
[0:13:50 – 0:13:51] Adam: You know, we just did Larch Creek.
[0:13:51 – 0:13:52] Adam: A lot of beaver in there.
[0:13:52 – 0:13:58] Erik: Yeah, the big ones that come down where you’re like, well, they’re not using that massive tree for anything.
[0:13:58 – 0:14:00] Erik: Are they just sharpening their teeth?
[0:14:00 – 0:14:02] Erik: They’re not eating it.
[0:14:02 – 0:14:03] Adam: I think it was on that trip.
[0:14:03 – 0:14:12] Adam: It was right around that section of day two then, and I think we were kind of talking, and it was like, yeah, I should find a book about beavers when we get back.
[0:14:13 – 0:14:15] Adam: This was the unsaid thing that I wanted to Google.
[0:14:16 – 0:14:19] Adam: On that trip, we ended up finding other things to Google as soon as we got home.
[0:14:20 – 0:14:39] Adam: more pressing matters but it was really like i can’t wait to get home and find a good book about beavers to read i just need to learn a little bit more about beavers i don’t i don’t know that this book really answers a lot of those questions in great detail it definitely covers the a broad range of topics but more about like how beavers fit into like the overall ecosystem
[0:14:40 – 0:14:48] Adam: It’s a little more big picture, but it does give a pretty good background of the everyday life of Beaver, which we will get to as well.
[0:14:49 – 0:14:54] Adam: So, yeah, it was for me on that trip where I really decided, like, that’s the next thing I want to learn more about.
[0:14:55 – 0:14:57] Adam: And as I found reading the book, it is a…
[0:14:58 – 0:15:08] Adam: A really important part of the Boundary Waters, and anybody who paddles in the park has found, I’m sure, and encountered lots of beaver habitat and doings.
[0:15:08 – 0:15:15] Erik: I don’t think it’s possible to take a trip into the Boundary Waters without experiencing the effects of the beaver.
[0:15:15 – 0:15:20] Adam: Yeah, and I don’t know if I really appreciated beaver before this.
[0:15:21 – 0:15:29] Adam: We did a trip around 4th of July down on Brulee and had a little costume contest.
[0:15:29 – 0:15:31] Adam: I’ve just had a lot of beaver on the mind.
[0:15:31 – 0:15:32] Adam: Yeah, beaver fever.
[0:15:32 – 0:15:35] Adam: And so I ended up dressing as a beaver.
[0:15:35 – 0:15:40] Adam: I think there’s some pictures on social media of this phenomenon.
[0:15:40 – 0:15:42] Erik: Well, dressing as a beaver is a stretch.
[0:15:42 – 0:15:44] Erik: You wore a little beaver nose.
[0:15:44 – 0:15:45] Adam: Everybody knew what I was.
[0:15:45 – 0:15:53] Adam: It was a pretty clear beaver costume, and I could still swim with it on and drink wine and eat.
[0:15:53 – 0:15:57] Erik: The third annual Fourth of Brulai, I expect to see a tail.
[0:15:58 – 0:15:59] Erik: I want a tail.
[0:15:59 – 0:15:59] Adam: I ran out of time.
[0:16:00 – 0:16:01] Erik: And a caster gland.
[0:16:03 – 0:16:26] Erik: so if you’re wondering how beavers operate which i am still i this is just to say i think the first time in the book series the book report series that i will be book reported yeah well we’ll hopefully find out more before we get into the book and uh further um discussion on beavers our friends the beaver
[0:16:28 – 0:16:30] Adam: I’ll just get that out right away.
[0:16:30 – 0:16:31] Adam: I am a beaver believer now.
[0:16:32 – 0:16:35] Adam: Anybody who’s read the book will know what that means.
[0:16:35 – 0:16:39] Adam: By the end of this episode, if you haven’t read the book, hopefully you’ll understand too.
[0:16:40 – 0:16:42] Adam: It’s a state of mind.
[0:16:43 – 0:16:45] Adam: Once you understand what the beaver are really up to,
[0:16:46 – 0:16:47] Adam: you appreciate them more.
[0:16:47 – 0:17:00] Adam: And so that makes it even more interesting when you encounter them like in the backyard with your little kayak, trying to go look for some fish and just see what they’re up to back there.
[0:17:00 – 0:17:02] Adam: There was many points on that river.
[0:17:02 – 0:17:04] Adam: I thought it was just like a shallow mud bottom.
[0:17:05 – 0:17:08] Adam: And it’s not at all what I expected to find back there.
[0:17:09 – 0:17:13] Adam: There’s many points where I put my paddle and most of my arm down and got nothing.
[0:17:14 – 0:17:23] Adam: And there was points where I put most of my arm and paddle down and hit hard and rock bottom, which I wasn’t expecting to find just the way the river back here looks on its surface.
[0:17:23 – 0:17:32] Adam: So before we get back to the beavers, though, I would give the Oliphant Lizard Eyes Mariguanas Hazy IPA.
[0:17:33 – 0:17:34] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:17:36 – 0:17:37] Adam: What’s the scale?
[0:17:38 – 0:17:40] Erik: Our scale or the untapped scale?
[0:17:40 – 0:17:41] Erik: Untapped, yeah.
[0:17:41 – 0:17:42] Erik: I think it’s five.
[0:17:42 – 0:17:42] Erik: Five.
[0:17:45 – 0:17:46] Adam: I should have had it pulled up here.
[0:17:50 – 0:17:50] Adam: It’s really good.
[0:17:51 – 0:17:52] Adam: The can art’s exceptional.
[0:17:52 – 0:18:00] Erik: Can art definitely is exceptional, but you can’t add much to a beer just based on can art.
[0:18:00 – 0:18:00] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:18:00 – 0:18:02] Adam: I’m a pretty visual learner.
[0:18:02 – 0:18:06] Erik: You can pour it into a glass, though, that could also add just based on the body and the color.
[0:18:07 – 0:18:09] Adam: How many people are screaming at the thing right now?
[0:18:09 – 0:18:11] Erik: Pour it in a glass, you heathens.
[0:18:11 – 0:18:13] Adam: Get to the beavers already.
[0:18:14 – 0:18:15] Adam: That’s what they’re worried about.
[0:18:15 – 0:18:16] Adam: We’ll get to the beavers.
[0:18:16 – 0:18:17] Erik: Lizard eyes?
[0:18:18 – 0:18:22] Erik: It was almost like this app was listening to me.
[0:18:22 – 0:18:25] Erik: This is a 3.84, so they go out of 5.
[0:18:25 – 0:18:27] Erik: I would give this a solid 4 out of 5.
[0:18:27 – 0:18:29] Adam: I was thinking 4 myself.
[0:18:31 – 0:18:32] Adam: Yeah, I think 3.8 is a little low.
[0:18:33 – 0:18:33] Adam: We’ve checked in.
[0:18:33 – 0:18:34] Adam: 4.1.
[0:18:34 – 0:18:36] Adam: I didn’t know we were going to go with decimals.
[0:18:36 – 0:18:37] Adam: All right.
[0:18:37 – 0:18:38] Adam: 4.1.
[0:18:38 – 0:18:38] Adam: 3.84.
[0:18:38 – 0:18:40] Adam: Yeah, I’m a little…
[0:18:40 – 0:18:42] Adam: I’m higher on Oliphant.
[0:18:43 – 0:18:44] Adam: I got to keep looking at it.
[0:18:44 – 0:18:46] Adam: Lizardize Marijuana’s.
[0:18:47 – 0:18:47] Adam: Yep.
[0:18:47 – 0:18:49] Adam: Is this like an alien thing?
[0:18:49 – 0:18:50] Adam: Are these the lizard people?
[0:18:51 – 0:18:59] Erik: I don’t think the alien folks would come in full like United States or cosmonaut style spacesuits.
[0:19:00 – 0:19:02] Erik: But one guy is lifting a dumbbell.
[0:19:02 – 0:19:03] Erik: So he’s keeping the biceps strong.
[0:19:04 – 0:19:05] Erik: Skies out.
[0:19:05 – 0:19:05] Erik: Thighs out.
[0:19:06 – 0:19:07] Erik: Sons out.
[0:19:08 – 0:19:09] Erik: Guns out.
[0:19:10 – 0:19:11] Erik: Let’s hear about some beavers.
[0:19:11 – 0:19:12] Erik: Are you ready or do you want to stop for a second?
[0:19:12 – 0:19:13] Adam: No, let’s get right into it.
[0:19:14 – 0:19:14] Erik: Do it.
[0:19:14 – 0:19:15] Erik: We’re not breaking.
[0:19:15 – 0:19:15] Erik: No.
[0:19:15 – 0:19:18] Erik: The battery on the GoPro looks like it’s still well over half.
[0:19:18 – 0:19:18] Erik: We’re good.
[0:19:18 – 0:19:20] Adam: The settings have been adjusted properly.
[0:19:20 – 0:19:22] Erik: The battery’s not overheating.
[0:19:22 – 0:19:23] Erik: We’re not melting down.
[0:19:24 – 0:19:25] Adam: So I’ve got notes I’m working off of.
[0:19:26 – 0:19:28] Adam: I had to return the book to the library.
[0:19:28 – 0:19:31] Adam: Somebody else had it reserved, so I couldn’t renew it.
[0:19:31 – 0:19:33] Adam: I had to make some photocopies.
[0:19:33 – 0:19:34] Adam: That’s what I’ll be working off of.
[0:19:34 – 0:19:37] Adam: If you hear paper shuffling, that’s what you’re getting.
[0:19:38 – 0:19:38] Adam: The book.
[0:19:40 – 0:19:44] Adam: of tonight’s episode is Eager by Ben Goldfarb.
[0:19:45 – 0:19:48] Adam: This is a 4.2 out of 5 on Goodreads.
[0:19:48 – 0:19:49] Adam: Nice.
[0:19:49 – 0:19:51] Adam: Most importantly, I have that first… What’s the rating?
[0:19:52 – 0:19:53] Adam: First on the bullet point.
[0:19:53 – 0:19:57] Adam: The second bullet point, you know, I just have to mention it, I guess.
[0:19:57 – 0:19:58] Adam: It was the winner of the 2019…
[0:20:00 – 0:20:21] Adam: penn eo wilson literary science writing award nice for uh obviously a non-fiction book of science literature yes science that’s a pretty big deal i want it’s on a bunch of other top 10 lists for science writing yes um so that attracted me i literally went on when we got back from the trip i googled um
[0:20:22 – 0:20:43] Adam: most comprehensive book on beaver culture i think was my google search and this book was the first one that came up and i read that it won the it was a you know it was published in june of 2018 so um most up-to-date information on uh castor canadensis that you will find and uh really well done i’ll just get that out of the way
[0:20:44 – 0:20:45] Adam: It’s highly recommended.
[0:20:45 – 0:20:47] Adam: You don’t have to listen any farther.
[0:20:47 – 0:20:53] Adam: You can just go and pick up the book and check it out and then maybe pause here, read the book, and then come back and you can enjoy it with us.
[0:20:54 – 0:20:59] Adam: Or just enjoy it with us in this format and then maybe read it later.
[0:20:59 – 0:21:00] Adam: It’s fine either way.
[0:21:00 – 0:21:01] Adam: I’m not going to ruin anything for you.
[0:21:01 – 0:21:03] Adam: We’re not going to spoil anything.
[0:21:03 – 0:21:04] Adam: Not that there’s anything really to spoil.
[0:21:04 – 0:21:10] Erik: There’s no spoiler endings besides when we eventually just kill them from humans being bad.
[0:21:10 – 0:21:13] Adam: We tried to, and they’ve made a comeback.
[0:21:14 – 0:21:19] Adam: So we’ll begin with the beginning, which is now.
[0:21:20 – 0:21:43] Adam: we’ll begin with the that was a real purred happily i really purred that thing yeah you did uh there are currently 15 million beavers in north america give or take um they’re everywhere in north america you find water other than like the florida panhandle do the uh the alligators the gators will eat them so they don’t like them
[0:21:43 – 0:21:45] Adam: They’re not in the Florida panhandle.
[0:21:46 – 0:21:51] Adam: They’re in large portions of even Central America and the desert southwest.
[0:21:51 – 0:21:52] Adam: They’re everywhere.
[0:21:53 – 0:21:58] Adam: All over the North Country, out to Alaska, West Coast, East Coast, the Plains.
[0:21:59 – 0:22:03] Adam: Every part of North America has beavers in some way.
[0:22:04 – 0:22:05] Adam: I was pretty shocked by that.
[0:22:06 – 0:22:07] Adam: I never really pictured…
[0:22:07 – 0:22:08] Adam: I’ve been to the Southwest.
[0:22:09 – 0:22:11] Adam: I’ve been to the desert.
[0:22:11 – 0:22:12] Adam: They’re everywhere out there.
[0:22:12 – 0:22:15] Adam: And they’re more important almost to the West.
[0:22:15 – 0:22:23] Adam: And this book really focused a lot on the West in that they’re a way for a restoration of wetlands, a way to hold water.
[0:22:23 – 0:22:25] Adam: We’re going to get to these big themes more later.
[0:22:25 – 0:22:26] Adam: But…
[0:22:27 – 0:22:33] Adam: A lot of the book focused on the way that they can help the West, which is dealing with a lot of issues with not having enough water.
[0:22:34 – 0:22:41] Adam: Here where we live, the Cadence River in our backyard, beavers are thriving and they’re doing very well.
[0:22:43 – 0:22:46] Adam: But there are a lot of areas where they’re needed a lot more.
[0:22:46 – 0:22:48] Erik: So there’s beavers in Indiana.
[0:22:48 – 0:22:48] Erik: Yeah.
[0:22:48 – 0:22:48] Adam: Yeah.
[0:22:49 – 0:22:51] Adam: There’s beavers in every state.
[0:22:51 – 0:22:52] Adam: They’re in the panhandle of Florida.
[0:22:52 – 0:22:54] Adam: Did I say the panhandle before?
[0:22:54 – 0:22:57] Adam: You said the panhandle was not as many because of crocs.
[0:22:57 – 0:22:59] Adam: No, I meant the panhandle has them.
[0:22:59 – 0:23:03] Adam: Even Florida has them in the panhandle, but not down in the Everglades.
[0:23:03 – 0:23:06] Adam: There’s no beavers in the Everglades, according to this book.
[0:23:06 – 0:23:08] Erik: Down in America’s wang doesn’t have them.
[0:23:08 – 0:23:09] Adam: Yeah, they’re not out on the Keys.
[0:23:10 – 0:23:12] Adam: Too many six-toed cats.
[0:23:13 – 0:23:13] SPEAKER_00: Wow.
[0:23:13 – 0:23:13] Adam: Yeah.
[0:23:14 – 0:23:14] Adam: All right.
[0:23:14 – 0:23:17] Adam: So that’s basically the only spot in the United States.
[0:23:17 – 0:23:19] Adam: I guess Hawaii probably doesn’t have them.
[0:23:19 – 0:23:21] Adam: I don’t think they really ever touched on Hawaii.
[0:23:21 – 0:23:22] Erik: No.
[0:23:22 – 0:23:23] Adam: Alaska’s filthy with beaver.
[0:23:23 – 0:23:23] Erik: I’m sure.
[0:23:24 – 0:23:26] Erik: I’ve been to Hawaii, and I only remember the roosters.
[0:23:26 – 0:23:27] Erik: Definitely no beavers.
[0:23:28 – 0:23:35] Erik: It’s too young of a land form for the beavers to have any effect, unless somebody hauled them out there.
[0:23:35 – 0:23:37] Adam: I don’t think they can swim that far, but I don’t know.
[0:23:37 – 0:23:38] Adam: They didn’t touch on it.
[0:23:38 – 0:23:39] Erik: Probably brought them out there.
[0:23:40 – 0:23:45] Adam: So I think we’ve got all the stuff out of the way, just what the book is, how I got it.
[0:23:46 – 0:23:47] Adam: I got it from the library.
[0:23:47 – 0:23:52] Adam: But I wish I would have bought my own copy after having read it so I could have just made notes in it.
[0:23:52 – 0:23:59] Adam: I was making notes on another pad and then had to end up going and highlighting a bunch of photocopies to be able to present this.
[0:23:59 – 0:24:01] Adam: I wanted to read the introduction.
[0:24:01 – 0:24:02] Erik: That’s the end of part one.
[0:24:02 – 0:24:06] Erik: We will be back next week with part two where we get to the book.
[0:24:08 – 0:24:16] Adam: I’m going to read some passages from here, and I’ll try and be clear when I’m reading from the book, and then we’ll have discussions based on those passages.
[0:24:16 – 0:24:20] Adam: I only have about 85 pages of notes here to go through, so buckle up.
[0:24:20 – 0:24:25] Erik: So the last part will come out in mid-September, and then that’ll be right in time for the spooky episode.
[0:24:26 – 0:24:26] Adam: Good, good.
[0:24:26 – 0:24:27] Adam: Okay.
[0:24:27 – 0:24:27] Adam: Okay.
[0:24:29 – 0:24:31] Adam: People often tell me they think beavers are cute.
[0:24:32 – 0:24:33] Adam: And that’s wonderful.
[0:24:33 – 0:24:35] Adam: I think beavers are cute too.
[0:24:35 – 0:24:39] Adam: But I urge you not to underestimate these extraordinary mammals.
[0:24:39 – 0:24:40] Adam: Many animals are cute.
[0:24:41 – 0:24:43] Adam: Very few are ecosystem engineers.
[0:24:44 – 0:24:48] Adam: Even acknowledging that beavers store water and sustain other creatures is insufficient.
[0:24:49 – 0:25:01] Adam: Because the truth is that beavers are nothing less than continental-scale forces of nature, in large part responsible for sculpting the land upon which we Americans built our towns and raised our food.
[0:25:02 – 0:25:07] Adam: Beavers shape North America’s ecosystems, its human history, and its geology.
[0:25:08 – 0:25:11] Adam: They whittled our world, and they could again if we let them.
[0:25:12 – 0:25:13] Adam: So that’s how it starts.
[0:25:14 – 0:25:15] Adam: It’s a pretty big picture.
[0:25:15 – 0:25:15] Erik: That’s great.
[0:25:16 – 0:25:17] Adam: Yeah.
[0:25:17 – 0:25:19] Adam: So I was like, all right, I’m instantly hooked.
[0:25:20 – 0:25:23] Adam: They sound like they’re a lot more important than I ever imagined them to be.
[0:25:23 – 0:25:29] Adam: I always just pictured them as like, yeah, they’re these critters in the water, and they’re kind of doing their thing.
[0:25:29 – 0:25:32] Adam: But, you know, so what?
[0:25:32 – 0:25:35] Erik: But I had always heard, you know, they’re a keystone species.
[0:25:36 – 0:25:37] Erik: But I was like, well, okay, what does that mean?
[0:25:38 – 0:25:39] Adam: Well, I mean…
[0:25:39 – 0:25:40] Adam: They are a keystone species.
[0:25:40 – 0:25:52] Erik: I imagine that their existence is… Every animal… Like, every other animal, to a certain degree, is dependent on them surviving.
[0:25:52 – 0:25:57] Adam: Everything I think people listening to this podcast will know is interconnected, right?
[0:25:58 – 0:26:25] Adam: interconnectedness is the key to all ecosystems but like a keystone species there’s more species that are reliant on them doing their thing than others some are more important than others beavers have to be a big one just because of the way they can control water water you know being everything as we see out west which is why a lot of this book took place out west we’re not going to dwell too much on that but
[0:26:28 – 0:26:32] Adam: They’re really important, and I did not know this going into the book.
[0:26:33 – 0:26:39] Adam: I guess after reading it, I should have known, especially after having paddled the Boundary Waters a lot and seeing what they’re up to.
[0:26:41 – 0:26:45] Adam: They have more influence over the landscape than I had known.
[0:26:45 – 0:26:46] Erik: Probably just about any other animal.
[0:26:47 – 0:26:56] Erik: I can’t imagine any other one out there affecting so viscerally and visually what you see.
[0:26:56 – 0:26:59] Adam: The other main one they mentioned in the book was like Pacific salmon.
[0:27:00 – 0:27:00] Erik: Right.
[0:27:00 – 0:27:01] Erik: Pacific salmon.
[0:27:01 – 0:27:07] Erik: There’s one other kind of fish on the West Coast out in San Francisco that’s a super…
[0:27:08 – 0:27:09] Erik: It’s one of those barometer species.
[0:27:09 – 0:27:10] Adam: Right.
[0:27:10 – 0:27:12] Adam: They’re not the only keystone species.
[0:27:12 – 0:27:15] Adam: I’m not trying to imply that, but they’re one of the most important.
[0:27:15 – 0:27:19] Adam: And from what this book is arguing, the most important species in the Boundary Waters.
[0:27:20 – 0:27:23] Erik: I can’t imagine any other one that would be more important to the…
[0:27:23 – 0:27:50] Adam: you know so they didn’t really you know there’s a map at the beginning of the book and it was like here’s all the locations the author visited and like did field research for the book and where some of the stories from the book are located none of them were in northern minnesota and really anywhere in ontario disclaimer so um you know i think what’s interesting is we can take what’s in the book and then kind of apply it to what we’ve seen in the boundary waters i imagine it’s pretty applicable
[0:27:50 – 0:27:50] Adam: Yeah, for sure.
[0:27:51 – 0:27:52] Adam: I’ll finish off with this.
[0:27:52 – 0:27:55] Adam: This is all part of the introduction and then we’ll move forward.
[0:27:55 – 0:28:03] Adam: The story of beavers is the story of how North America was colonized, why our landscapes look the way they do and how they’ve changed.
[0:28:03 – 0:28:13] Adam: What measures we can take to forestall the deterioration of our rivers, the disappearance of our biodiversity and the ravages of climate change.
[0:28:13 – 0:28:22] Adam: Most of all, eager is about the mightiest theme I know, how we can learn to coexist and thrive alongside our fellow travelers on this planet.
[0:28:23 – 0:28:24] Erik: There you go.
[0:28:24 – 0:28:25] Erik: So that sets the stage pretty well.
[0:28:27 – 0:28:28] Erik: Are we going to do that, though?
[0:28:29 – 0:28:29] Adam: What?
[0:28:29 – 0:28:32] Adam: Coexist with our fellow travelers on this planet?
[0:28:32 – 0:28:33] Adam: It’s not looking good.
[0:28:33 – 0:28:33] Adam: Okay.
[0:28:33 – 0:28:34] Erik: Let’s stay positive for now.
[0:28:34 – 0:28:34] Erik: Yeah.
[0:28:39 – 0:28:40] Adam: I got a few more to read here.
[0:28:41 – 0:28:42] Adam: Only about 78 more pages.
[0:28:42 – 0:28:44] Adam: We’re just going to keep going.
[0:28:44 – 0:28:46] Adam: You interject as you need to.
[0:28:47 – 0:28:49] Adam: I’ll make it clear when I’m offering my own opinions.
[0:28:50 – 0:29:03] Adam: Although the evolutionary paths of rodents and primates forked more than 80 million years ago, don’t let our divergent lineages fool you, beavers are amongst our closest ecological and technological kin.
[0:29:03 – 0:29:16] Adam: Homo sapiens and Castor canadensis are both wildly creative tool users who settle near water, share a fondness for elaborate infrastructure, and favor fertile valley bottoms carved out by low gradient rivers.
[0:29:17 – 0:29:25] Adam: While all organisms have evolved to fill niches provided by nature, neither beavers nor people are content to leave it at that.
[0:29:26 – 0:29:33] Adam: Instead, we’re proactive, relentlessly driven to rearrange our environments to maximize its provisions of food and shelter.
[0:29:34 – 0:29:39] Adam: We are not just evolutionary products of our habitats, we are its producers.
[0:29:39 – 0:29:44] Adam: If humans are the world’s most influential mammals, beavers have a fair claim at second place.
[0:29:45 – 0:29:48] Adam: And I think that’s obvious from finishing this book.
[0:29:49 – 0:29:57] Adam: And just to lay that out there right away, they’re right up there as far as influencing the landscape of North America.
[0:29:59 – 0:30:01] Erik: And in terms of scale, for sure.
[0:30:01 – 0:30:13] Erik: There’s nothing else besides maybe, I mean, ants and bugs and stuff, but that doesn’t really even hold a candle to the scale of beavers or humans.
[0:30:13 – 0:30:15] Erik: And like you said, the one thing that stuck out to me was the…
[0:30:17 – 0:30:26] Erik: the fondness of rivers, water, and like valleys, you could probably take just a picture of about any place on earth at night.
[0:30:27 – 0:30:35] Erik: And it would probably correlate pretty well to like where beavers like to find themselves, which is basically right along rivers.
[0:30:36 – 0:30:38] Erik: They like the water and they like to affect it.
[0:30:39 – 0:30:45] Erik: Like they’re just basically humans on a smaller scale, except they’re not like refining…
[0:30:47 – 0:31:08] Adam: metals and pumping yeah they’re doing it all natural yeah they’re doing all natural yeah it’s a pretty amazing what they can do and we use power tools yeah just teeth yeah just teeth and a lot of determination uh yeah castor red eye is the beaver family it evolved from rodentia
[0:31:09 – 0:31:17] Adam: 35 to 40 million years ago, tropical forests were ceding to grasslands in the late Eocene.
[0:31:18 – 0:31:24] Adam: And all that remains of this once-flowering tree today is the genus Castor.
[0:31:24 – 0:31:33] Adam: This comprises the familiar Castor canadensis in North America, and Castor fiber is the Eurasian beaver.
[0:31:33 – 0:31:36] Erik: So there used to be a caster tree that no longer exists?
[0:31:36 – 0:31:37] Adam: Yeah, there’s a whole bunch of them.
[0:31:37 – 0:31:38] Adam: There’s a bunch of them.
[0:31:38 – 0:31:46] Adam: There’s beavers that in the Great Plains, they find these old spirals just kind of sticking out of the badlands.
[0:31:46 – 0:31:48] Adam: They didn’t know what the hell they were forever.
[0:31:48 – 0:31:54] Adam: It was like an old groundhog beaver that would dig in spirals down into the ground.
[0:31:54 – 0:32:02] Adam: And now that the wind has blown away the topsoil, these old cavern spirals are being discovered now.
[0:32:03 – 0:32:05] Adam: They had no idea what they were forever.
[0:32:05 – 0:32:06] Adam: That’s crazy.
[0:32:06 – 0:32:08] Adam: It’s an old ancient ground dwelling beaver.
[0:32:09 – 0:32:11] Adam: So like most of the old beavers were on land.
[0:32:12 – 0:32:17] Adam: Very few were on water, but the ones that adapted to live and thrive in water are what we have left.
[0:32:18 – 0:32:21] Adam: Mainly, it’s all down to the two beavers, which look identical.
[0:32:22 – 0:32:24] Adam: You have to really know your stuff to be able to tell them apart.
[0:32:24 – 0:32:29] Adam: And even determining the sex of a beaver is very complicated.
[0:32:30 – 0:32:31] Adam: It’s not complicated.
[0:32:31 – 0:32:33] Adam: It literally is a smell test, though.
[0:32:33 – 0:32:35] Adam: That’s how they tell beavers apart because they look identical.
[0:32:36 – 0:32:37] Erik: I don’t want to do that test.
[0:32:37 – 0:32:39] Adam: So one smells like motor oil.
[0:32:40 – 0:32:40] Erik: Okay.
[0:32:40 – 0:32:41] Erik: You smell their butts.
[0:32:41 – 0:32:41] Erik: That’s fine.
[0:32:42 – 0:32:42] Adam: I’m not kidding.
[0:32:42 – 0:32:47] Adam: You smell their butts, and one smells like motor oil, and then the other smells like old cheese.
[0:32:48 – 0:32:49] Adam: I’m not going to say who’s who.
[0:32:50 – 0:32:51] Adam: You got to read the book to find that out.
[0:32:51 – 0:32:57] Adam: But that’s how they tell if you’re grabbing a beaver out of the wild and trying to relocate it somewhere nice.
[0:32:57 – 0:32:59] Erik: Because you want to move them in pairs.
[0:32:59 – 0:33:01] Erik: Isn’t there a brand of oil that’s like Castor?
[0:33:01 – 0:33:03] Adam: Oh, there’s castor oils.
[0:33:03 – 0:33:06] Adam: Yeah, like it’s from the beaver itself.
[0:33:06 – 0:33:07] Adam: It’s from the beaver?
[0:33:07 – 0:33:18] Adam: Yeah, and this isn’t part of the book report, but like they do, there’s a lot of like, there’s like perfumes they use, this very pungent aroma, and like it’s in a whiskey.
[0:33:19 – 0:33:21] Adam: They have like brandies and schnapps over in Europe.
[0:33:21 – 0:33:22] Erik: Castor schnapps?
[0:33:23 – 0:33:28] Adam: Yeah, they were literally just taking the glands out of the beaver’s butt and squeezing that into schnapps.
[0:33:28 – 0:33:29] Adam: Just little squids?
[0:33:30 – 0:33:32] Adam: Yeah, just a little caster.
[0:33:32 – 0:33:35] Erik: It’s like European bitters.
[0:33:36 – 0:33:36] Adam: Yes.
[0:33:37 – 0:33:38] Adam: Yeah, I’m going to say yes.
[0:33:38 – 0:33:39] Adam: I’m not sure if it is, but it is.
[0:33:40 – 0:33:41] Erik: It sounds terrible.
[0:33:41 – 0:33:41] Adam: Yeah.
[0:33:41 – 0:33:50] Adam: So anyways, yeah, when they move them, I wasn’t going to, I mean, I’m glad this came up because I wanted to talk about it, but I wasn’t going to do any readings on this part of it.
[0:33:50 – 0:33:56] Adam: But when they’re moving beavers who are causing trouble, they want to put them in a nice stream where they can thrive.
[0:33:56 – 0:33:57] Adam: They always try and move two together.
[0:33:57 – 0:33:59] Adam: They have way better chance of success.
[0:33:59 – 0:34:06] Adam: So they’re like, a big part of the book was like, here’s how you determine, make sure you get a male and a female and put them up in that
[0:34:06 – 0:34:28] Adam: canyon and they’ll they’ll make it really nice and so that’s how you tell you gotta find one that smells like motor oil and one that smells like old cheese boy i don’t really otherwise you can’t tell them apart they look identical if they’re what you can’t like peel back some skin and it’s all up in there everything’s up in there for both of them well what are you gonna get to the reproductive process at some point
[0:34:29 – 0:34:29] Adam: Not really.
[0:34:30 – 0:34:30] Adam: It’s gross.
[0:34:31 – 0:34:32] Adam: I’m not getting into that.
[0:34:32 – 0:34:35] Adam: So they do it, and then in the spring they have the kits.
[0:34:35 – 0:34:37] Adam: We’ll get to that part, like the family rearing.
[0:34:37 – 0:34:41] Erik: I’m just wondering about how the parts can be so far up in there if there’s no, like…
[0:34:41 – 0:34:42] Adam: There’s weird bones and such.
[0:34:43 – 0:34:44] SPEAKER_00: Okay, weird bones.
[0:34:44 – 0:34:45] Erik: We got weird bones, and I just…
[0:34:46 – 0:34:49] Erik: The differences between motor oil and old cheese.
[0:34:49 – 0:34:51] Adam: You’d have to, like, dissect them to find out.
[0:34:51 – 0:34:54] Adam: Unless it’s mating season, which they’re never, you know, they just…
[0:34:55 – 0:34:55] Adam: They’re private.
[0:34:55 – 0:34:59] Adam: You don’t want to disturb them during mating season.
[0:34:59 – 0:35:10] Adam: So if you’re just trying to catch one that’s damming up a road or clogged a culvert or whatever, you want to take that one and throw it in a canyon with another one so they can start a new family.
[0:35:10 – 0:35:17] Erik: But the differences in smells between motor oil and old cheese, it’s not like two completely different smells.
[0:35:17 – 0:35:18] Erik: That sounds like…
[0:35:19 – 0:35:21] Adam: They’re different enough, I guess.
[0:35:21 – 0:35:22] Adam: Well, they did a test on the guy.
[0:35:22 – 0:35:23] Adam: Ben Goldfarb failed.
[0:35:23 – 0:35:25] Adam: He was like, I don’t know, motor oil?
[0:35:25 – 0:35:25] Adam: Yeah, that’s what I mean.
[0:35:25 – 0:35:28] Adam: They’re like, no, it clearly smells like old cheese, Ben.
[0:35:29 – 0:35:29] Adam: Come on.
[0:35:30 – 0:35:31] Adam: So he failed.
[0:35:31 – 0:35:32] Erik: What kind of old cheese?
[0:35:32 – 0:35:33] Erik: Like good old cheese?
[0:35:33 – 0:35:34] Erik: Like blue cheese?
[0:35:34 – 0:35:37] Erik: Or like rotten mozzarella, which smells terrible?
[0:35:37 – 0:35:38] Adam: No, like blue cheese.
[0:35:39 – 0:35:39] Adam: Okay.
[0:35:39 – 0:35:41] Adam: Well, that’s what I took away.
[0:35:41 – 0:35:44] Adam: Well, boy, it doesn’t sound as easy as you make it sound.
[0:35:44 – 0:35:45] Adam: Well, it’s not easy.
[0:35:45 – 0:35:47] Adam: That’s why you have to call in the professionals.
[0:35:48 – 0:35:50] Adam: Professional beaver relocators.
[0:35:50 – 0:35:52] Adam: Beaver smellers, yeah.
[0:35:52 – 0:35:53] Adam: Beaver boys.
[0:35:53 – 0:35:53] Adam: Beaver smellers.
[0:35:53 – 0:35:55] Erik: First beaver boys reference.
[0:35:55 – 0:35:56] Erik: We’re 35 minutes in.
[0:35:56 – 0:35:58] Erik: First beaver boys reference.
[0:35:58 – 0:36:01] Erik: We should be drinking white wine and eating shrimp.
[0:36:01 – 0:36:02] Erik: Where are the shrimps?
[0:36:05 – 0:36:08] Adam: So anyways, Beaver arose in North America.
[0:36:08 – 0:36:11] Adam: Then they went to Eurasia across the land bridge.
[0:36:12 – 0:36:16] Adam: And then they came back on the next land bridge.
[0:36:16 – 0:36:18] Adam: And then the people followed.
[0:36:18 – 0:36:20] Erik: Wait, what was the first land bridge versus the second one?
[0:36:21 – 0:36:21] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:36:21 – 0:36:23] Adam: Maybe it’s the same one, but it just was in two different phases.
[0:36:23 – 0:36:24] Erik: All right.
[0:36:24 – 0:36:25] Adam: So they started in North America.
[0:36:26 – 0:36:27] Adam: They went to Europe.
[0:36:27 – 0:36:29] Adam: And then some of them came back.
[0:36:29 – 0:36:30] Adam: And then they came back all pompous.
[0:36:31 – 0:36:32] Erik: Oh, you don’t travel.
[0:36:32 – 0:36:32] Erik: I’ve been to Europe.
[0:36:32 – 0:36:33] Erik: Yeah.
[0:36:34 – 0:36:36] Adam: If you’ve met beavers, you know this to be true.
[0:36:36 – 0:36:38] Erik: Have you ever seen Prague in the evening?
[0:36:38 – 0:36:38] Erik: It’s beautiful.
[0:36:38 – 0:36:39] Adam: You don’t know anything.
[0:36:39 – 0:36:40] Adam: You Detroiter.
[0:36:40 – 0:36:41] Adam: Quite elegant.
[0:36:42 – 0:36:42] Adam: Yeah.
[0:36:43 – 0:36:47] Adam: So they came back, and then the land bridge, you know, whatever, went away.
[0:36:47 – 0:36:47] Adam: It got covered up.
[0:36:47 – 0:36:51] Erik: Yeah, just quote-unquote disappeared, if that’s what you want to use as a theory.
[0:36:51 – 0:36:51] Adam: That’s what they tell us.
[0:36:52 – 0:36:58] Adam: So it was at this point that the two remaining beavers split.
[0:36:59 – 0:36:59] Adam: Two different kinds?
[0:37:00 – 0:37:00] Adam: Yeah.
[0:37:00 – 0:37:03] Adam: Right, the one in Europe and the one in North America.
[0:37:03 – 0:37:05] Erik: And these are the only two kinds left.
[0:37:05 – 0:37:07] Adam: There’s only two kinds left, and they can’t mate.
[0:37:07 – 0:37:14] Adam: They’ve actually put some Castor canadensis in Europe, thinking maybe they’d help jumpstart it a little, because they’re really…
[0:37:14 – 0:37:16] Erik: The European beavers aren’t doing so well?
[0:37:16 – 0:37:17] Adam: They’re not doing as hot.
[0:37:17 – 0:37:21] Adam: They’re still okay, but they’re definitely not doing as well as canadensis.
[0:37:22 – 0:37:29] Adam: So they’re like, we’ll throw a couple canadensis over there, but them Eurasian beavers, they’re missing a few chromosomes.
[0:37:29 – 0:37:29] Erik: Oh, no.
[0:37:31 – 0:37:32] Adam: Yeah, they lost a few somehow.
[0:37:34 – 0:37:35] Adam: Probably Chernobyl.
[0:37:35 – 0:37:36] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:37:36 – 0:37:45] Erik: Maybe the Canadian beavers just can’t, they’re just not, they just don’t have the tight, they don’t have tight enough jeans.
[0:37:46 – 0:37:48] Erik: And they don’t smoke enough little mini cigarettes.
[0:37:48 – 0:37:53] Adam: So when they came back, though, it was a great land for opportunity for the beavers, and they thrived.
[0:37:54 – 0:37:57] Adam: Beavers took over North America, and they ruled North America.
[0:37:58 – 0:38:02] Adam: And there’s a really good passage here that I wanted to read verbatim.
[0:38:02 – 0:38:05] Adam: It really was one of my favorite lines in the whole book.
[0:38:06 – 0:38:08] Adam: Where there was water, there was beavers.
[0:38:08 – 0:38:11] Adam: And where there was beavers, there was water.
[0:38:12 – 0:38:36] Adam: ah money gets money oh my god it’s so good yeah i like all right next up beaver diet diet to acquire beaver building materials beavers chew down their trees everybody knows this uh they teeter precariously on their hind legs tail propped between the body like a kickstand and four paws braced against the trunk as they chip away with massive incisors
[0:38:37 – 0:38:37] Adam: You can picture it.
[0:38:37 – 0:38:39] Adam: Everybody can picture this.
[0:38:40 – 0:38:43] Adam: Yeah, they have hands like a raccoon on the front.
[0:38:43 – 0:38:44] Adam: They have thumbs.
[0:38:44 – 0:38:45] Adam: Yeah, they have thumbs.
[0:38:45 – 0:38:46] Adam: They’re very nimble.
[0:38:47 – 0:38:49] Adam: Everybody knows about the big teeth and the tail.
[0:38:50 – 0:38:52] Adam: They have little raccoon hands.
[0:38:52 – 0:38:54] Adam: And then they have duck feet, though.
[0:38:55 – 0:38:55] Erik: Webbed feet.
[0:38:56 – 0:38:56] Erik: Webbed feet, for sure.
[0:38:58 – 0:38:58] Adam: Crazy.
[0:39:00 – 0:39:24] Adam: um you know we saw the tree on the feet of e section that was like well do you think they dropped it right there on purpose yeah uh 62 percent of feet trees felled fall towards the dam in research so okay so that’s not great borderline inconclusive yeah well they basically go on to say like it’s really tough and like they have found like beavers just crushed by trees it’s nobody wants to take down big trees
[0:39:24 – 0:39:25] Erik: They have to do it.
[0:39:26 – 0:39:32] Erik: So did they hint at whether or not that was like a, I’m just kind of bored, sharpening my teeth?
[0:39:32 – 0:39:40] Erik: Because it can’t be possibly eating like the wood chips from like a 60-year-old aspen tree, like basically was the one that we saw.
[0:39:41 – 0:39:42] Adam: It just happened to fall.
[0:39:42 – 0:39:46] Adam: So, yeah, part of it is they eat part of the outer bark.
[0:39:47 – 0:39:54] Adam: A lot of it is to keep their teeth sharp, and they do use as much as they can out of the trees they fall.
[0:39:54 – 0:39:55] Adam: They’re not knocking these things down for fun.
[0:39:57 – 0:40:01] Adam: Maybe it’s just to keep the teeth sharp, but they’re using as much as they can.
[0:40:01 – 0:40:03] Adam: They’re very conservation-minded.
[0:40:03 – 0:40:09] Adam: I got a big passage here that kind of talks about their diet, which is super interesting we’re going to get into.
[0:40:09 – 0:40:09] SPEAKER_00: All right.
[0:40:10 – 0:40:13] Adam: Okay, stoop to examine the sticks that constitute a lodger dam.
[0:40:14 – 0:40:17] Adam: You’ll usually find they’ve been peeled smooth, as if whittled with a pocket knife.
[0:40:18 – 0:40:21] Adam: Beavers are reliably efficient and true to form.
[0:40:21 – 0:40:27] Adam: They generally eat the inner bark, the sugary tissue layer known as the cambium, that does the growing.
[0:40:28 – 0:40:29] Adam: Like corn on the cob…
[0:40:30 – 0:40:30] Adam: They eat this.
[0:40:30 – 0:40:33] Adam: They eat the outside part, and then you’ve got the cob left.
[0:40:34 – 0:40:36] Adam: They weave these sticks into their edifices.
[0:40:36 – 0:40:45] Adam: In the summer, when the world is succulent, beaver’s gray is on green plants as contentedly as any cow, munching everything from ferns to poison ivy.
[0:40:45 – 0:40:49] Adam: Come winter, they switch to a woodier diet, subsisting on stems and bark.
[0:40:49 – 0:40:53] Adam: They have hoarded, and that’s what we are seeing.
[0:40:53 – 0:40:56] Adam: Everybody’s seen the caches they kind of get of the sticks.
[0:40:56 – 0:40:58] Adam: They eat that all winter, basically.
[0:40:58 – 0:40:59] Adam: Terrible.
[0:41:00 – 0:41:01] Adam: Terrible?
[0:41:01 – 0:41:01] Adam: No.
[0:41:01 – 0:41:02] Adam: I mean, it’s good to them.
[0:41:02 – 0:41:03] Adam: It sounds terrible.
[0:41:04 – 0:41:06] Adam: Their favorite foods are aspen, cottonwood, and willow.
[0:41:07 – 0:41:07] Adam: Cottonwood.
[0:41:07 – 0:41:09] Adam: They’ll eat just about anything in a pinch.
[0:41:10 – 0:41:23] Adam: One researcher dissected a stomach of a beaver, found them packed with 42 different tree species, 36 genre of green plants, four kinds of woody vines, and a sodden mulch of grasses.
[0:41:24 – 0:41:26] Erik: It can’t possibly be in the winter.
[0:41:26 – 0:41:28] Erik: That must be like a mid-summer.
[0:41:28 – 0:41:30] Erik: It was in the deep south.
[0:41:30 – 0:41:31] Erik: Not in the Bonjou waters.
[0:41:31 – 0:41:34] Erik: I don’t think there’s 42 different kinds of trees up here.
[0:41:34 – 0:41:37] Erik: There’s not four woody vines either, actually.
[0:41:37 – 0:41:38] Adam: Fact check us on the fly.
[0:41:38 – 0:41:39] Adam: There’s actually six.
[0:41:39 – 0:41:41] Erik: Woody vine scientists.
[0:41:41 – 0:41:42] Erik: Fact check us.
[0:41:42 – 0:41:44] Adam: Here’s something interesting.
[0:41:44 – 0:41:48] Adam: They practice cacotrophy.
[0:41:48 – 0:41:49] Adam: I butchered that.
[0:41:49 – 0:41:50] Adam: Cacotrophy.
[0:41:50 – 0:41:51] Erik: Kakotrophy?
[0:41:52 – 0:41:52] Adam: Kakotrophy?
[0:41:52 – 0:41:53] Adam: Kakotrophy.
[0:41:54 – 0:41:54] Adam: What’s that?
[0:41:54 – 0:41:59] Adam: Eating their pudding-like excretions to extract every last iota of nutrition.
[0:42:00 – 0:42:00] Erik: Really?
[0:42:01 – 0:42:03] Adam: That’s a fancy word for eating your own shit?
[0:42:03 – 0:42:04] Adam: They’re shit eaters, yeah.
[0:42:04 – 0:42:05] Adam: Mark that down.
[0:42:05 – 0:42:08] Adam: It’s at 42 minutes on that shit eater comment.
[0:42:08 – 0:42:13] Erik: I mean, I guess if all you’re eating is like wood, it can’t be that bad.
[0:42:13 – 0:42:18] Adam: Yeah, basically by the time it really comes out, they say it looks like it’s sawdust.
[0:42:18 – 0:42:18] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[0:42:19 – 0:42:21] Erik: So you get like one eating after that?
[0:42:21 – 0:42:22] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:42:23 – 0:42:27] Adam: Beavers manage to digest around a third of the cellulose they consume.
[0:42:29 – 0:42:38] Adam: It’s aided not only by the poop eating, but also by an unusually long intestine and a spectacularly diverse microbiome.
[0:42:39 – 0:42:41] Erik: Sure.
[0:42:41 – 0:42:51] Adam: Researchers found more than 1,400 species of bacteria in beaver feces, hundreds more than have been detected in our own impoverished guts.
[0:42:53 – 0:42:58] Adam: They’re full of bacteria and germs, and they got really long intestines full of poop.
[0:42:58 – 0:43:01] Erik: I love that you disparaged humans and their impoverished guts.
[0:43:01 – 0:43:02] Erik: I didn’t.
[0:43:02 – 0:43:02] Adam: That was from the book.
[0:43:03 – 0:43:08] Erik: Well, I love that he did that because I’m sure 90% of humans’ guts are impoverished.
[0:43:09 – 0:43:14] Erik: Even though we are well fed, I’m sure the guts are impoverished.
[0:43:15 – 0:43:19] Erik: in terms of actual microbiomes, that’s great.
[0:43:19 – 0:43:21] Erik: I didn’t even think of the beavers.
[0:43:21 – 0:43:32] Erik: It’s kind of like the what scares you most, infinite greatness or infinite smallness.
[0:43:32 – 0:43:35] Erik: You always think outwards as a human.
[0:43:36 – 0:43:42] Erik: And as a beaver, you’re like, oh, they just affect the land and they eat trees and people who like water and there’s ducks and fish and stuff.
[0:43:43 – 0:44:00] Erik: But I never even, up to this point, I’ve ever thought they probably are very beneficial to the microbiology of… Yeah, all right, say what you will about Giardia, but generally it sounds like they’re probably…
[0:44:01 – 0:44:08] Erik: Their guts are healthy, and even what they’re excreting is probably very healthy for, like, the micro things in the lake.
[0:44:09 – 0:44:09] Erik: Yeah.
[0:44:09 – 0:44:11] Erik: Even fish to a certain extent.
[0:44:11 – 0:44:15] Erik: So, like, going under the beavers, they’re a keystone species.
[0:44:15 – 0:44:16] Adam: Oh, yeah.
[0:44:16 – 0:44:17] Adam: Way more than above them.
[0:44:18 – 0:44:18] Adam: Oh, yeah.
[0:44:18 – 0:44:27] Adam: I mean, the big animals benefit from them, too, but the smaller, down to the insect and microbial level, that really is where they’re… Mm!
[0:44:28 – 0:44:28] Erik: Mm!
[0:44:28 – 0:44:29] Erik: Keystone!
[0:44:29 – 0:44:29] Erik: Mm!
[0:44:29 – 0:44:31] Adam: And just since you brought it up.
[0:44:31 – 0:44:32] Erik: How are we not drinking Keystone right now?
[0:44:32 – 0:44:33] Erik: They do.
[0:44:33 – 0:44:34] Erik: Wait, we’re going to pause.
[0:44:34 – 0:44:35] Erik: We’re going to go get some Keystone.
[0:44:35 – 0:44:36] Adam: All right.
[0:44:36 – 0:44:37] Adam: We got to go to the store.
[0:44:37 – 0:44:39] Adam: Just since you brought it up, Giardia, they do.
[0:44:40 – 0:44:40] Adam: Okay.
[0:44:41 – 0:44:46] Adam: You can get Giardia from beavers, but it’s way more because of other species too.
[0:44:46 – 0:44:47] Adam: So that’s a real misnomer.
[0:44:47 – 0:44:55] Adam: Like you can, it’s sure don’t dip water from right next to a beaver lodge, but it’s also because of other animals too.
[0:44:55 – 0:44:57] Erik: Rats and stuff.
[0:44:58 – 0:45:00] Adam: Yeah, I mean, it’s not just beaver fever.
[0:45:00 – 0:45:01] Adam: Let’s just say that.
[0:45:01 – 0:45:01] Adam: Okay.
[0:45:02 – 0:45:06] Adam: Next up on the book report is their teeth.
[0:45:07 – 0:45:09] Adam: Beavers whittle with their incisors.
[0:45:09 – 0:45:11] Adam: You have two upper and two lower.
[0:45:11 – 0:45:16] Adam: They grow continuously to compensate for constant erosion.
[0:45:17 – 0:45:25] Adam: These cutting tools are self-sharpening the outer surface of a beaver’s front teeth, the side they show to the world.
[0:45:25 – 0:45:29] Adam: It’s coated in hard, dense enamel, and they’re kind of like a yellowed.
[0:45:30 – 0:45:32] Adam: The reverse side is made of a softer dentine.
[0:45:33 – 0:45:37] Adam: That inner face wears down more quickly, creating a beveled, chisel-like edge.
[0:45:38 – 0:45:40] Adam: The incisors are orange.
[0:45:40 – 0:45:45] Adam: It’s due to the iron that’s built into the chemical structure of their enamel.
[0:45:45 – 0:45:51] Adam: Despite lacking toothbrushes and fluoride, beavers are remarkably resistant to tooth decay.
[0:45:52 – 0:45:53] Adam: Well, so that’s nice for them.
[0:45:54 – 0:45:57] Adam: Tells you how bull fluoride is.
[0:45:59 – 0:46:00] Adam: Yeah, beavers are fine.
[0:46:00 – 0:46:05] Adam: So they have iron built into their teeth already?
[0:46:05 – 0:46:07] Adam: So they are almost like little hatchets.
[0:46:08 – 0:46:09] Erik: And it’s just one row?
[0:46:10 – 0:46:12] Erik: One double on top and double on the bottom?
[0:46:12 – 0:46:13] Adam: Two on the top and two on the bottom.
[0:46:13 – 0:46:16] Adam: And the way they come together, it’s just constantly sharpening.
[0:46:16 – 0:46:19] Erik: And they’re always kind of, it’s just that one always growing?
[0:46:19 – 0:46:19] Erik: They’re always growing and sharpening.
[0:46:19 – 0:46:21] Erik: Not like a shark where it’s kind of the nose?
[0:46:21 – 0:46:25] Adam: And they did say sometimes they go crazed and one tooth just grows like a…
[0:46:26 – 0:46:47] Erik: way too much grows too much and goes back it’s a huge problem yeah oh i’m sure yeah so it’s uh you don’t want to see that it’s like when lisa doesn’t get braces and the dentist shows her what’s gonna happen if she doesn’t get braces and like 10 years later there’s like one huge one puncturing up behind like her eye they don’t have any braces and they have no fluoride yet most beavers are fine
[0:46:47 – 0:46:51] Erik: So that’s why they’re like, hey, I better get out and chew on a tree.
[0:46:51 – 0:46:53] Erik: This one tooth’s getting too long.
[0:46:53 – 0:46:56] Adam: Yeah, so they’re always chewing to keep the teeth sharp.
[0:46:57 – 0:47:00] Adam: By chewing, that ensures their teeth will be sharp.
[0:47:00 – 0:47:02] Adam: Yeah, is that where the tongue and the tooth comes from?
[0:47:02 – 0:47:04] Adam: It’s kind of like the, yeah, it is.
[0:47:05 – 0:47:08] Adam: And it is, you know, where there’s water, there’s beavers.
[0:47:08 – 0:47:11] Adam: Where there’s beavers, there’s water.
[0:47:11 – 0:47:15] Adam: You must chew to have sharp teeth, and you need sharp teeth to chew.
[0:47:15 – 0:47:16] Erik: Don’t want to get long on the tooth.
[0:47:16 – 0:47:18] Adam: There’s a lot of that in this book.
[0:47:18 – 0:47:18] Adam: Nice.
[0:47:18 – 0:47:19] Adam: It’s really fun.
[0:47:20 – 0:47:23] Adam: Their fur is nearly remarkable as their teeth.
[0:47:23 – 0:47:27] Adam: The material is so soft and pliable that it spurred the colonization of a continent.
[0:47:28 – 0:47:29] Adam: They made hats with them.
[0:47:29 – 0:47:30] Adam: Spoiler alert.
[0:47:30 – 0:47:31] Erik: Yes.
[0:47:31 – 0:47:37] Erik: I will let you finish this, but in the process of doing a tad of research into future book reports…
[0:47:37 – 0:47:38] Erik: Yes.
[0:47:38 – 0:47:45] Erik: I have a really fun one that’s about like the fur trade and how it like basically created the world that we know now.
[0:47:46 – 0:47:46] Erik: Okay.
[0:47:46 – 0:47:46] Adam: Yeah.
[0:47:46 – 0:47:47] Adam: There’s some of that in here.
[0:47:47 – 0:47:48] Adam: Yeah.
[0:47:48 – 0:47:49] Erik: No, that’s fine.
[0:47:49 – 0:47:51] Erik: But this is like a whole book on the fur trade.
[0:47:51 – 0:47:52] Adam: This is more on the beaver themselves.
[0:47:52 – 0:47:53] Adam: Beaver culture.
[0:47:53 – 0:47:54] Adam: Yeah.
[0:47:54 – 0:47:55] Adam: As I Googled.
[0:47:55 – 0:47:55] Erik: For sure.
[0:47:55 – 0:47:56] Adam: But that just brought it to mind.
[0:47:56 – 0:47:57] Adam: The fur trade was crazy.
[0:47:57 – 0:47:58] Adam: Yeah.
[0:47:58 – 0:48:01] Adam: I mean, I just read a book a couple of years ago, The Golden Spruce.
[0:48:01 – 0:48:02] Adam: Hmm.
[0:48:02 – 0:48:06] Adam: And that one really focused on the timber trade and how that shaped North America.
[0:48:07 – 0:48:09] Adam: And really it was like the fur trade, then the timber trade.
[0:48:10 – 0:48:13] Adam: I mean, how many ways can we pillage this beautiful continent?
[0:48:13 – 0:48:14] Erik: Yeah, exactly.
[0:48:14 – 0:48:15] Erik: We can make some money off of this.
[0:48:17 – 0:48:19] Adam: Beavers have two types of hair.
[0:48:19 – 0:48:25] Adam: They’re coarse guard hairs, which are about two inches long, and the overlaying luxurious underfur or wool.
[0:48:26 – 0:48:32] Adam: Their fur is thick, buoyant, and virtually waterproof, serving at once as armor, life preserver, and dry suit.
[0:48:34 – 0:48:41] Adam: Although a stamp-sized patch of beaver skin is carpeted with up to 126,000 individual hairs.
[0:48:41 – 0:48:43] Erik: Chew.
[0:48:44 – 0:48:46] Adam: That’s more than the average human has on their entire head.
[0:48:46 – 0:48:47] Erik: Wow.
[0:48:48 – 0:48:48] Erik: That’s awesome.
[0:48:48 – 0:48:49] Adam: In a stamp size.
[0:48:50 – 0:48:53] Adam: The stiff guard hairs are plucked and discarded by hat makers…
[0:48:54 – 0:48:56] Adam: We should have interviewed a hat maker for this episode.
[0:48:57 – 0:48:58] Adam: We still have the opportunity.
[0:48:58 – 0:48:59] Erik: Any hat makers out there?
[0:49:00 – 0:49:04] Erik: Hat makers, contact us.
[0:49:05 – 0:49:06] Adam: My head is hatless.
[0:49:06 – 0:49:07] Erik: I don’t need a hat, actually.
[0:49:07 – 0:49:10] Erik: I just need a vest.
[0:49:11 – 0:49:17] Adam: The under fur is one of the finest materials in which humans have ever clothed themselves.
[0:49:18 – 0:49:19] SPEAKER_00: I don’t need a vest.
[0:49:19 – 0:49:21] Adam: I’ve never had anything made from beaver.
[0:49:22 – 0:49:44] Adam: we have a pair of beaver mitts that was trapped legally yeah there’s a lot of legal trapping yeah and although beaver pelts aren’t really worth the time and effort you know just if you wanted to trap beaver and sell them uh this book claims like you’re not really gonna make no it’s like dog mushing you’re not making money off of trapping
[0:49:44 – 0:49:46] Adam: The people who are still trapped do it for the love of it.
[0:49:46 – 0:49:47] Adam: Yeah, to make your own.
[0:49:47 – 0:49:49] Adam: Yeah, to do your own stuff with it.
[0:49:49 – 0:49:50] Adam: To be self-sufficient.
[0:49:50 – 0:49:52] Adam: Yeah, just to spend the time in the wild.
[0:49:52 – 0:49:55] Adam: And, yeah, you can make some sweet beaver mitts out of it.
[0:49:55 – 0:49:59] Adam: But if you’re trying to, like, nobody’s trapping beaver, like, to make money.
[0:49:59 – 0:50:03] Adam: Well, until it becomes… Where the money is at is relocation.
[0:50:03 – 0:50:06] Adam: There’s a lot of people who pay, like, good money to, like, hey, I got a problem, beaver.
[0:50:06 – 0:50:06] Adam: Oh, sure.
[0:50:06 – 0:50:07] Adam: You want to take care of it for me.
[0:50:07 – 0:50:10] Erik: Yeah.
[0:50:10 – 0:50:12] Erik: You know you’re on video right now, right?
[0:50:14 – 0:50:16] Erik: drawing the pen across your neck.
[0:50:17 – 0:50:18] Adam: Well, that’s what they’re doing.
[0:50:18 – 0:50:18] Adam: Yeah, I know.
[0:50:18 – 0:50:20] Adam: Oh, take care of a problem beaver.
[0:50:20 – 0:50:21] Adam: Take care of the problem beaver.
[0:50:21 – 0:50:23] Adam: They’re going to turn him into a pair of mittens.
[0:50:23 – 0:50:25] Erik: You’re relocating it, right?
[0:50:26 – 0:50:30] Adam: Well, I mean, people do pay good money to have beavers relocated, but I think… Relocated.
[0:50:32 – 0:50:33] Adam: To the farm.
[0:50:34 – 0:50:36] Adam: The canyon up the way.
[0:50:36 – 0:50:39] Erik: Yeah, the beaver farm upstate.
[0:50:39 – 0:50:40] Adam: The beaver’s tail.
[0:50:41 – 0:50:42] Adam: It’s a scaly tail.
[0:50:42 – 0:50:47] Adam: And it’s a nifty multi-tool, exquisitely adapted to semi-aquatic life.
[0:50:48 – 0:50:51] Adam: It is a kickstand, a rudder, and alarm system.
[0:50:51 – 0:50:53] Adam: Anybody who’s kayaked, I heard it back here on the Cadence.
[0:50:54 – 0:50:55] Adam: You hear the slap of the tail.
[0:50:55 – 0:50:58] Adam: That is an alarm system telling basically the youngsters to, like,
[0:50:59 – 0:51:00] Erik: Get back in the house.
[0:51:00 – 0:51:03] Adam: There’s some white boy on a kayak.
[0:51:03 – 0:51:08] Erik: It’s like the big triangle telling you that it’s time for the feed bag to be put on.
[0:51:09 – 0:51:13] Adam: The tail is lined with a Rete Mireble.
[0:51:14 – 0:51:14] Adam: French?
[0:51:15 – 0:51:15] Adam: I nailed it.
[0:51:16 – 0:51:16] Adam: Nailed it.
[0:51:16 – 0:51:18] Adam: It’s called, that’s French for wonderful net.
[0:51:19 – 0:51:19] Adam: Really?
[0:51:19 – 0:51:25] Adam: Tightly meshed blood vessels that exchange heat through their walls, regulating the beaver’s temperature.
[0:51:26 – 0:51:35] Adam: The leathery appendage contains also substantial fat reserves that help it endure the hard winters when they’re eating nothing but sticks and poop.
[0:51:36 – 0:51:38] Erik: They put the fat reserves in their tail.
[0:51:38 – 0:51:40] Adam: Yeah, they store it back there on their kickstand.
[0:51:40 – 0:51:44] Adam: Man, I wish… Beaver trappers really were eating this stuff.
[0:51:44 – 0:51:45] Adam: It was called a trapper’s delicacy.
[0:51:46 – 0:51:47] Erik: Ooh, they used to eat the tails?
[0:51:47 – 0:51:48] Adam: Very delicious.
[0:51:49 – 0:51:52] Adam: Yeah, you want to roast them over an open flame.
[0:51:53 – 0:51:53] Adam: Okay.
[0:51:53 – 0:51:56] Adam: Yeah, fire-roasted beaver tail is the stuff.
[0:51:57 – 0:52:00] Adam: Maybe we get somebody that knows where we can find a beaver tail.
[0:52:00 – 0:52:02] Adam: We can try in a future episode.
[0:52:02 – 0:52:03] Adam: I would try it.
[0:52:04 – 0:52:04] Adam: I’ve never eaten beaver.
[0:52:05 – 0:52:08] Erik: So it’s all like cartilage and fat?
[0:52:08 – 0:52:10] Adam: There’s no bone that goes into that tail?
[0:52:10 – 0:52:11] Adam: That’s what this is saying.
[0:52:12 – 0:52:12] Adam: Okay.
[0:52:13 – 0:52:15] Adam: They didn’t say anything about the tailbone, but I don’t know.
[0:52:15 – 0:52:19] Erik: I think I’ve seen the skeleton of a beaver, and I don’t remember seeing a bone in there.
[0:52:19 – 0:52:20] Adam: I’ll just say this, too.
[0:52:20 – 0:52:26] Adam: While we’re on the topic of possibly eating a beaver, I would try some tail, a beaver tail.
[0:52:26 – 0:52:28] Adam: Try some tail.
[0:52:28 – 0:52:30] Adam: This is one of the funnest facts of the book.
[0:52:32 – 0:52:36] Adam: which is a big reason why in Europe the beaver is not doing so well.
[0:52:37 – 0:52:38] Erik: Oh, they’re eating it too much?
[0:52:39 – 0:52:39] Adam: They are.
[0:52:40 – 0:52:40] Erik: Oh, they were.
[0:52:40 – 0:52:43] Erik: Europeans are too fixated on their delicacies.
[0:52:43 – 0:52:45] Adam: It’s not the Europeans themselves.
[0:52:45 – 0:52:46] Adam: It’s the Catholic Church.
[0:52:47 – 0:52:51] Adam: They deemed beavers were a fish.
[0:52:52 – 0:52:53] Adam: So you could eat them during Lent.
[0:52:53 – 0:52:55] Erik: Oh, my God.
[0:52:55 – 0:52:56] Erik: Are you serious?
[0:52:56 – 0:52:56] Adam: Otters, too.
[0:52:56 – 0:53:00] Adam: Yeah, you can eat otters and turtles and beavers because they live in the water.
[0:53:00 – 0:53:02] Adam: They’re counted as fish.
[0:53:02 – 0:53:05] Adam: So it was a red meat loophole for the Catholic Church.
[0:53:06 – 0:53:12] Adam: And so Europeans gladly gobbled up all the beaver tail they could eat during Lent because it was tasty.
[0:53:12 – 0:53:14] Erik: What’s the thinking on that?
[0:53:14 – 0:53:15] Erik: Because they eat fish?
[0:53:15 – 0:53:16] Adam: Because they live in the water.
[0:53:16 – 0:53:17] Erik: They’re clearly red meat.
[0:53:18 – 0:53:19] Erik: Like, it’s clearly meat.
[0:53:19 – 0:53:21] Adam: Don’t let that get in the way of anything.
[0:53:21 – 0:53:21] Adam: Oh, my God.
[0:53:21 – 0:53:24] Adam: Yeah, so that was one of the funniest parts I read.
[0:53:24 – 0:53:25] Adam: I mean, I thought it was funny.
[0:53:25 – 0:53:26] Adam: Is that still a thing?
[0:53:27 – 0:53:27] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:53:28 – 0:53:37] Adam: I mean, I grew up Catholic, and I remember you had to go eat fish filet at McDonald’s or crappie fry at home during Lent.
[0:53:37 – 0:53:41] Adam: But we never ate beaver or any otters or whatever, muskrats.
[0:53:42 – 0:53:46] Erik: I can’t imagine that it’s a huge thing anymore, but I could see it being like a…
[0:53:46 – 0:53:48] Adam: Apparently, at one point, it was a thing.
[0:53:48 – 0:53:55] Erik: Yeah, like hundreds of years, you’d be like, I’m so sick of eating this goddamn carp.
[0:53:55 – 0:53:58] Erik: I can’t handle this lutefisk anymore.
[0:53:58 – 0:53:59] Erik: This zander.
[0:53:59 – 0:54:00] Erik: All right, fine, fine.
[0:54:00 – 0:54:01] Erik: The beavers, they’re fish.
[0:54:01 – 0:54:02] Erik: The beavers are fish, too.
[0:54:02 – 0:54:03] Erik: They’re basically fish.
[0:54:04 – 0:54:04] Erik: Hooray!
[0:54:06 – 0:54:07] Erik: And otters, too.
[0:54:07 – 0:54:08] Erik: All right.
[0:54:08 – 0:54:10] Erik: Their tails are even more delicious.
[0:54:12 – 0:54:13] Erik: Oh, my God.
[0:54:13 – 0:54:14] Erik: That’s great.
[0:54:14 – 0:54:17] Erik: I mean, not great, but that’s a good factoid.
[0:54:17 – 0:54:19] Adam: Yeah, so I like that factoid.
[0:54:19 – 0:54:21] Adam: I wanted to make sure I didn’t have it noted.
[0:54:21 – 0:54:24] Adam: I didn’t copy that page, but I copied it up here.
[0:54:24 – 0:54:25] Adam: That’s something I’ll never be able to forget.
[0:54:25 – 0:54:26] Adam: That just sticks with you.
[0:54:26 – 0:54:36] Adam: Yeah, I remember the day I read that page, I went into work, and I was telling the folks in the kitchen that, and they were like, hmm, what is this book you’re reading exactly?
[0:54:36 – 0:54:40] Erik: Yeah, that just makes the Catholic Church all the more legitimate.
[0:54:41 – 0:54:42] Adam: Sounds fine to me.
[0:54:42 – 0:54:44] Adam: Makes sense.
[0:54:45 – 0:54:51] Adam: Anyways, I’m kind of hungry and I think we should take a break maybe and have some fish.
[0:54:52 – 0:54:53] Erik: You have some beaver tails?
[0:54:53 – 0:54:53] Adam: Yeah.
[0:54:53 – 0:54:54] Adam: Wink.
[0:54:55 – 0:54:58] Adam: No, I don’t actually, but we should take a break and then we’ll come back.
[0:54:58 – 0:55:04] Adam: We’re approaching an hour here, and I’m only getting to family life.
[0:55:04 – 0:55:06] Erik: I still have 72 pages to get through.
[0:55:06 – 0:55:08] Erik: I love that you were like, nah, it’s probably going to be a one-parter.
[0:55:08 – 0:55:09] Erik: We’ll be fine.
[0:55:09 – 0:55:10] Adam: I didn’t know how much.
[0:55:10 – 0:55:11] Adam: Well, let’s take a break.
[0:55:11 – 0:55:12] Adam: We’ll be back after this.
[0:55:13 – 0:55:17] Adam: Okay, we’re back.
[0:55:17 – 0:55:19] Adam: That was a good break and much needed.
[0:55:19 – 0:55:21] Adam: Do you want to hear about beaver families?
[0:55:22 – 0:55:22] Adam: No.
[0:55:22 – 0:55:23] Adam: All right, moving on.
[0:55:26 – 0:55:53] Adam: too bad the family relationship yeah dynamics beavers are family oriented you never always see like one or maybe two at a time but there’s so many more and then i had to like halfway when i got to this point in the book i just put a bookmark in and i set it down and i had to i went and i was like natalie you want to watch like a 45 minute documentary on beavers on youtube is there yeah oh yeah there’s multiple ones well you should send me those links we’ll throw them in the show notes
[0:55:53 – 0:55:54] Adam: Okay, I will.
[0:55:54 – 0:55:57] Adam: Yeah, I just wanted to really see some video of some beaver kits.
[0:55:57 – 0:55:57] Erik: Yeah.
[0:55:57 – 0:55:59] Adam: They’re apparently cute.
[0:55:59 – 0:56:05] Adam: Well, as we said in the introduction, a lot of people think beavers themselves are cute, but baby beavers, definitely cute.
[0:56:07 – 0:56:11] Adam: They are not exclusively, but they are generally monogamous.
[0:56:12 – 0:56:14] Adam: You have a couple.
[0:56:15 – 0:56:19] Adam: And then the typical colony consists of four to ten members.
[0:56:20 – 0:56:31] Adam: This includes the mating adults, the newborn kits, and those are born in May or June, and then the yearlings from the previous spring.
[0:56:31 – 0:56:35] Adam: It does not say how many kits are usually in a litter.
[0:56:37 – 0:57:01] Adam: um but uh if they’re saying 10 so like maybe you get five per litter max but they oh they said well that includes the adults so maybe four per litter max but then the yearlings from the yearlings stick around so hang out yeah uh the two-year-olds tend to move out in search of their own territories soon after the birth of their youngest siblings but sometimes they do hang around so that’s always a hard and fast rule are they
[0:57:01 – 0:57:08] Adam: It doesn’t say whether it’s established by how much habitat’s nearby available or, you know, every situation’s different.
[0:57:08 – 0:57:11] Adam: Sometimes a two-year-old’s just not ready to move out of the house yet.
[0:57:11 – 0:57:13] Erik: So they’re like in-cell beavers?
[0:57:13 – 0:57:17] Adam: No, they just hang out and learn skills, and then they help with the kits.
[0:57:17 – 0:57:18] Adam: So they get better.
[0:57:18 – 0:57:22] Adam: They do, and they help with the gathering of stuff and the maintenance of the dam.
[0:57:22 – 0:57:26] Erik: So it makes sense sometimes to maybe hang around, depending on the situation.
[0:57:26 – 0:57:27] Adam: They kind of talk about it.
[0:57:27 – 0:57:31] Adam: Ben kind of talks about it as like an internship situation.
[0:57:31 – 0:57:39] Adam: They’re kind of hanging around, learning how to raise their own kit someday, learning how to maintain their pond and dam and lodge and storing up food.
[0:57:39 – 0:57:42] Erik: Depends on the infrastructure of the area.
[0:57:42 – 0:57:43] Erik: Yeah.
[0:57:43 – 0:57:43] Adam: Opportunities.
[0:57:43 – 0:57:47] Adam: If there’s open pond upriver, then they kind of go for it.
[0:57:47 – 0:57:47] Adam: Maybe if it’s…
[0:57:48 – 0:57:50] Adam: A lot of competition for prime habitat.
[0:57:50 – 0:57:51] Adam: They stick around for an extra year.
[0:57:52 – 0:57:55] Adam: Sometimes they’re not ready to go pro quite yet.
[0:57:55 – 0:57:55] Adam: You got to stick around.
[0:57:55 – 0:57:56] Adam: Pass on the family business.
[0:57:57 – 0:57:57] Adam: Yeah.
[0:57:57 – 0:57:58] Adam: Stick around for an extra year.
[0:58:00 – 0:58:01] Adam: Live rent free.
[0:58:01 – 0:58:06] Erik: But is there a downside to just passing on the family business for multiple generations?
[0:58:07 – 0:58:15] Adam: No, some beaver dam colonies, they’ve found some that they believe have been there for centuries, being passed down generation to generation.
[0:58:16 – 0:58:17] Erik: Cool, so the opposite of humans.
[0:58:18 – 0:58:23] Adam: Yeah, they actually, you know, they’re very family-oriented, as I said at the top.
[0:58:23 – 0:58:24] Adam: Yeah.
[0:58:25 – 0:58:26] Adam: Where were we?
[0:58:28 – 0:58:34] Adam: Yeah, for kits, their two-year homestays serve as internships, yes, during which they learn hon…
[0:58:35 – 0:58:41] Adam: They learn and hone tree filling, dam construction, predator avoidance, and other aptitudes.
[0:58:42 – 0:58:43] Adam: They’re little achievers.
[0:58:44 – 0:58:45] Adam: I forgot about the predator avoidance.
[0:58:45 – 0:58:46] Adam: That’s a big one.
[0:58:46 – 0:58:49] Adam: A lot of predators want to eat beavers, but it’s hard to get at them.
[0:58:49 – 0:58:50] Adam: Yeah.
[0:58:50 – 0:58:52] Adam: But if they get one on land, oh, watch out.
[0:58:52 – 0:58:55] Adam: Cougars, bears, wolves, they love to eat beavers.
[0:58:55 – 0:58:57] Adam: So they got to watch out for those things.
[0:58:57 – 0:58:58] Adam: That’s another big one.
[0:58:58 – 0:59:02] Adam: They got to learn, you know, to be wary out there.
[0:59:02 – 0:59:06] Erik: That’s probably one of those, like, you snatch a beaver, you’re good for a couple of weeks.
[0:59:06 – 0:59:07] Erik: It’s like a wolf or a coyote.
[0:59:07 – 0:59:09] Adam: Yeah, the tail alone will sustain you for a week.
[0:59:10 – 0:59:13] Erik: Yeah, that’s like a foot-long meatball sub from Subway.
[0:59:13 – 0:59:14] Adam: I’m good for a few days.
[0:59:14 – 0:59:16] Adam: I don’t eat at Subway.
[0:59:17 – 0:59:17] Erik: Sorry.
[0:59:17 – 0:59:18] Erik: So…
[0:59:19 – 0:59:31] Adam: Anyways, so yeah, they generally kind of, they’re always having, I guess, two to four kits every year, and then the older kits kind of hang around, and then eventually they’re like, all right, get out of here.
[0:59:32 – 0:59:38] Adam: So it’s just a constant state, and it doesn’t really say how long a beaver family usually lives for.
[0:59:38 – 0:59:39] Erik: How long does a beaver live for?
[0:59:39 – 0:59:40] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:59:40 – 0:59:44] Adam: I honestly either missed that part or I was half asleep while I was reading.
[0:59:44 – 0:59:46] Erik: You read a whole book on beavers and you can’t tell me how long they live for.
[0:59:46 – 0:59:46] Erik: I know.
[0:59:46 – 0:59:48] Adam: It doesn’t tell me the average lifespan of a beaver.
[0:59:48 – 0:59:49] Adam: Like 40 years?
[0:59:49 – 0:59:50] Adam: I think they get quite big.
[0:59:50 – 0:59:51] Adam: Yeah.
[0:59:51 – 0:59:54] Adam: So, I mean, I’m going to say it’s around what a cat can do.
[0:59:54 – 0:59:55] Adam: 20 years?
[0:59:55 – 0:59:55] Adam: Oh, man.
[0:59:56 – 0:59:59] Adam: That’s just my best guess based on reading the book, and I don’t remember.
[1:00:00 – 1:00:03] Adam: It’s not in my notes, and I don’t remember reading that line as far as what beavers live to.
[1:00:04 – 1:00:07] Adam: I didn’t really think about it until you just asked, but now I’m kind of wondering.
[1:00:07 – 1:00:09] Adam: Yeah, well, we’ll maybe come back with you.
[1:00:09 – 1:00:11] Adam: Seems like they can live quite long, though.
[1:00:11 – 1:00:12] Adam: It’s not just a couple years.
[1:00:13 – 1:00:15] Adam: No, an animal that size can’t just be a couple.
[1:00:16 – 1:00:17] Adam: Well, they get quite large.
[1:00:17 – 1:00:18] Adam: I’ve seen some big ones.
[1:00:19 – 1:00:24] Adam: I like this part, and it’s more about the dam building, how it’s just…
[1:00:25 – 1:00:31] Adam: While they’re living with their parents, they’ll learn how to maintain the dam and the best sticks and how to kind of wedge them in there.
[1:00:32 – 1:00:34] Adam: But a lot of the dams are just kind of there.
[1:00:34 – 1:00:37] Adam: So then they wanted to test, like, well, is it nature or nurture?
[1:00:37 – 1:00:43] Adam: And while they do spend a lot of time with their parents in their youth to learn these skills…
[1:00:44 – 1:00:49] Adam: They just took some abandoned orphaned beaver kits and they put them in a stream.
[1:00:50 – 1:00:52] Adam: And immediately, I’ll just read it from here.
[1:00:54 – 1:01:00] Adam: When released into running water, they erected exemplary dams on their first attempts.
[1:01:00 – 1:01:01] Erik: Wow.
[1:01:01 – 1:01:07] Adam: Yeah, so they’re born knowing how to build a dam and how to stop water.
[1:01:07 – 1:01:14] Adam: That just built into the beaver through millions of years of damming up water, I guess.
[1:01:14 – 1:01:16] Adam: This is a really fun part.
[1:01:17 – 1:01:25] Adam: When playing the trickling of flowing water over a loudspeaker in a dry room, the confused creatures built dams across the concrete floor.
[1:01:25 – 1:01:25] Adam: Oh, no.
[1:01:25 – 1:01:26] Adam: That sounds awful.
[1:01:26 – 1:01:28] Adam: It’s sort of sad and cute at the same time.
[1:01:28 – 1:01:33] Adam: But even the sound of water would provoke them to take sticks and build dams.
[1:01:33 – 1:01:34] Adam: I must do something.
[1:01:34 – 1:01:36] Adam: I must build a dam.
[1:01:37 – 1:01:41] Erik: Just grabbing anything and just piling it up, burying the speaker.
[1:01:45 – 1:01:48] Adam: I like this passage, too, about what they’re basically up to.
[1:01:48 – 1:01:56] Adam: Beavers seldom allow a night to pass without making a tour of inspection, building up, and strengthening any part that shows signs of weakness.
[1:01:57 – 1:01:57] Adam: This is of the dam.
[1:01:58 – 1:01:58] Erik: I’m on board.
[1:01:58 – 1:02:10] Adam: In a flashy stream whose course is annually scoured by huge pulses of snowmelt, dams are often ephemeral, washing out each spring and requiring reconstruction when the waters recede.
[1:02:10 – 1:02:23] Adam: But when conditions allowed, beaver compounds can prove astonishingly durable, maintained by succeeding generations for decades, or in some cases, even centuries.
[1:02:23 – 1:02:33] Adam: They’ve found, just studying certain colonies, or I don’t know if colonies is the right… Communities.
[1:02:33 – 1:02:36] Erik: Yeah, some of those ones that we come across where it’s like, Jesus Christ.
[1:02:36 – 1:02:59] Adam: so like mostly gravel and stone so at this point i’m thinking back to the one in the backyard you know like just a couple springs ago it had totally gotten washed out or there just wasn’t active beavers maintaining it and then oh all of a sudden last spring they’re kind of building it back up again so these beaver dams are always in flux and they’re always kind of moving around the river and um
[1:03:00 – 1:03:21] Adam: i don’t know there’s some more about this later but like just the idea of like how beaver dams are constructed and maintained and um change over time um it’s fluid like the water they are trying to stop i don’t know if it’s the lizard eyes marihuana’s hazy ipa talking or if it’s just the information that i’ve been given but
[1:03:23 – 1:03:24] Adam: I’m loving beavers right now.
[1:03:25 – 1:03:26] Adam: Dude, I know.
[1:03:26 – 1:03:35] Adam: And we’ve been hanging out while I’ve been reading this book, and I’ve been trying not to say too much about them, but I obviously dressed as a beaver on our last camping trip.
[1:03:36 – 1:03:36] Adam: Yes.
[1:03:36 – 1:03:41] Adam: And I’ve been paddling the kayak out back, checking out, oh, man, what are they up to today?
[1:03:41 – 1:03:43] Erik: I’ll never curse a beaver dam ever again.
[1:03:43 – 1:03:44] Adam: I never would.
[1:03:44 – 1:03:47] Adam: I can’t believe I ever was even remotely down on beavers.
[1:03:47 – 1:03:49] Adam: Beavers are amazing.
[1:03:49 – 1:03:49] Erik: Yes.
[1:03:51 – 1:03:54] Adam: Beaver life is messy, and that’s a good thing.
[1:03:54 – 1:04:02] Adam: I just want to read this last passage, and then I think that’ll be a good spot to leave this for this week.
[1:04:03 – 1:04:11] Adam: We tend to imagine rivers as blue lines meandering through valleys like sine curves wending across graph paper.
[1:04:12 – 1:04:13] Adam: I’m guilty of perpetuating this image.
[1:04:14 – 1:04:18] Adam: In this book, you’ll catch me referring to streams as strings or ribbons.
[1:04:18 – 1:04:27] Adam: A more historically accurate simile, however, might be a meal of spaghetti, its strands writhing, interwining, and occasionally spilling off the plate.
[1:04:28 – 1:04:33] Adam: A geomorphologist would describe such a helter-skelter river as anabranching.
[1:04:34 – 1:04:36] Adam: We civilians would call it chaos.
[1:04:37 – 1:04:44] Adam: Whatever your terminology, it is hard today to conceive how freely many American rivers once scrambled.
[1:04:46 – 1:04:51] Adam: So even in a pristine wilderness like the Boundary Waters…
[1:04:53 – 1:05:01] Adam: And that is probably the closest glimpse we can get this day and age to what this continent used to look like.
[1:05:01 – 1:05:02] Adam: Yeah.
[1:05:02 – 1:05:08] Adam: Because so much of what the beavers had built has been destroyed.
[1:05:10 – 1:05:16] Adam: And so part two is more on like, they’re almost destruction.
[1:05:16 – 1:05:17] Adam: They’re almost destruction.
[1:05:17 – 1:05:19] Adam: And then they’re amazing recovery.
[1:05:20 – 1:05:29] Adam: And then sadly the realization that like, no matter what, we will never live to see what North America looked like before we messed it all up.
[1:05:30 – 1:05:30] Erik: Yeah.
[1:05:30 – 1:05:35] Adam: But maybe a thousand years from now it could.
[1:05:37 – 1:05:38] Adam: So, um,
[1:05:38 – 1:05:52] Adam: Yeah, I mean, a lot of the next parts on how rivers are supposed to look and how they now look because of what we’ve done as a species and how beavers can help to put it back where it should be.
[1:05:55 – 1:06:01] Adam: And also acknowledging just in modern life, it’s never going to go back to what it looked like in 1600.
[1:06:01 – 1:06:04] Adam: No, it can’t.
[1:06:04 – 1:06:15] Adam: But here in the Boundary Waters, the rivers and streams, they are the closest thing we have to the actual chaos that was wild North America.
[1:06:15 – 1:06:15] Adam: Yeah.
[1:06:15 – 1:06:19] Adam: Anybody who’s paddled the Boundary Waters knows that to be true.
[1:06:21 – 1:06:28] Adam: It was a glimpse of what was and what could be again for large portions of North America where that’s not the case anymore.
[1:06:28 – 1:06:33] Adam: It’ll never be a wilderness on that scope, but just the rivers themselves.
[1:06:33 – 1:06:35] Adam: I really like that passage about how
[1:06:35 – 1:06:43] Adam: You know, they used to be these chaotic strands of spaghetti, like of wetland and just spilling over their banks and it’s floodplains and wetlands.
[1:06:44 – 1:06:47] Adam: And now everything’s down to these like little ditches.
[1:06:48 – 1:06:53] Erik: Yeah, especially outside of the bourgeois where it’s like controlled flowages.
[1:06:54 – 1:07:00] Erik: We’re going to build up a bank here because sometimes it floods into our little roads and our movie theaters.
[1:07:01 – 1:07:01] Adam: Oh, yeah.
[1:07:01 – 1:07:02] Erik: You know, it’s, yeah, all right.
[1:07:03 – 1:07:03] Erik: That’s fine.
[1:07:04 – 1:07:12] Erik: But if the way of the world were what it was supposed to be, yeah, like you described, it would be much more chaotic.
[1:07:12 – 1:07:12] Erik: Yeah.
[1:07:12 – 1:07:16] Erik: And our human brains, like, don’t like chaos.
[1:07:16 – 1:07:18] Erik: We like straight lines and control.
[1:07:18 – 1:07:20] Erik: Well, we’re the same.
[1:07:20 – 1:07:28] Adam: And as I said earlier, you know, like, we like to, both humans and beavers, like to, you know, control the environment.
[1:07:28 – 1:07:28] Adam: Right.
[1:07:29 – 1:07:57] Adam: move the water in a way that’s beneficial to us yeah the beavers do it very naturally you know we do it with power tools and concrete and whatever else we’ve come up with ways to mangle and strangle nature yeah they do it in a lot more subtle way whereas we build uh we’ll get to this in part two whereas we build a huge concrete dam uh to create a lake mead for instance you know they will capture the same amount of water but doing it over like thousands of individual tiny dams
[1:07:58 – 1:08:23] Adam: throughout the same waterway yeah and um then there’s a whole nother level to this that we’ll get to that you can’t you know at first you don’t comprehend and like water capture retention and control and uh and how like dams nowadays are all falling apart and they need you know massive amounts of money to keep them from crumbling and flooding out entire towns you know
[1:08:24 – 1:08:46] Adam: billions of dollars in infrastructure spent and then maintenance needed to keep those um in working order beaver dams are free beavers do their work for free they don’t care what we’re up to we just let them do their thing everything will be fine but like that was the biggest part and what we’ll get to in part two is like these big concrete dams we build sure they capture a lot of water
[1:08:47 – 1:09:05] Adam: But just allowing beavers to do what they do naturally, they’ll capture the same amount of water and then some just spread out over a greater distance, which is also more beneficial to every other species in the food chain except for us because we’ve got to have our Walmart.
[1:09:05 – 1:09:06] Erik: Our nice things.
[1:09:06 – 1:09:07] Adam: Our nice roads.
[1:09:08 – 1:09:11] Adam: So, you know, there’s got to be a balancing act, obviously, going forward.
[1:09:11 – 1:09:15] Adam: We’re not going to just, you know, go back to the way things were in the horse and buggy days.
[1:09:16 – 1:09:30] Adam: But what the author is getting at and what I think the book really is and trying to impart, which we got to at the beginning, is like this idea that maybe someday we can try to live in a little bit more balance with each other.
[1:09:30 – 1:09:31] Adam: Yeah.
[1:09:31 – 1:09:32] Adam: Yeah.
[1:09:32 – 1:09:38] Adam: And it would probably be for the best and the most long-term thinking, forward-thinking kind of way going forward.
[1:09:39 – 1:09:43] Adam: Again, this is a rodent, but it is an amazing creature.
[1:09:43 – 1:09:45] Erik: And I think we can leave it there.
[1:09:46 – 1:09:48] Erik: We should leave it there in terms of the beavers.
[1:09:48 – 1:09:55] Erik: We’ll finish up with the creed going forward, which is capitalism is a lie.
[1:09:55 – 1:09:55] Erik: Cool.
[1:09:57 – 1:09:58] Erik: Huzzah.
[1:09:58 – 1:09:59] Erik: Huzzah, huzzah.
[1:09:59 – 1:10:03] Erik: Support yourselves as sustainably as you possibly can.
[1:10:03 – 1:10:05] Erik: Buy your meat as locally as you can.
[1:10:05 – 1:10:06] Erik: Grow your own food.
[1:10:07 – 1:10:09] Erik: Recycle as much as you possibly can.
[1:10:09 – 1:10:15] Adam: And if anybody has a beaver tail they would like to share, I would be happy to try that.
[1:10:16 – 1:10:17] Adam: And maybe I’ll end up getting into trapping.
[1:10:18 – 1:10:19] Adam: You know, life is funny.
[1:10:19 – 1:10:23] Adam: I never thought five years ago even that we’d be doing a podcast about
[1:10:23 – 1:10:28] Adam: about the boundary waters or discussing beavers in depth to strangers on the internet.
[1:10:28 – 1:10:35] Adam: So maybe in five more years, I’ll be an accomplished beaver trapper who sustainably makes my own mittens and eaten a fire roast tail.
[1:10:35 – 1:10:36] Adam: Yes.
[1:10:36 – 1:10:36] Erik: Who knows?
[1:10:37 – 1:10:38] Erik: I’m not opposed to meat or…
[1:10:38 – 1:10:39] Erik: Right.
[1:10:39 – 1:10:48] Adam: You can definitely sustainably trap and utilize beaver while allowing a healthy population to do their thing in the river in the backyard.
[1:10:49 – 1:10:51] Adam: we can all live in harmony.
[1:10:51 – 1:10:54] Adam: And even that means we can definitely eat beaver tails once in a while.
[1:10:55 – 1:11:00] Erik: All right, I guess at this point, the creed of the end of the show is still evolving.
[1:11:00 – 1:11:00] Erik: Yeah.
[1:11:01 – 1:11:08] Adam: But I think if you ever… Like a healthy North American river is a creed that is chaos.
[1:11:08 – 1:11:09] Adam: It is still evolving.
[1:11:09 – 1:11:10] Adam: But always going…
[1:11:10 – 1:11:11] Adam: If you get the opportunity…
[1:11:12 – 1:11:12] Erik: Yes.
[1:11:12 – 1:11:19] Erik: To think about it, make the decision to choose something that’s not the easy way.
[1:11:20 – 1:11:20] Erik: And that’s…
[1:11:22 – 1:11:29] Erik: a one-day shipping from Amazon, a plastic bag, or cheap crappy meat.
[1:11:32 – 1:11:33] Adam: All right.
[1:11:33 – 1:11:33] Adam: Good night.
[1:11:34 – 1:11:35] Erik: All right.
[1:11:35 – 1:11:48] Adam: Well, we’ll see you next week, and I think you can tell I’m excited to tell you more about beavers, and I think we can learn a lot from beavers as far as how to live our lives going forward, too.
[1:11:48 – 1:11:48] Erik: I like that.
[1:11:48 – 1:11:54] Erik: I like the juxtaposition and the relationship that the beaver has with the…
[1:11:54 – 1:11:56] Erik: It doesn’t even know it, but it is…
[1:11:58 – 1:12:06] Erik: communing with its surroundings in a way that we should, as humans, may never happen, but we should strive for that.
[1:12:06 – 1:12:08] Adam: Yeah, we can strive for it.
[1:12:09 – 1:12:11] Adam: Yes, that would be amazing.
[1:12:12 – 1:12:16] Adam: Thank you, and happy floating?
[1:12:17 – 1:12:18] Adam: Happy chewing.
[1:12:19 – 1:12:19] Adam: Happy chewing.
[1:12:20 – 1:12:20] Adam: Good night.
[1:12:20 – 1:12:21] Adam: Good night.
[1:12:41 – 1:12:41] UNKNOWN: Thank you.