October 22, 2020 • 41 mins
Beavers are in fact, very busy. They're builders and solid family members, husbands and wives. Learn all about N America's largest rodent today.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of My
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there,
and there's Jerry somewhere, and it says stuff you should Know,
the Orange Incisors Edition. I thought you're gonna make a
(00:26):
bad naked gun joke. No, No, it did run through
my head over and over and over and over and
over and over and over again. Though. It's hard though
when you're at our age. Yeah, and you saw those movies. Yeah,
dumb joke though, Uh yeah, well, I mean it's a
naked gun joke for pizza. Come on. So this kind
(00:47):
of ties in I think a little bit with our
porcupine episode. Uh and that beavers are you know, they're
porcupine esk in some ways. I think it ties in
even more to our Wetlands episode, which gave to the
idea for this episode. You know, yeah, absolutely, I mean
I'm pretty excited about this one. I think beavers are
(01:08):
about as great as it gets because they're so studious,
and they also bend the world to their will. They
shape things the way that they want them, and I
like that about them. Yeah, and I also love their
familial aspects. Yeah, which we'll we'll get to all this stuff.
But what we're talking about is is the largest rodent
(01:30):
in North America, which really demeans them, I guess. But yes,
rodents such a it's not a bad word. There's so
many great rodents who beavers, porcupines, squirrels. I know you
have a thing with squirrels, but well, I know I
like squirrels now, Momo and I uh and it knew
me sometimes comes with us to chase squirrels across the
(01:52):
street in the park um and feed them peanuts. We
give them peanuts is like to kind of buy them
off after Mo chases them up at but the squirrels
across the way will actually come to you and eat
peanuts out of your hand. So I'm I'm kind of
on squirrels now. Momo loves squirrels, chipmunks, mice, chipmunks too. Yeah.
(02:13):
Rodents are okay, Chuck. I think there are fewer terrible rodents,
and the only ones I can think of that are
terrible are those uh scary New York City sewer rats. Yeah, okay,
so rodents are all right up with rodents rabbits, and
I don't think they're rodents. They are he like a hamster, Sure, hamsters.
(02:35):
I don't know if rabbits are rodents. Are they It
makes sense that they would be. But it's what rodent
dot com says. Okay, well, who am I going to
disagree with that? But we're not talking about rabbits. We're
not talking about sewer rats. We're talking about beavers. And again,
beavers are amazing, amazing animals, and like you said, you know,
it's kind of related to porcupines and that there's um
(02:56):
what you could call Old World and New World beavers,
but there's really just two species and one is found
in North America and one is found in Eurasia. And
it's easy, peasy, no fuss, no must these are the
beavers that are alive on the planet. Yeah, so we've
got the American beaver. They weigh between fifteen and sixty
(03:17):
five pounds, which is very large. Uh. If if you've
ever seen a large beaver in the wild, it's um,
it's not scary because you know, and we'll get to
whether or not they're they're dangerous, they're really not. Um
but it's it's such a large thing that you're like, wow,
they're bigger than I thought. Usually has has run through
my head when I see a beaver. Yeah, I mean
sixty or thirty No, yeah, sixty five pounds is about
(03:40):
thirty ms. It's a big beaver. It is a big beaver.
And I had to convert to kilograms for at least
our friends in Canada because beavers their national emblem. They
have beaver on their nickel, which is amazing. Like this
just makes me love Canada all the much more, you know.
So for that sixty pounds, you're gonna be uh a
couple of feet long long. Um, that's without the tail.
(04:05):
You don't count the tail when you're measuring a beaver. Uh,
the tail will talk a little bit more about it.
But there anywhere from seven to twelve benches. If you're Eurasian,
you're about the same size. Mate. You can be a
little bit smaller bigger, Well, you can be a little
smaller on the I think the range is bigger. So
you can be down in the twenties poundage wise, but
(04:27):
up to the seventies poundage wise. Uh, and you you're
probably a little bit longer, and your skull and your
tail are going to be narrower, or your tails narrower
and your skull is smaller. So um, yeah, but that
tail is what everybody understands when they see a beaver.
Just like with a porcupine and its coils, a beaver
(04:47):
in its tail is they're just synonymous. Everybody recognizes a
beaver because of his tail, and also the tails helped
make it cute. Even though if you zoomed in and
took a really close look at the tail, you'd be
like gross. You think, yeah, it's scaly, it's got sparse,
coarse hair associated with it. It looks like a black
jack that some old timey like roughs would beat you
(05:10):
up with. Um, And yet it's one of the most
amazing appendages any animal has as far. It's like a
Swiss army knife foot for tails. Yeah, they're very useful
in a lot of ways. They obviously if if they're swimming,
and beaver's, by the way, you can swim five to
seven miles an hour. They have a little web feet
(05:31):
they have they can close their ear holes and their
nose holes, and they can roll their film over their
eyeballs nictitating membrane. Yeah, it's amazing. Um. So if they're
going to be swimming, then that tail is gonna be
acting as a rudder um and as a propeller um.
It's also if they're on land, it's gonna act as
(05:51):
a little kickstand at times. Yeah, when they stand up
on their back legs, they use their tail to kind
of lean against short balance. It's a big one for sure.
They also, and this is a sure sign that you
have frightened slash upset a beaver. Um. They will slap
the water with their tail in part to frighten you away,
to say like, don't mess with me, um, but also
(06:14):
to warn other beavers because um, like you were saying,
they're familial, they are actually fairly social animals and they
live in family units, so they would want to warn, like,
you know, the wife and the kids back at the lodge. Yeah.
And here's the thing. I spent a lot of time
at a lake here in Georgia, and I have heard
(06:34):
something which I thought was a beaver tail smash, but
I'm not sure because I didn't see it. I have
seen evidence of beaver eating tree stuff. Oh yeah, yeah,
and which we'll get to. And one day when I
was in the lake, I saw a mammal's head coming
toward me, and I don't know if it was We
(06:55):
also have river otter, so I don't know if it
was an otter or a beaver um, but either way
it was, it was a large head. And even though
I know that they weren't gonna come after me, when
that thing pops under the water, You're just like, where
where's he going, what's he doing? Where is he? Is
he coming at me or not? Were you swimming in
the lake at the time. Yeah, I'll swimming in the
(07:15):
lake and I saw this large mammal had, you know,
dumped under and if it was, I'm not sure how
long beavers can hold their Fodders can hold their breasths,
but beavers can hold their breath for about fifteen minutes,
which is pretty remarkable. I thought. I think it's remarkable too.
I mean, it really just goes to show like just
how adapted they are for life in the water. And
(07:36):
they are mammals, so they have long so they need
to breathe air outside of the water. But yeah, the
fact that they can hold their breath for fifteen minutes,
that they have nictitating membranes that cover their eyes like
little goggles so they can see and work underwater. UM.
They spend a significant amount of their time underwater. In fact,
they're most protected in water. That's where they can move
(07:56):
the fastest. They can swim pretty fast, way faster than
they can waddle land. UM, and a lot of their
predators won't necessarily come into, especially deep water after them.
So when they're in the water, they're at there, they're
they're they're in their happy place most And imagine when
they dive for fifteen minutes and are swimming around, Uh,
(08:18):
what do you think those fish think, Oh, here comes
of beaver. I mean did they did they know? Or
they just like, what in the world is that big
hairy thing? Um? I would guess that they I would
like to think they know. I like to think of
communities of animals or ecosystems just they know each other. Yea,
they know each other, they know each other's foibles. They've
(08:39):
come to accept one another. You know, they have their things,
they always kind of you know, they in the end
that when somebody, you know, like a human comes in
and tries to screw things up, they'll all band together
and you know, raise money for the community center so
that the developer can't buy it. So if you are
North American, be where you can live pretty much anywhere
(09:02):
in North America except for the desert. Because you want
water around, um, you're probably gonna be near pond or
lake or marsh or swamp or river. Um. Your Eurasian beavers,
I used to live all over Europe and Asia, but
they were hunted, over hunted because at one point in time,
wearing beaver pelts and beaver hats was like really high fashion.
(09:26):
So now they're only found in Germany, France, Poland, Scandinavia,
Southern Scandinavia, and Central Russia. Yeah, and a lot of
those are because they were reintroduced to the areas, Like
I believe Germany had to have their population reintroduced because
they were hunted to extinction. And how many beavers used
to be here, like four hundred million. That's the estimate,
(09:46):
is that in North America prior to Colombian contact that
they were there were about four hundred million beavers and
they were hunted down to near extinction within the hundreds
of thousands from what I saw. UM. And we're luckily
held back from the brink. And when I say luckily,
I don't just mean for the beavers, but I mean
for the planet as far as North America is concerned.
(10:10):
Because one of the things that we are still learning
but have come to realize, is that the beavers are
probably the most useful species on the planet. Um, because
they're one of the few species that alters their environment
as radically as they do. Yeah, what are they called?
(10:31):
They are a keystone species, stone species because when they
are present, biodiversity thrived, and when beavers are removed from
an area, biodiversity suffers. The presence of beavers makes life
better and richer for entirely other animals and species, just
because of what they do and how they do it.
(10:52):
All Right, that's a great place to take a break,
And I say, when we come back, we talk about
the two fundamental full crown on which beaver life is based,
the dam and the lodge. Okay, stop stop, stop stop,
(11:28):
all right, we're back. And there are a couple of things.
You know you've heard busy as a beaver. Uh, it's
it's I don't know if that's proven, but I think
it is almost universally agreed that that phrase came about
because beavers are in fact very busy and they work, work,
work all day long, building their homes and building dams.
(11:48):
Their homes are called lodges. And you've probably seen, if
you've ever been hiking and stuff in America, you've probably
seen a beaver lodge by a river or lake. It's
a little little dome out of sticks and grasses and
moss and mud. Maybe you thought a local which had
built it. Yeah, it does look like a little Uh
what do you call Which's houses? Which is house? I
(12:10):
think there's a cottage. Oh sure, I think there's a
different name. But which is house? Was a name for this?
I thought so? No, I don't know, I don't know.
I think so which house? I'm maybe I'm thinking of
Covin's house the Day which, No, there's a word. We
just I just watched the Which the movie again. I
think there's a word for it. Man, I love that.
That might be my favorite movie. We did a movie
(12:33):
Crush Round Table on that. By the way, it was
really good. It is a gooding. That's the guy who
did the Lighthouse, isn't it YEA God? Bless that? Man.
I can't wait to see his spiking movie too. Oh, man,
I can't imagine. Uh So the beaver lodge is um,
you know, about eight ft wide, a few feet high.
They're on the banks of these ponds are on lake shores. Uh.
(12:55):
They have this is one of my favorite parts. Many
of them have a little underwater backed or so it's
like sort of a ski in chalet if you're snow skiing. Yeah,
which makes sense because again, they spend so much time
in the water, but also protects them from terrestrial predators
because they can get into the water and escape when
a predators like at their door. Yeah. And uh, you
(13:16):
know this is their nocturnal they don't hibernate, but most
of this action is going on at night. Um, and
everyone pitches in the whole family. I don't think we
said yet. They live with their children until they're about
too And in a beaver lodge you might find a
mom and a dad who are monogamous mates for life,
and they might have their three two year old almost
(13:37):
two year old children, and then they might have their
little grand babies. Yeah, because when they have their their babies,
which are called kits, which admittedly is not as cute
award as porcupets, but they're cute. But dude, just baby
press pause right now. Everybody and go look up some
baby beaver pictures, little tails. They're cute, so they have
(13:59):
baby beavers in One of the reasons why they're so
cute is because they stick around for so long, or
they they stick around so long because they're so cute,
that's what I mean to say. Um, But they do.
They stay as part of the family unit and help
like work on the family lodge and dam um until
about two when they wander off, and then at three
they start to mate. But they build their own lodge
(14:20):
at age two, and from what I've read, it's usually
very clumsy. It's not in the best place necessarily, and
so they kind of learned as they go. But they
also learned from their family unit first, which I think
is super cute. It is um, I think we should
talk about damn though. I Mean, the lodges are are
cool and it's a great place to live if you're
(14:41):
a beaver, But the dams is where they really uh
that's where they get their their shining moment as a species.
That really helps out the environment because they help create
these wetlands, don't they. Yeah, So, so a beaver will
move into an area that's dry as a bone um
that's maybe crop land, that's maybe timberland. Um that is
(15:03):
not at all flooded. There's no pond or wetland or
anything like that. And they say, this can be better.
And so they find like a source of moving water
like a stream or um a brook, maybe a creek,
maybe a creek something like that, and they stop it up.
They they build a dam and they build this damp
(15:23):
so that the water backs up behind it and floods
this area and turns it into a wetland. And they
do this not to irk humans or just for fun.
They do it because they're altering the ecosystem to better
suit themselves. Like I said, they survive much better when
they're in the water, They move faster, they can work faster.
(15:46):
So they actually make this ecosystem into an aquatic ecosystem
where before there wasn't an aquatic ecosystem. And they do
it all by by building this dam. And the way
that they build dams is magnificent in and itself. Yeah,
so you know you've got your damn basse the foundation
basically where uh you're gonna use mud and gravel that
(16:10):
you get from the stream, and you kind of work
together as a family and with your tail, and they're
pushing I say, we were beavers all of a sudden,
and you're pushing this mud and gravel up from the
bottom of the stream. And if let's say it's a
place where the creek is running a little bit too
fast and there's too much flow, uh, they're gonna say,
you know what, We're gonna take these sticks. We're gonna
(16:31):
pile uh, these things up all along the bottom until
basically it's like it's like building from the ground up
until they're strong enough to to stay in place. Right.
But they're so good at using their hands, and they're
so strong. You said, you know, sixties sixty five pounds
are about thirty. They're mostly muscle too. They're really strong
(16:52):
little little rodents, especially for being like herbivores. You know,
they're like those vegan body builders. Um, they can take
they'll take sticks and like plant them in the bottom
of this stream or whatever and start forming a lattice
work that they we've in between and fill up with
mud to really stop up some you know, fast moving current. Um.
(17:16):
That that that like, that's the level of manipulation that
they're they're doing. They're they're building a dam that they eventually,
um successfully back up the flow of water from yeah,
which is I've tried to do that before and it's
hard to do. Um My buddy Scotty and I who
you know, we went camping once in California and it
(17:37):
was when I was young and in the film industry,
so there's a lot of time between jobs, and we
just decided to stay and keep staying, and I think
we ended up staying for like eleven or twelve days,
and uh, we wanted to build a waterfall next to
our campsite, so it sounded better. So we spent days
and days with sticks and big rocks and trying to
reroute and change the river. And it was some of
(18:00):
the hardest work I've ever done. Imagine doing that at
like forty eight inches long and only sixty pounds. So
they're they're not only building this thing up, they got
their little kits and their children helping, like bringing up
sticks and mud, saying paw mas is okay, and they say, yeah,
added to the pile. And then once they're done, they
(18:23):
they're like there's a periodic like inspections that go on
because they got to make sure that it stays strong
because that current just keeps going and it's very easy
to wiggle the right stick loose and all of a
sudden it starts crumbling down. So they basically inspect these
things every so often and check it for leaks and
bring in mud and patch it up just like it's
(18:43):
like a human might do. Oh, I saw that they
do daily maintenance on it. That um. One way to
tell whether beavers are in the area is to to
find their damn, make it like a little minor hole
in it, and then go back and look the next day,
and if it's patched up, the beavers are around there
like and and giving you the middle finger right exactly
like okay, yeah we're here, you've figured it out, Please
(19:05):
leave our damn alone. But yeah, these things are like
water tight for the most part, or they they allow
very little water through, or I guess from what I
can tell, as much water as the beaver wants through.
Like they're very willfully deliberately constructed structures that will turn
a dry area into a wetland. And when that happens.
(19:26):
One of the things that they used to build this
stuff with their trees around the area, and they can
they use their teeth. Those really really sharp, strong teeth
that I said are like kind of orange ish at
the very beginning of the episode, and they're very they're
orange because they have so much iron in them, which
actually gives them that much more strength. Yeah, they're up
(19:48):
to an inch long. They're super strong. They they actually
sharpen as they gnaw on trees, so it's not like
it'll dull their teeth out. It actually sharpens them. And
the other thing they're doing is they're eating that tree.
They're one of the few mammals that are maybe the
only mammal that can actually digest cellulose. Well, porcupines can too, remember, yeah,
(20:10):
they can. They can digest cellulus because they probably have
a very similar kind of bacteria that helps helps digest
it for them. But they digest a lot of the
cellulus that they eat, and it's really hard to break
down normally for mammals though. Yeah, but like you know,
you said, they're essentially creating these wetlands, they're preventing erosion. Uh,
they are helping to purify the water. Oh, let's let's
(20:31):
talk about what the dams can do. Okay, Chuck. I
mean it's amazing there. It's it's like a little environmental
coalition that goes into the woods to make things better. Yeah.
So I think in the Wetlands episode, I said something
like like a beaver creates the equivalent of some like
a five million dollar wastewater treatment plan or something like that.
(20:52):
I could not find that again to save my life,
but I think that was roughly it. Um They they
create this this strung sure that creates the artificial wetland,
and in doing so, it filters the water because it
slows the water down so much that the stuff can
trickle down to the bottom. It turns a normal terrestrial
piece of land into a wetland, so aquatic plants come.
(21:14):
And they've also found out that not only does it
filter water of like sediment and particles, it also is
capable of handling farm runoff fertilizer, which is really pernicious
because you know, when all that fertilizer makes its way
into two watersheds and wetlands, it creates algae blooms which
suck up all the oxygen and kill off a bunch
(21:34):
of fish, right, which is a big problem. They figured
out that beaver dams actually work against that by by
um fixing nitrogen excess nitrogen from fertilizer. It prevents it
from flowing. Bacteria chomps down on it and releases it
as nitrogen gas into the atmosphere, and the stuff the
bacteria doesn't eat floats down to the bottom gets eaten
(21:57):
up by aquatic plants, which when they die, lock it
into the sediment. So this this farm runoff that's a
huge problem as it stands, is actually mitigated by beaver
damps they've recently found out. Yeah, and talk about just
what kind of um impact it has on who lives there.
(22:17):
I mean, it's basically like an invitation to nature that says, hey,
we got a good scene going over here. If you're
an invertebrate that doesn't feel like they have a home,
you're welcome here. Um. If you're a new species of
bird that didn't think that you would flourish here, time
to change that attitude. If you're a duck or a goose,
(22:38):
you can nest on top of our lodge because our
lodge is super warm because it's full of beavers, and
you can nest on top of there and stay warm.
And especially if it's out in the middle of a
pond or something, you're gonna be safer. What else, um,
If you are a woodpecker and you're like, all these
trees are too healthy, there's no insects in them, well
just wait because flooded timberland doesn't stand up very well
(23:01):
to standing water, and so some of those trees die
off and they get They provide housing for insects, which
in turn provides food for the woodpeckers. What if your moose,
let's say, good for you, right, No, you're gonna love
this if you're a moose, So buckle up, um, because
the beaver has turned it into a wetland. It's now
an aquatic environment, and moose like aquatic plants that grow
(23:23):
on the edge of like marshy areas. So these plants
that weren't there before are suddenly there for the moose.
And it gets even better because when the beaver family
finally like is you know, moves moves away or they
die off and the whole thing gets abandoned. The eventually
the dam's going to break without regular maintenance, and when
(23:45):
it does, the place is going to go back to
how it was before, but it's going to go back
to better than it was before because think about all
that nitrogen that was fixed in the sediment, all the
erosion that was prevented, and all of a sudden you
have a lush, beautiful at that deer can come eat on. Yeah,
it's pretty amazing. Like they they help out all these
(24:06):
animals and introduce all these new animals that can live together,
and then once it's done, it becomes a flowery meadow
for deer. They leave it better than it was when
they first got there. Amazing, It is amazing. The problem
is is that humans frequently have much different plans for
those same areas and be going to foul them. I say,
(24:28):
we take a break and we come back and talk
about that after a break, Like I just said, what
do you think? Answer now? Yes? Okay, stop alright. So, um,
(25:04):
we love beaver. You love beaver. Everyone out there listening.
There's a lot of people who don't love beaver. Beaver
it is now. And the reason why is because if
you own like a stand of timber, your plan is
to eventually cut that timber down and sell it for
(25:24):
wood planks or books. You know, like, um, stuff you
should know calling an incomplete compendium of mostly interesting things
available everywhere you get books to preorder. Now, Um, there's
things you can do with trees that you grow. And
if beavers move into your area and they build the damn,
those damns are effective. This isn't like a little puddle
we're talking about. They can create basically basically like lakes, ponds,
(25:48):
like enormous wetlands. And when you have standing water over timberland,
those trees are not They're not aquatic trees that you're
growing there, so they actually die again. Remember they die
off in bugs moving and woodpeckers eat the bugs. Well,
if you're trying to make money off of those trees,
you don't really want the beavers to do that to
your timberland. No, And I think how many tens of
(26:12):
millions of dollars. I think it was like twenty million
dollars a year or something. It was I think more
than that because I think I saw Alabama alone suffered
like fourteen million dollars in laws from timberland, just Alabama
from beaver uh damage. And not only that, it'll it'll
um flooding for crops um. It can make um what
(26:32):
was ordinarily a very stable bridge or road now unstable
and cause damage to roads and stuff like that from
like saturating the soil that was holding it up just
fine before. Yeah, the good news is um. Back in
the old days, they would just you know, they would
just cull as many beavers as they could to get
rid of them. These days, and this is kind of
a weird stat but it says se of of beaver
(26:56):
human conflict can be resolved without trapping killing the beavers.
So yeah, I take that as in they will somehow
move them along in a way that's humane. Well, I
don't know if that's even the case. I think that
more often than not, the first question is is the
beaver really causing a problem or is it that there's
(27:19):
beavers and they've created this this wetland and it wasn't
there before, and you're taking it as a problem. And
that's the thing that I'm seeing that it seems to
be like the new paradigm for viewing beavers as far
as their relationship to humans. It's like, really, what's what's
the problem. If it's yes, they're damaging crop land, Okay,
that's a problem. If they're killing timberland, that's a problem.
(27:40):
If they've um, if they're washing out a road, that's
a problem. But if they just created a wetland that
wasn't there before in your property where you bought the
property and it was dry, and now there's a wetland
there that you didn't plan for. Is it really a problem.
And I think that's what they're saying, is that the
people who are asked that question will say, actually, I
(28:01):
guess it's not. I'm gonna learn to love the beaver.
I love beaver. Yeah, And you know, it really gets
my dander up when I uh this lake that I
go to their the Facebook page, there are people, you know,
people post like, hey, it looks like I have a
beaver eating on my trees, and you know these some
of these people literally are like, yep, I'll take care
(28:22):
of that with my twelve gauge. And it's just like,
you don't. I've never understood the people who want to
move to nature to kill the nature. Yeah. I know,
it's just it's unnerving. And uh, I have seen some
beaver damage and I love it. I welcome it, So yeah,
you eat all you want. You would be one of
the scent who would say like, no, no, it's no
(28:44):
problem whatever. You probably wouldn't even say it was an issue. No,
you wouldn't even be asked that question, you would just
know from the outset that it's not a problem. I
call that a beaver beavering. Yeah, that's beaver, is gonna beaver.
And so we know now that like they are a
keystone species. They're so important. It's it's great. The impression
I'm getting is it's kind of like, no, it's not
(29:05):
really a problem. So you can't touch that beaver, don't
shoot that beaver. You're going to get in big trouble
depending on where you are for shooting a beaver when
it wasn't creating a problem, which I love because they
should be protected because again not not just the fact
that they were almost hunted to extinction. They provide so
many really important services. Um, I don't even know if
(29:25):
we talked about it. There were two others, Chuck, they
prevent flooding. Three others. They prevent flooding by slowing the
flow of water so things downstream from the dam don't
get overwhelmed as much. The stuff in the dam helps
recharge aquifers below, whereas before it just a little stream
trickling over it was doing jack for the aquifer. Now
(29:45):
the aquifer is getting recharged on the daily and then
the third one is they provide natural fire breaks, which
helps contain forest fires. And the feeling when we're done,
we're gonna be mad because there were like three more
things we didn't think about. That happens to me a
lot and drives me nuts. Uh. Here's some of the
things that people do try and do though to mitigate
(30:07):
their what they perceive as their beaver problems. Yet. Yeah, no,
because they do create some problems as far as human
settlement is concerned. They will use beaver pipes. Uh. And
this is basically plastic pipes that you put in a
beaver dam to route that water to where you want.
It helps control the flooding that beavers can cause. Yeah,
(30:28):
it's like so long that the beavers, like it doesn't
think to go to the end of the pipes. It
just sees that there's something around it's damn it. It It
probably damns up around the pipe, but that still lets
the flow of water go through. Yeah, this is kind
of cool. They will build a pre damn if they
want beavers away from a certain place and in a
different place. They'll basically say, hey, look over here, we
(30:51):
got this fence. It's like a foundation for your new home.
It's kind of you've got ten percent of your work
has already done, want you to start here, So they'll
do that. Yeah, the beaver says, hot dog. Uh. And
then another thing is to design the well. There's two
times offenses. There's the pre damn fence that encourages them
to come, and then there is another kind of fence,
(31:13):
uh to keep them from building there in the first place. Yeah.
Those are called beaver deceivers um, and they are it's
just basically so like a culvert is a frequent place
that a beaver likes too damn up, and that's where
it causes a lot of damage because colverts are helped
are meant to help drain water to keep roadways stable
in that kind of thing. Right, So you would just
(31:35):
basically put a fence radiating out from either side of
the culvert outward um and an angle kind of like
in a V shape, and then those two um fences
are connected by another fence between the two. So it's
just basically like a triangle that ends in the culvert.
The key is if you make those fences long enough
I think twelve feet minimum or something like that, the
(31:56):
beaver is gonna be like nuts to this. This just
isn't even worth it. I'm not gonna try to build
a damn here, or if it does start to build
a damn, it's going to give up eventually. Um, and
your culvert is saved without the beaver being hurt or harm.
The beaver just moves on to a different spot that
it likes, right. Uh. And if you have a tree
that you really love that you see has some beaver activity,
(32:17):
you can wrap like chicken wire around the base of
it if you want. Um. There's also some special paint
that you can paint on the trunk that apparently beavers
don't like if you want to protect a certain tree. Um.
It's like the nail biting stuff all bit. Oh my god,
somebody wrote in about that. What they say? I didn't
see that. I think they were just asking, like what
it was. I'm sure they still have it, but um,
(32:40):
I don't remember what it was. I believe remember Lee
press on nails. I think they had a sideline in
that stuff. I'm sure it was. It's probably just like
clear nail polish. Yeah, but tastes like garbage. Yeah, that
tasted really bad. Tasted like what what I thought it was,
like hot no, it was bitter. Okay, yeah, I wouldn't
like that at all, and that was very bitter. Um.
I don't think we mentioned the uh. I mean we
(33:02):
should talk a little bit. We talked about the kits um.
But they do live in large groups, are very social.
They're called colonies, and they mate in the winter during
the first few months of the year. Um. The Eurasian
beaver just states for sixty two d twenty eight days
and have one to six little babies, and the American
(33:23):
beavers just eight from a hundred to about a hundred
five to a hundred seven days. Again one to four
little kids, and they are weaned around two weeks of age,
whereas the Eurasian beavers weened it about six weeks of age. Right.
And so, Chuck, I saw that beavers tend to live,
like you said, they were monogamous typically. I said that
(33:44):
they live about ten to fifteen years in the wild,
which is so cute. But you can also build a
pretty pretty respectable dam in that time too. And I
think actually the largest damn that they've ever seen, um
is they think it is from many, many, many generations
of beavers staying and working on in Alberta, right, Yeah,
(34:04):
it's huge, and I guess everyone just got in on
the party. Yeah, they think since the seventies that some
beavers have been keeping it appropriate. Yeah, pretty much. And
those little kids, by the way, you can swim about
just one day after they're born, they're already swimming around, right, So,
like we said, I think that they are um. I
(34:26):
think that they become sexually mature at age three, and
around that time they're going to start producing something called
castorum or castoreum, right. Um. And castoreum is like a
lot of people think that it's like the origin of
castor oil. It's not correct from the castor bean. I
believe this stuff is like the opposite of castro oil.
(34:48):
Actually like tastes and smells like really good. Yeah. I
mean it's it's used. It's the FDA says you can
eat it. It's one of those grass remember, generally recognized
as safe in green ants. And the thing is that
there's just not a lot of it. It's it's it's
very tough too, and it's a lot of work to
go out there and try and extract this um flavor
(35:09):
ingredient from the beaver tail. Right. I think it says
two d about two pounds annually total, so imagine it's expensive.
It is very expensive, and you can still find in
some places. I think I saw a whiskey that uses it.
Um Chanel's perfume. Um. Oh, what is it called core
(35:32):
de Roussie. I believe it still uses it. And it's
a flavor ingredient too, because it's um, Like you're saying,
it's generally recognized as safe, but it also adds like
a vanilla raspberry flavor. That's what it tastes like to humans.
And they think that there are some ice creams out
there that still may use that, like old timey ice
(35:53):
creams that use beaver cast storium, like beaver scent. It's
what it is. It's beaver musk. It just so happen
that beaver musk tastes like raspberry vanilla to to humans. Yeah,
but they were hunted for a really long time, which
kind of led to this one myth, didn't it. Uh,
the testicle myth? Yeah, yeah, Up until about the eleven hundreds,
(36:16):
people thought beavers eight or bid off their own testicles.
And apparently this has its origins in ancient Egypt. Uh,
in medieval Europe, it continued, where I think the what
they said was that beavers knew that hunters were coming
after them because of that castoreum which originated in their testicles.
(36:39):
And um, none of this is true. I think their
testicles they don't even have hangars, right, No, they don't.
They're located inside them, which automatically disqualifies it. But also
so the beavers were basically saying like, no, you can't
have my castorium. I can't have it anymore either. I
would rather bite off my own testicles than let you
(37:00):
have them. I guess maybe as a survival mechanism, like
they thought that they would leave them alone if they
didn't have testicles. But maybe, no, that's not true at all. Um.
And then there's one other great fact, Chuck, that I
think you got to take to take us out with
the Yeah, the pope in the sixteenth century said, you
know what, that's that tail is pretty scaly, and they
(37:22):
sure are in the water a lot. So um, during
the fasting days, go ahead and eat that beaver. It's
close enough to a fish, yep, exactly qualifies as a fish.
So you could eat beaver back in the sixteenth century,
thanks to the Pope that's right, as far as I know,
it teased early if they were dangerous, they're they're not.
Beavers are very nice little fellas and ladies. Uh. And
(37:47):
if there is a beaver that attacks somebody, it will
make the news because it's so rare, and it probably
means they're really sick. Yeah, They, like all mammals, can
get rabies um, but like porcupines. I get the impression
that that's one of the few um diseases you can
get from a beaver. Um. The thing is is, if
they are rabid and they do charge at you, they
(38:09):
can do some serious damage with those teeth, Like they
can chew through three foot diameter trees, they can bite
through your skin, and so if you get too close
to a beaver, it can have bad effects. It's just
like you said, it's extremely rare. But I saw at
least one guy's died from from them in the last
decade or so. Right, luck So, a guy in Belarus
(38:30):
was trying to get a picture of a beaver and
got too close, and the thing bit him in his
thigh and bit through his femoral artery, and the guy
bled to death from a beaver attack. He died from
a beaver attack. His family has to live like that
for the rest of their lives. Beaver attack. I don't know. Um,
(38:51):
And there's been some other texts too, but yeah, I
think they just kind of give beaver's bad name unwarrantedly.
Don't you shot through the leg in your to blame
you give beavers the bad name? Oh goodness, Todd Um, Well,
I guess that's it for beavers. Huh, that's it. I'm
glad we finally got to view this one. Leave them alone. Yeah,
(39:13):
let them do their beaver thing. Beaver in like Chuck says,
beaver is gonna beaver. If you want to know more
about beavers, and then by God, you go find some
beavers and study them from afar because they are nature's miracles.
And since I said that, it's time for a listener mail,
all right, I'm gonna call this Brave Angels. Hey, guys,
(39:37):
listen to your episode on Swing States. You mentioned the
dangerous level of polarization going on between reds and blues
in America. Oh yeah, thanks for reading this one. You're welcome,
and I wanted to let you know that there's something
we can do about it. There's a great grassroots organization
with a specific goal of depolarizing America called braver Angels,
which organizes events to bring reds and blues together to
(39:59):
have real, nuanced discussions about things they disagree about and
help us understand and respect each other's great. It is great.
I mean it's quite a service. Yeah. I would love
to peek in on one of these meetings and maybe
go to one. Yeah, they're doing a lot of online
events and now due to COVID and among other things,
just launched a campaign called Hold America Together to prepare
(40:20):
a response to potential election related conflict in November. Could
you please tell your listeners about Braver Angels and help
keep our country together because American needs this. Love to
all the reds and blues out there, and you guys
are great at what you do. Join the braver Angels.
That is from Christa and just go to braver Angels
dot org. B A R A v r A n
(40:42):
g e l s dot org. B r A v
r A n g e l s dot org. That
is correct. Okay, cool um, that's fantastic. Thank you, Krista,
and thanks to all the braver Angels out there who
are trying to keep the country together because, like Krista said,
we kind of need it now. And it is brave,
it's it's uh, it's daunting to step outside your echo chamber,
(41:05):
oh man, it is. And it's just harder and harder
because you know, the echoes have gotten stronger and stronger.
So to hear something other than that, it's like just
almost like make your brain melt, you know, pretty neat all. Right, Well,
if you want to get in touch with us to
let us know about some group or service the country
or the world is in dire need of we want
(41:26):
to hear about it, you can send us an email
to Stuffed podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you
Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios. How stuff works.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio is at the
iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of My
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there,
and there's Jerry somewhere, and it says stuff you should Know,
the Orange Incisors Edition. I thought you're gonna make a
(00:26):
bad naked gun joke. No, No, it did run through
my head over and over and over and over and
over and over and over again. Though. It's hard though
when you're at our age. Yeah, and you saw those movies. Yeah,
dumb joke though, Uh yeah, well, I mean it's a
naked gun joke for pizza. Come on. So this kind
(00:47):
of ties in I think a little bit with our
porcupine episode. Uh and that beavers are you know, they're
porcupine esk in some ways. I think it ties in
even more to our Wetlands episode, which gave to the
idea for this episode. You know, yeah, absolutely, I mean
I'm pretty excited about this one. I think beavers are
(01:08):
about as great as it gets because they're so studious,
and they also bend the world to their will. They
shape things the way that they want them, and I
like that about them. Yeah, and I also love their
familial aspects. Yeah, which we'll we'll get to all this stuff.
But what we're talking about is is the largest rodent
(01:30):
in North America, which really demeans them, I guess. But yes,
rodents such a it's not a bad word. There's so
many great rodents who beavers, porcupines, squirrels. I know you
have a thing with squirrels, but well, I know I
like squirrels now, Momo and I uh and it knew
me sometimes comes with us to chase squirrels across the
(01:52):
street in the park um and feed them peanuts. We
give them peanuts is like to kind of buy them
off after Mo chases them up at but the squirrels
across the way will actually come to you and eat
peanuts out of your hand. So I'm I'm kind of
on squirrels now. Momo loves squirrels, chipmunks, mice, chipmunks too. Yeah.
(02:13):
Rodents are okay, Chuck. I think there are fewer terrible rodents,
and the only ones I can think of that are
terrible are those uh scary New York City sewer rats. Yeah, okay,
so rodents are all right up with rodents rabbits, and
I don't think they're rodents. They are he like a hamster, Sure, hamsters.
(02:35):
I don't know if rabbits are rodents. Are they It
makes sense that they would be. But it's what rodent
dot com says. Okay, well, who am I going to
disagree with that? But we're not talking about rabbits. We're
not talking about sewer rats. We're talking about beavers. And again,
beavers are amazing, amazing animals, and like you said, you know,
it's kind of related to porcupines and that there's um
(02:56):
what you could call Old World and New World beavers,
but there's really just two species and one is found
in North America and one is found in Eurasia. And
it's easy, peasy, no fuss, no must these are the
beavers that are alive on the planet. Yeah, so we've
got the American beaver. They weigh between fifteen and sixty
(03:17):
five pounds, which is very large. Uh. If if you've
ever seen a large beaver in the wild, it's um,
it's not scary because you know, and we'll get to
whether or not they're they're dangerous, they're really not. Um
but it's it's such a large thing that you're like, wow,
they're bigger than I thought. Usually has has run through
my head when I see a beaver. Yeah, I mean
sixty or thirty No, yeah, sixty five pounds is about
(03:40):
thirty ms. It's a big beaver. It is a big beaver.
And I had to convert to kilograms for at least
our friends in Canada because beavers their national emblem. They
have beaver on their nickel, which is amazing. Like this
just makes me love Canada all the much more, you know.
So for that sixty pounds, you're gonna be uh a
couple of feet long long. Um, that's without the tail.
(04:05):
You don't count the tail when you're measuring a beaver. Uh,
the tail will talk a little bit more about it.
But there anywhere from seven to twelve benches. If you're Eurasian,
you're about the same size. Mate. You can be a
little bit smaller bigger, Well, you can be a little
smaller on the I think the range is bigger. So
you can be down in the twenties poundage wise, but
(04:27):
up to the seventies poundage wise. Uh, and you you're
probably a little bit longer, and your skull and your
tail are going to be narrower, or your tails narrower
and your skull is smaller. So um, yeah, but that
tail is what everybody understands when they see a beaver.
Just like with a porcupine and its coils, a beaver
(04:47):
in its tail is they're just synonymous. Everybody recognizes a
beaver because of his tail, and also the tails helped
make it cute. Even though if you zoomed in and
took a really close look at the tail, you'd be
like gross. You think, yeah, it's scaly, it's got sparse,
coarse hair associated with it. It looks like a black
jack that some old timey like roughs would beat you
(05:10):
up with. Um, And yet it's one of the most
amazing appendages any animal has as far. It's like a
Swiss army knife foot for tails. Yeah, they're very useful
in a lot of ways. They obviously if if they're swimming,
and beaver's, by the way, you can swim five to
seven miles an hour. They have a little web feet
(05:31):
they have they can close their ear holes and their
nose holes, and they can roll their film over their
eyeballs nictitating membrane. Yeah, it's amazing. Um. So if they're
going to be swimming, then that tail is gonna be
acting as a rudder um and as a propeller um.
It's also if they're on land, it's gonna act as
(05:51):
a little kickstand at times. Yeah, when they stand up
on their back legs, they use their tail to kind
of lean against short balance. It's a big one for sure.
They also, and this is a sure sign that you
have frightened slash upset a beaver. Um. They will slap
the water with their tail in part to frighten you away,
to say like, don't mess with me, um, but also
(06:14):
to warn other beavers because um, like you were saying,
they're familial, they are actually fairly social animals and they
live in family units, so they would want to warn, like,
you know, the wife and the kids back at the lodge. Yeah.
And here's the thing. I spent a lot of time
at a lake here in Georgia, and I have heard
(06:34):
something which I thought was a beaver tail smash, but
I'm not sure because I didn't see it. I have
seen evidence of beaver eating tree stuff. Oh yeah, yeah,
and which we'll get to. And one day when I
was in the lake, I saw a mammal's head coming
toward me, and I don't know if it was We
(06:55):
also have river otter, so I don't know if it
was an otter or a beaver um, but either way
it was, it was a large head. And even though
I know that they weren't gonna come after me, when
that thing pops under the water, You're just like, where
where's he going, what's he doing? Where is he? Is
he coming at me or not? Were you swimming in
the lake at the time. Yeah, I'll swimming in the
(07:15):
lake and I saw this large mammal had, you know,
dumped under and if it was, I'm not sure how
long beavers can hold their Fodders can hold their breasths,
but beavers can hold their breath for about fifteen minutes,
which is pretty remarkable. I thought. I think it's remarkable too.
I mean, it really just goes to show like just
how adapted they are for life in the water. And
(07:36):
they are mammals, so they have long so they need
to breathe air outside of the water. But yeah, the
fact that they can hold their breath for fifteen minutes,
that they have nictitating membranes that cover their eyes like
little goggles so they can see and work underwater. UM.
They spend a significant amount of their time underwater. In fact,
they're most protected in water. That's where they can move
(07:56):
the fastest. They can swim pretty fast, way faster than
they can waddle land. UM, and a lot of their
predators won't necessarily come into, especially deep water after them.
So when they're in the water, they're at there, they're
they're they're in their happy place most And imagine when
they dive for fifteen minutes and are swimming around, Uh,
(08:18):
what do you think those fish think, Oh, here comes
of beaver. I mean did they did they know? Or
they just like, what in the world is that big
hairy thing? Um? I would guess that they I would
like to think they know. I like to think of
communities of animals or ecosystems just they know each other. Yea,
they know each other, they know each other's foibles. They've
(08:39):
come to accept one another. You know, they have their things,
they always kind of you know, they in the end
that when somebody, you know, like a human comes in
and tries to screw things up, they'll all band together
and you know, raise money for the community center so
that the developer can't buy it. So if you are
North American, be where you can live pretty much anywhere
(09:02):
in North America except for the desert. Because you want
water around, um, you're probably gonna be near pond or
lake or marsh or swamp or river. Um. Your Eurasian beavers,
I used to live all over Europe and Asia, but
they were hunted, over hunted because at one point in time,
wearing beaver pelts and beaver hats was like really high fashion.
(09:26):
So now they're only found in Germany, France, Poland, Scandinavia,
Southern Scandinavia, and Central Russia. Yeah, and a lot of
those are because they were reintroduced to the areas, Like
I believe Germany had to have their population reintroduced because
they were hunted to extinction. And how many beavers used
to be here, like four hundred million. That's the estimate,
(09:46):
is that in North America prior to Colombian contact that
they were there were about four hundred million beavers and
they were hunted down to near extinction within the hundreds
of thousands from what I saw. UM. And we're luckily
held back from the brink. And when I say luckily,
I don't just mean for the beavers, but I mean
for the planet as far as North America is concerned.
(10:10):
Because one of the things that we are still learning
but have come to realize, is that the beavers are
probably the most useful species on the planet. Um, because
they're one of the few species that alters their environment
as radically as they do. Yeah, what are they called?
(10:31):
They are a keystone species, stone species because when they
are present, biodiversity thrived, and when beavers are removed from
an area, biodiversity suffers. The presence of beavers makes life
better and richer for entirely other animals and species, just
because of what they do and how they do it.
(10:52):
All Right, that's a great place to take a break,
And I say, when we come back, we talk about
the two fundamental full crown on which beaver life is based,
the dam and the lodge. Okay, stop stop, stop stop,
(11:28):
all right, we're back. And there are a couple of things.
You know you've heard busy as a beaver. Uh, it's
it's I don't know if that's proven, but I think
it is almost universally agreed that that phrase came about
because beavers are in fact very busy and they work, work,
work all day long, building their homes and building dams.
(11:48):
Their homes are called lodges. And you've probably seen, if
you've ever been hiking and stuff in America, you've probably
seen a beaver lodge by a river or lake. It's
a little little dome out of sticks and grasses and
moss and mud. Maybe you thought a local which had
built it. Yeah, it does look like a little Uh
what do you call Which's houses? Which is house? I
(12:10):
think there's a cottage. Oh sure, I think there's a
different name. But which is house? Was a name for this?
I thought so? No, I don't know, I don't know.
I think so which house? I'm maybe I'm thinking of
Covin's house the Day which, No, there's a word. We
just I just watched the Which the movie again. I
think there's a word for it. Man, I love that.
That might be my favorite movie. We did a movie
(12:33):
Crush Round Table on that. By the way, it was
really good. It is a gooding. That's the guy who
did the Lighthouse, isn't it YEA God? Bless that? Man.
I can't wait to see his spiking movie too. Oh, man,
I can't imagine. Uh So the beaver lodge is um,
you know, about eight ft wide, a few feet high.
They're on the banks of these ponds are on lake shores. Uh.
(12:55):
They have this is one of my favorite parts. Many
of them have a little underwater backed or so it's
like sort of a ski in chalet if you're snow skiing. Yeah,
which makes sense because again, they spend so much time
in the water, but also protects them from terrestrial predators
because they can get into the water and escape when
a predators like at their door. Yeah. And uh, you
(13:16):
know this is their nocturnal they don't hibernate, but most
of this action is going on at night. Um, and
everyone pitches in the whole family. I don't think we
said yet. They live with their children until they're about
too And in a beaver lodge you might find a
mom and a dad who are monogamous mates for life,
and they might have their three two year old almost
(13:37):
two year old children, and then they might have their
little grand babies. Yeah, because when they have their their babies,
which are called kits, which admittedly is not as cute
award as porcupets, but they're cute. But dude, just baby
press pause right now. Everybody and go look up some
baby beaver pictures, little tails. They're cute, so they have
(13:59):
baby beavers in One of the reasons why they're so
cute is because they stick around for so long, or
they they stick around so long because they're so cute,
that's what I mean to say. Um, But they do.
They stay as part of the family unit and help
like work on the family lodge and dam um until
about two when they wander off, and then at three
they start to mate. But they build their own lodge
(14:20):
at age two, and from what I've read, it's usually
very clumsy. It's not in the best place necessarily, and
so they kind of learned as they go. But they
also learned from their family unit first, which I think
is super cute. It is um, I think we should
talk about damn though. I Mean, the lodges are are
cool and it's a great place to live if you're
(14:41):
a beaver, But the dams is where they really uh
that's where they get their their shining moment as a species.
That really helps out the environment because they help create
these wetlands, don't they. Yeah, So, so a beaver will
move into an area that's dry as a bone um
that's maybe crop land, that's maybe timberland. Um that is
(15:03):
not at all flooded. There's no pond or wetland or
anything like that. And they say, this can be better.
And so they find like a source of moving water
like a stream or um a brook, maybe a creek,
maybe a creek something like that, and they stop it up.
They they build a dam and they build this damp
(15:23):
so that the water backs up behind it and floods
this area and turns it into a wetland. And they
do this not to irk humans or just for fun.
They do it because they're altering the ecosystem to better
suit themselves. Like I said, they survive much better when
they're in the water, They move faster, they can work faster.
(15:46):
So they actually make this ecosystem into an aquatic ecosystem
where before there wasn't an aquatic ecosystem. And they do
it all by by building this dam. And the way
that they build dams is magnificent in and itself. Yeah,
so you know you've got your damn basse the foundation
basically where uh you're gonna use mud and gravel that
(16:10):
you get from the stream, and you kind of work
together as a family and with your tail, and they're
pushing I say, we were beavers all of a sudden,
and you're pushing this mud and gravel up from the
bottom of the stream. And if let's say it's a
place where the creek is running a little bit too
fast and there's too much flow, uh, they're gonna say,
you know what, We're gonna take these sticks. We're gonna
(16:31):
pile uh, these things up all along the bottom until
basically it's like it's like building from the ground up
until they're strong enough to to stay in place. Right.
But they're so good at using their hands, and they're
so strong. You said, you know, sixties sixty five pounds
are about thirty. They're mostly muscle too. They're really strong
(16:52):
little little rodents, especially for being like herbivores. You know,
they're like those vegan body builders. Um, they can take
they'll take sticks and like plant them in the bottom
of this stream or whatever and start forming a lattice
work that they we've in between and fill up with
mud to really stop up some you know, fast moving current. Um.
(17:16):
That that that like, that's the level of manipulation that
they're they're doing. They're they're building a dam that they eventually,
um successfully back up the flow of water from yeah,
which is I've tried to do that before and it's
hard to do. Um My buddy Scotty and I who
you know, we went camping once in California and it
(17:37):
was when I was young and in the film industry,
so there's a lot of time between jobs, and we
just decided to stay and keep staying, and I think
we ended up staying for like eleven or twelve days,
and uh, we wanted to build a waterfall next to
our campsite, so it sounded better. So we spent days
and days with sticks and big rocks and trying to
reroute and change the river. And it was some of
(18:00):
the hardest work I've ever done. Imagine doing that at
like forty eight inches long and only sixty pounds. So
they're they're not only building this thing up, they got
their little kits and their children helping, like bringing up
sticks and mud, saying paw mas is okay, and they say, yeah,
added to the pile. And then once they're done, they
(18:23):
they're like there's a periodic like inspections that go on
because they got to make sure that it stays strong
because that current just keeps going and it's very easy
to wiggle the right stick loose and all of a
sudden it starts crumbling down. So they basically inspect these
things every so often and check it for leaks and
bring in mud and patch it up just like it's
(18:43):
like a human might do. Oh, I saw that they
do daily maintenance on it. That um. One way to
tell whether beavers are in the area is to to
find their damn, make it like a little minor hole
in it, and then go back and look the next day,
and if it's patched up, the beavers are around there
like and and giving you the middle finger right exactly
like okay, yeah we're here, you've figured it out, Please
(19:05):
leave our damn alone. But yeah, these things are like
water tight for the most part, or they they allow
very little water through, or I guess from what I
can tell, as much water as the beaver wants through.
Like they're very willfully deliberately constructed structures that will turn
a dry area into a wetland. And when that happens.
(19:26):
One of the things that they used to build this
stuff with their trees around the area, and they can
they use their teeth. Those really really sharp, strong teeth
that I said are like kind of orange ish at
the very beginning of the episode, and they're very they're
orange because they have so much iron in them, which
actually gives them that much more strength. Yeah, they're up
(19:48):
to an inch long. They're super strong. They they actually
sharpen as they gnaw on trees, so it's not like
it'll dull their teeth out. It actually sharpens them. And
the other thing they're doing is they're eating that tree.
They're one of the few mammals that are maybe the
only mammal that can actually digest cellulose. Well, porcupines can too, remember, yeah,
(20:10):
they can. They can digest cellulus because they probably have
a very similar kind of bacteria that helps helps digest
it for them. But they digest a lot of the
cellulus that they eat, and it's really hard to break
down normally for mammals though. Yeah, but like you know,
you said, they're essentially creating these wetlands, they're preventing erosion. Uh,
they are helping to purify the water. Oh, let's let's
(20:31):
talk about what the dams can do. Okay, Chuck. I
mean it's amazing there. It's it's like a little environmental
coalition that goes into the woods to make things better. Yeah.
So I think in the Wetlands episode, I said something
like like a beaver creates the equivalent of some like
a five million dollar wastewater treatment plan or something like that.
(20:52):
I could not find that again to save my life,
but I think that was roughly it. Um They they
create this this strung sure that creates the artificial wetland,
and in doing so, it filters the water because it
slows the water down so much that the stuff can
trickle down to the bottom. It turns a normal terrestrial
piece of land into a wetland, so aquatic plants come.
(21:14):
And they've also found out that not only does it
filter water of like sediment and particles, it also is
capable of handling farm runoff fertilizer, which is really pernicious
because you know, when all that fertilizer makes its way
into two watersheds and wetlands, it creates algae blooms which
suck up all the oxygen and kill off a bunch
(21:34):
of fish, right, which is a big problem. They figured
out that beaver dams actually work against that by by
um fixing nitrogen excess nitrogen from fertilizer. It prevents it
from flowing. Bacteria chomps down on it and releases it
as nitrogen gas into the atmosphere, and the stuff the
bacteria doesn't eat floats down to the bottom gets eaten
(21:57):
up by aquatic plants, which when they die, lock it
into the sediment. So this this farm runoff that's a
huge problem as it stands, is actually mitigated by beaver
damps they've recently found out. Yeah, and talk about just
what kind of um impact it has on who lives there.
(22:17):
I mean, it's basically like an invitation to nature that says, hey,
we got a good scene going over here. If you're
an invertebrate that doesn't feel like they have a home,
you're welcome here. Um. If you're a new species of
bird that didn't think that you would flourish here, time
to change that attitude. If you're a duck or a goose,
(22:38):
you can nest on top of our lodge because our
lodge is super warm because it's full of beavers, and
you can nest on top of there and stay warm.
And especially if it's out in the middle of a
pond or something, you're gonna be safer. What else, um,
If you are a woodpecker and you're like, all these
trees are too healthy, there's no insects in them, well
just wait because flooded timberland doesn't stand up very well
(23:01):
to standing water, and so some of those trees die
off and they get They provide housing for insects, which
in turn provides food for the woodpeckers. What if your moose,
let's say, good for you, right, No, you're gonna love
this if you're a moose, So buckle up, um, because
the beaver has turned it into a wetland. It's now
an aquatic environment, and moose like aquatic plants that grow
(23:23):
on the edge of like marshy areas. So these plants
that weren't there before are suddenly there for the moose.
And it gets even better because when the beaver family
finally like is you know, moves moves away or they
die off and the whole thing gets abandoned. The eventually
the dam's going to break without regular maintenance, and when
(23:45):
it does, the place is going to go back to
how it was before, but it's going to go back
to better than it was before because think about all
that nitrogen that was fixed in the sediment, all the
erosion that was prevented, and all of a sudden you
have a lush, beautiful at that deer can come eat on. Yeah,
it's pretty amazing. Like they they help out all these
(24:06):
animals and introduce all these new animals that can live together,
and then once it's done, it becomes a flowery meadow
for deer. They leave it better than it was when
they first got there. Amazing, It is amazing. The problem
is is that humans frequently have much different plans for
those same areas and be going to foul them. I say,
(24:28):
we take a break and we come back and talk
about that after a break, Like I just said, what
do you think? Answer now? Yes? Okay, stop alright. So, um,
(25:04):
we love beaver. You love beaver. Everyone out there listening.
There's a lot of people who don't love beaver. Beaver
it is now. And the reason why is because if
you own like a stand of timber, your plan is
to eventually cut that timber down and sell it for
(25:24):
wood planks or books. You know, like, um, stuff you
should know calling an incomplete compendium of mostly interesting things
available everywhere you get books to preorder. Now, Um, there's
things you can do with trees that you grow. And
if beavers move into your area and they build the damn,
those damns are effective. This isn't like a little puddle
we're talking about. They can create basically basically like lakes, ponds,
(25:48):
like enormous wetlands. And when you have standing water over timberland,
those trees are not They're not aquatic trees that you're
growing there, so they actually die again. Remember they die
off in bugs moving and woodpeckers eat the bugs. Well,
if you're trying to make money off of those trees,
you don't really want the beavers to do that to
your timberland. No, And I think how many tens of
(26:12):
millions of dollars. I think it was like twenty million
dollars a year or something. It was I think more
than that because I think I saw Alabama alone suffered
like fourteen million dollars in laws from timberland, just Alabama
from beaver uh damage. And not only that, it'll it'll
um flooding for crops um. It can make um what
(26:32):
was ordinarily a very stable bridge or road now unstable
and cause damage to roads and stuff like that from
like saturating the soil that was holding it up just
fine before. Yeah, the good news is um. Back in
the old days, they would just you know, they would
just cull as many beavers as they could to get
rid of them. These days, and this is kind of
a weird stat but it says se of of beaver
(26:56):
human conflict can be resolved without trapping killing the beavers.
So yeah, I take that as in they will somehow
move them along in a way that's humane. Well, I
don't know if that's even the case. I think that
more often than not, the first question is is the
beaver really causing a problem or is it that there's
(27:19):
beavers and they've created this this wetland and it wasn't
there before, and you're taking it as a problem. And
that's the thing that I'm seeing that it seems to
be like the new paradigm for viewing beavers as far
as their relationship to humans. It's like, really, what's what's
the problem. If it's yes, they're damaging crop land, Okay,
that's a problem. If they're killing timberland, that's a problem.
(27:40):
If they've um, if they're washing out a road, that's
a problem. But if they just created a wetland that
wasn't there before in your property where you bought the
property and it was dry, and now there's a wetland
there that you didn't plan for. Is it really a problem.
And I think that's what they're saying, is that the
people who are asked that question will say, actually, I
(28:01):
guess it's not. I'm gonna learn to love the beaver.
I love beaver. Yeah, And you know, it really gets
my dander up when I uh this lake that I
go to their the Facebook page, there are people, you know,
people post like, hey, it looks like I have a
beaver eating on my trees, and you know these some
of these people literally are like, yep, I'll take care
(28:22):
of that with my twelve gauge. And it's just like,
you don't. I've never understood the people who want to
move to nature to kill the nature. Yeah. I know,
it's just it's unnerving. And uh, I have seen some
beaver damage and I love it. I welcome it, So yeah,
you eat all you want. You would be one of
the scent who would say like, no, no, it's no
(28:44):
problem whatever. You probably wouldn't even say it was an issue. No,
you wouldn't even be asked that question, you would just
know from the outset that it's not a problem. I
call that a beaver beavering. Yeah, that's beaver, is gonna beaver.
And so we know now that like they are a
keystone species. They're so important. It's it's great. The impression
I'm getting is it's kind of like, no, it's not
(29:05):
really a problem. So you can't touch that beaver, don't
shoot that beaver. You're going to get in big trouble
depending on where you are for shooting a beaver when
it wasn't creating a problem, which I love because they
should be protected because again not not just the fact
that they were almost hunted to extinction. They provide so
many really important services. Um, I don't even know if
(29:25):
we talked about it. There were two others, Chuck, they
prevent flooding. Three others. They prevent flooding by slowing the
flow of water so things downstream from the dam don't
get overwhelmed as much. The stuff in the dam helps
recharge aquifers below, whereas before it just a little stream
trickling over it was doing jack for the aquifer. Now
(29:45):
the aquifer is getting recharged on the daily and then
the third one is they provide natural fire breaks, which
helps contain forest fires. And the feeling when we're done,
we're gonna be mad because there were like three more
things we didn't think about. That happens to me a
lot and drives me nuts. Uh. Here's some of the
things that people do try and do though to mitigate
(30:07):
their what they perceive as their beaver problems. Yet. Yeah, no,
because they do create some problems as far as human
settlement is concerned. They will use beaver pipes. Uh. And
this is basically plastic pipes that you put in a
beaver dam to route that water to where you want.
It helps control the flooding that beavers can cause. Yeah,
(30:28):
it's like so long that the beavers, like it doesn't
think to go to the end of the pipes. It
just sees that there's something around it's damn it. It It
probably damns up around the pipe, but that still lets
the flow of water go through. Yeah, this is kind
of cool. They will build a pre damn if they
want beavers away from a certain place and in a
different place. They'll basically say, hey, look over here, we
(30:51):
got this fence. It's like a foundation for your new home.
It's kind of you've got ten percent of your work
has already done, want you to start here, So they'll
do that. Yeah, the beaver says, hot dog. Uh. And
then another thing is to design the well. There's two
times offenses. There's the pre damn fence that encourages them
to come, and then there is another kind of fence,
(31:13):
uh to keep them from building there in the first place. Yeah.
Those are called beaver deceivers um, and they are it's
just basically so like a culvert is a frequent place
that a beaver likes too damn up, and that's where
it causes a lot of damage because colverts are helped
are meant to help drain water to keep roadways stable
in that kind of thing. Right, So you would just
(31:35):
basically put a fence radiating out from either side of
the culvert outward um and an angle kind of like
in a V shape, and then those two um fences
are connected by another fence between the two. So it's
just basically like a triangle that ends in the culvert.
The key is if you make those fences long enough
I think twelve feet minimum or something like that, the
(31:56):
beaver is gonna be like nuts to this. This just
isn't even worth it. I'm not gonna try to build
a damn here, or if it does start to build
a damn, it's going to give up eventually. Um, and
your culvert is saved without the beaver being hurt or harm.
The beaver just moves on to a different spot that
it likes, right. Uh. And if you have a tree
that you really love that you see has some beaver activity,
(32:17):
you can wrap like chicken wire around the base of
it if you want. Um. There's also some special paint
that you can paint on the trunk that apparently beavers
don't like if you want to protect a certain tree. Um.
It's like the nail biting stuff all bit. Oh my god,
somebody wrote in about that. What they say? I didn't
see that. I think they were just asking, like what
it was. I'm sure they still have it, but um,
(32:40):
I don't remember what it was. I believe remember Lee
press on nails. I think they had a sideline in
that stuff. I'm sure it was. It's probably just like
clear nail polish. Yeah, but tastes like garbage. Yeah, that
tasted really bad. Tasted like what what I thought it was,
like hot no, it was bitter. Okay, yeah, I wouldn't
like that at all, and that was very bitter. Um.
I don't think we mentioned the uh. I mean we
(33:02):
should talk a little bit. We talked about the kits um.
But they do live in large groups, are very social.
They're called colonies, and they mate in the winter during
the first few months of the year. Um. The Eurasian
beaver just states for sixty two d twenty eight days
and have one to six little babies, and the American
(33:23):
beavers just eight from a hundred to about a hundred
five to a hundred seven days. Again one to four
little kids, and they are weaned around two weeks of age,
whereas the Eurasian beavers weened it about six weeks of age. Right.
And so, Chuck, I saw that beavers tend to live,
like you said, they were monogamous typically. I said that
(33:44):
they live about ten to fifteen years in the wild,
which is so cute. But you can also build a
pretty pretty respectable dam in that time too. And I
think actually the largest damn that they've ever seen, um
is they think it is from many, many, many generations
of beavers staying and working on in Alberta, right, Yeah,
(34:04):
it's huge, and I guess everyone just got in on
the party. Yeah, they think since the seventies that some
beavers have been keeping it appropriate. Yeah, pretty much. And
those little kids, by the way, you can swim about
just one day after they're born, they're already swimming around, right, So,
like we said, I think that they are um. I
(34:26):
think that they become sexually mature at age three, and
around that time they're going to start producing something called
castorum or castoreum, right. Um. And castoreum is like a
lot of people think that it's like the origin of
castor oil. It's not correct from the castor bean. I
believe this stuff is like the opposite of castro oil.
(34:48):
Actually like tastes and smells like really good. Yeah. I
mean it's it's used. It's the FDA says you can
eat it. It's one of those grass remember, generally recognized
as safe in green ants. And the thing is that
there's just not a lot of it. It's it's it's
very tough too, and it's a lot of work to
go out there and try and extract this um flavor
(35:09):
ingredient from the beaver tail. Right. I think it says
two d about two pounds annually total, so imagine it's expensive.
It is very expensive, and you can still find in
some places. I think I saw a whiskey that uses it.
Um Chanel's perfume. Um. Oh, what is it called core
(35:32):
de Roussie. I believe it still uses it. And it's
a flavor ingredient too, because it's um, Like you're saying,
it's generally recognized as safe, but it also adds like
a vanilla raspberry flavor. That's what it tastes like to humans.
And they think that there are some ice creams out
there that still may use that, like old timey ice
(35:53):
creams that use beaver cast storium, like beaver scent. It's
what it is. It's beaver musk. It just so happen
that beaver musk tastes like raspberry vanilla to to humans. Yeah,
but they were hunted for a really long time, which
kind of led to this one myth, didn't it. Uh,
the testicle myth? Yeah, yeah, Up until about the eleven hundreds,
(36:16):
people thought beavers eight or bid off their own testicles.
And apparently this has its origins in ancient Egypt. Uh,
in medieval Europe, it continued, where I think the what
they said was that beavers knew that hunters were coming
after them because of that castoreum which originated in their testicles.
(36:39):
And um, none of this is true. I think their
testicles they don't even have hangars, right, No, they don't.
They're located inside them, which automatically disqualifies it. But also
so the beavers were basically saying like, no, you can't
have my castorium. I can't have it anymore either. I
would rather bite off my own testicles than let you
(37:00):
have them. I guess maybe as a survival mechanism, like
they thought that they would leave them alone if they
didn't have testicles. But maybe, no, that's not true at all. Um.
And then there's one other great fact, Chuck, that I
think you got to take to take us out with
the Yeah, the pope in the sixteenth century said, you
know what, that's that tail is pretty scaly, and they
(37:22):
sure are in the water a lot. So um, during
the fasting days, go ahead and eat that beaver. It's
close enough to a fish, yep, exactly qualifies as a fish.
So you could eat beaver back in the sixteenth century,
thanks to the Pope that's right, as far as I know,
it teased early if they were dangerous, they're they're not.
Beavers are very nice little fellas and ladies. Uh. And
(37:47):
if there is a beaver that attacks somebody, it will
make the news because it's so rare, and it probably
means they're really sick. Yeah, They, like all mammals, can
get rabies um, but like porcupines. I get the impression
that that's one of the few um diseases you can
get from a beaver. Um. The thing is is, if
they are rabid and they do charge at you, they
(38:09):
can do some serious damage with those teeth, Like they
can chew through three foot diameter trees, they can bite
through your skin, and so if you get too close
to a beaver, it can have bad effects. It's just
like you said, it's extremely rare. But I saw at
least one guy's died from from them in the last
decade or so. Right, luck So, a guy in Belarus
(38:30):
was trying to get a picture of a beaver and
got too close, and the thing bit him in his
thigh and bit through his femoral artery, and the guy
bled to death from a beaver attack. He died from
a beaver attack. His family has to live like that
for the rest of their lives. Beaver attack. I don't know. Um,
(38:51):
And there's been some other texts too, but yeah, I
think they just kind of give beaver's bad name unwarrantedly.
Don't you shot through the leg in your to blame
you give beavers the bad name? Oh goodness, Todd Um, Well,
I guess that's it for beavers. Huh, that's it. I'm
glad we finally got to view this one. Leave them alone. Yeah,
(39:13):
let them do their beaver thing. Beaver in like Chuck says,
beaver is gonna beaver. If you want to know more
about beavers, and then by God, you go find some
beavers and study them from afar because they are nature's miracles.
And since I said that, it's time for a listener mail,
all right, I'm gonna call this Brave Angels. Hey, guys,
(39:37):
listen to your episode on Swing States. You mentioned the
dangerous level of polarization going on between reds and blues
in America. Oh yeah, thanks for reading this one. You're welcome,
and I wanted to let you know that there's something
we can do about it. There's a great grassroots organization
with a specific goal of depolarizing America called braver Angels,
which organizes events to bring reds and blues together to
(39:59):
have real, nuanced discussions about things they disagree about and
help us understand and respect each other's great. It is great.
I mean it's quite a service. Yeah. I would love
to peek in on one of these meetings and maybe
go to one. Yeah, they're doing a lot of online
events and now due to COVID and among other things,
just launched a campaign called Hold America Together to prepare
(40:20):
a response to potential election related conflict in November. Could
you please tell your listeners about Braver Angels and help
keep our country together because American needs this. Love to
all the reds and blues out there, and you guys
are great at what you do. Join the braver Angels.
That is from Christa and just go to braver Angels
dot org. B A R A v r A n
(40:42):
g e l s dot org. B r A v
r A n g e l s dot org. That
is correct. Okay, cool um, that's fantastic. Thank you, Krista,
and thanks to all the braver Angels out there who
are trying to keep the country together because, like Krista said,
we kind of need it now. And it is brave,
it's it's uh, it's daunting to step outside your echo chamber,
(41:05):
oh man, it is. And it's just harder and harder
because you know, the echoes have gotten stronger and stronger.
So to hear something other than that, it's like just
almost like make your brain melt, you know, pretty neat all. Right, Well,
if you want to get in touch with us to
let us know about some group or service the country
or the world is in dire need of we want
(41:26):
to hear about it, you can send us an email
to Stuffed podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you
Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios. How stuff works.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio is at the
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