Rob Rich

That's what waterproofing oils from their anal glands are constantly being lathered onto to keep them as sleek and waterproof as possible. But below that, you get more into some more downy, dense layers that are even softer. And so that is what's kind of right up against their body. The fur is so dense. I've heard it. One stat I seem to recall is like 23,000 hairs per square centimeter.

And so you can imagine a square centimeter. That is not large, but that is a ton of hairs in that area.

And so that density is probably about 25% of the beaver's insulation through the winter. And so even all that hair, because they're in the water so much, doesn't do all their needs to stay insulated. And that's why they rely so much on their fat stores as well to accommodate the rest of their insulation. But it is incredibly dense fur and it is in the interior very soft. Yeah.

So that varies. The tail, I think, was definitely relied on at certain times in certain people that live in climates where that was needed throughout human evolution. They have certainly relied on beaver tail as a fat source. And beaver meat as well is something that has a lot of importance in certain times of human evolution.

I can't really speak to what the first listener was talking about, about wrecking the world. I think that would be a little bit extreme. Beavers, like I said, wanted to start here that for seven and a half million odd years, they've been on this continent shaping and transforming it in different ways. And We, at one point, had between 100 and 400 million beavers across North America.

And in the course of about three centuries, in about the 1600s through the early 1900s, that winnowed down to about 100,000 beavers.

And so we are very lucky that they didn't become extinct or endangered. But their populations at this point are very patchy, dispersed, and in many places recovering. But beavers do not need us to keep them kind of their populations in control. I mean, they for all those years, they have had

Other predators that are doing that effectively and their own population saturation densities is an important regulation on that. And so I think a lot of times where the conflicts come into play is that we are...

living in the same places that beavers also thrive in in other words those low-lying arable flood plains and good soil and all those things where there's good water access and things those are the things people want too and so there's a lot of times some tension there but uh there's a lot of other non-lethal solutions to beaver coexistence as well.

And so a lot of times when that's used as a solution to beaver problems, that's really just creating a void for new beavers to come in. Because again, if the habitat is good, future beavers will find that and be a part of that somehow.

No, you're right. Not as prolific as other rodents, for sure. And only one litter per year. And they generally are mating in late winter, January, February, and then having their kits in May, June, around that time. So yeah, mice and voles and other rodents that are much more prolific than beavers are. So they're not that prolific, really.

Wow, great question and great observation. I think I do not have the answer to that, but I do know that beavers do play and I do know that there are interspecies interactions, intraspecies interactions that we are constantly learning about. And that's one of the areas that I'm most fascinated by is the beavers themselves, but also how they're shaping and interacting with

all kinds of species from the butterflies that are attracted to the sap on the branches they cut to other things they're swimming around. And so I can't say it's a regular thing that beavers and ducks are playing together, but I would not doubt that there's possibility for interaction there that I've not observed either.

For sure. Yeah, they're really central to the work I do and I'm a part of tangentially and directly. The Beaver Deceiver is kind of pioneered and patented by this guy named Skip Lyle, really brilliant guy based out of Vermont currently.

But he grew up around just watching trapping take place and whatnot and was like, sure, there had to be a better way than just this remove and fill the void, just this never-ending cycle. that all kinds of road crews and private landowners and public agencies are dealing with.

Sometimes culverts, you know, those big pipes that go under a road to allow the stream through, you know, to a beaver, that is just like a ready-made dam with a hole in it. And so beavers are always plugging these culverts with their sticks and mud and whatnot and causing a real headache for a lot of those people.

And so the beaver deceiver is one way to exclude them from these high conflict areas like culverts. In its simplest definition, it's kind of like a fence that goes around the culvert to exclude that, but you want to do it at the right angle and the right distance and the right site-specific ways that it's effective. And so... Skip Lyle kind of pioneered that.

But then there's also some like flow device things that are kind of like a pipe that we put through a dam that can siphon water through a dam from upstream to downstream. And so that allows people to kind of strike a compromise with the beaver in the sense that they can still stay there, they can still have their dam and still have all the benefits to their ecology there.

But the water level can be lowered just enough where it's not as much of a headache for other people that are worried about getting flooded out or that type of thing. And there are numerous entities growing up all around the country right now that are starting these. California is one of the biggest success stories right now.

Here in Montana, we have a big one, the Montana Beaver Conflict Resolution Project that I'm a little bit affiliated with.