December 2, 2023 • 42 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 in this classic episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Everyone. It's Josh, and for this week's Select, I've chosen
our October twenty twenty episode on beavers because it's one
of our best animal episodes, which is really saying something
because our animal episodes are pretty great. And it turns
out that beavers aren't just cute and diligent at work.
They have a huge cascading effect, a positive one too,
(00:21):
on the ecosystems that they move into. So behold and
enjoy the Beaver.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
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, Steve, you should know the Orange Insizer's edition.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
No, I thought you're gonna make a bad naked gun joke.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
No, No, it's We've run through my head over and
over and over and over and over and over and
over again.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Though it's hard though when you're at our age. Yeah,
and you saw those movies, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah. Dumb joke though, Yeah, Well, I mean it's a
naked gun joke for Pete's saying, come.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
On, So this kind of ties in I think a
little bit with our porcupine episode and that beavers are
you know, they're porcupine esque in some ways.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
I think it ties in even more to our Wetlands episode,
which gave birth to the idea for this episode. You know, yeah, absolutely,
I mean I'm pretty excited about this one. I think
beavers are 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
(01:48):
I like that about them.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, and I also love their familial aspects. Yeah, which
we'll get to all this stuff. But what we're talking
about is the largest rodent in North America.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Which really demeans them, I guess.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
But yes, rodent's such a it's not a bad word.
There's so many great rodents. Oh, beavers, porcupines, what else. Squirrels.
I know you have a thing with squirrels.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
But well, I know I like squirrels now. Momo and
I and you me sometimes comes with us to chase
squirrels across the street in the park and feed them peanuts.
We give them peanuts is like to kind of buy
them off after mo chases them up a tree. But
the squirrels across the way will actually come to you
and eat peanuts out of your hand. So I'm kind
(02:38):
of on squirrels now. Momo loves squirrels, chipmunks, mice, chipmunks too. Yeah.
Rodents are okay, Chuck.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
I think there are fewer terrible rodents, and the only
ones I can think of that are terrible are those
scary New York City sewer rats.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Oh yeah, okay, so rodents are all right up with rodents,
I guess rabbits and I don't think they're rodents.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
They are you like a hamster?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Sure, hamsters. I don't know if rabbits are rodents. Are
they It makes sense that they would be.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
But it's what rodent dot com says.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Okay, well, who am I 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 what you could call Old
World and New World beavers. But there's really just two species,
(03:31):
and one is found in North America and one is
found in Eurasia. And it's easy, pasy, no fuss, no must.
These are the beavers that are alive on the planet.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah, so we've got the American beaver. They weigh between
fifteen and sixty five pounds, which is very large. If
you've ever seen a large beaver in the wild, it's
not scary because you know, and we'll get to whether
or not they they're dangerous. They're really not. But it's
such a large thing that you're like, wow, they're bigger
(04:03):
than I thought. Usually has run through my head when
I see a beaver.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, I mean sixty or thirty No, yeah, sixty five
pounds is about thirty kilograms.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
It's a big beaver.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
It is a big beaver. And I had to converty
to kilograms for at least our friends in Canada because
beaver's 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.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So for that sixty pounds, you're going to be a
couple of feet long twenty three to forty inches long. Hm,
that's without the tail. You don't count the tail when
you're measuring a beaver. The tail will talk a little
bit more about it, But they're anywhere from seven to
twelve inches. If you're Eurasian, you're about the same size. Mate.
You can be a little bit smaller, Oh I thought bigger,
(04:49):
Well you can be a little smaller on the I
think the range is bigger. Okay, so you can be
down in the twenties poundage wise, but up to the
seventies poundage wise, and you're probably a little bit longer,
and your skull and your tail are going to be narrower,
or your tail's narrower and your skull is smaller.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
So yeah, but that tail is what everybody understands when
they see a beaver. Just like with a porcupine and
its quills, a beaver in its tail is they're just synonymous.
Everybody recognizes a beaver because of its tail, and also
the tails help 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
(05:32):
got sparse, coarse hair associated with it. It looks like
a black jack that some old timy like ruffs would
beat you up with. And yet it's one of the
most amazing appendages any animal has as far as it's
like a Swiss Army knife foot for tails.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah, they're very useful in a lot of ways. They
obviously if they're swimming, and beavers, by the way, can
swim five to seven miles an hour. They have little
web feet they have, they can close their ear holes
in their nose holes, and they can roll their film
over their eyeballs.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yeah, nictitating membrane.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, it's amazing. So if they're gonna be swimming, then
that tail is gonna be acting as a rudder and
as a propeller. It's also if they're on land, it's
gonna act as a little kickstand at times.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, when they stand up on their back legs, they
use their tail to kind of lean against the balance.
It's a big one for sure. They also, and this
is a sure sign that you have frightened slash upset
a beaver. They will slap the water with their tail
in part to frighten you away, to say like, don't
mess with me, but also to warn other beavers because,
(06:46):
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.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah. And here's the thing. I spent a lot of
time at a lake here in Georgia, and I have
heard 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
(07:19):
was in the lake, I saw a mammal's head coming
toward me and I don't know if it was. We
also have river otter, so I don't know if it
was an otter or a beaver, but either way it
was it was a large head. And even though I
know that they weren't going to like come after me,
when that thing pops under the water, You're just like,
where's he going, what's he doing? Where is he? Is
(07:41):
he coming at me or not?
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Were you swimming in the lake at the time.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, I was swimming in the lake and I saw
this large mammal head, you know, dumped under I could
feel you. And if it was I'm not sure how
long beavers can hold their or Otters can hold their breasts,
but beavers can hold their breath for about fifteen minutes,
which is pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
I thought. I think remarkable too. I mean, it really
just goes to show just how adapted they are for
life in the water. And they are mammals, so they
have lung so they need to breathe air outside of
the water. But yeah, the fact that they can hold
their breaths for fifteen minutes, that they have nictitating membranes
that cover their eyes like little goggles so they can
see and work underwater. They spend a significant amount of
(08:22):
their time underwater. In fact, they're most protected in water.
That's where they can move the fastest. They can swim
pretty fast, way faster than they can waddle on land. Sure,
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 their they're in their happy place most.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yeah, and imagine when they dive for fifteen minutes and
are swimming around. What do you think those.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Fish think, Oh, here comes a beaver.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
They do they know or are they just like, what
in the world is that big hairy thing?
Speaker 1 (08:59):
I would guess that I would like to think they know.
I like to think of communities of animals or ecosystems.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Just they know each other.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yeah, they know each other. They know each other's foibles.
They've come to accept one another. You know, they have
their other things, but beaver foibles 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.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
So if you are North American beaver, you can live
pretty much anywhere in North America except for the desert.
Because you want water around, you're probably going to be
near pond or a lake, or a marsh or a
swamp or a river. Eurasian beavers used to live all
over Europe and Asia, but they were hunted over hunted
(09:50):
because at one point in time, wearing beaver pelts and
beaver hats was like a really high fashion. So now
they're only found in Germany, France, Poland, Scandinavia, Southern Scandinavia,
and Central Russia.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
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.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Beavers used to be here, like four hundred million.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
That's the estimate is that in North America prior to
Colombian contact, that there were about four hundred million beavers
and they were hunted down to near extinction within the
hundreds of thousands from what I saw, and were luckily
held back from the brink. And when I say luckily,
I don't just mean for the beavers, but I mean
(10:36):
for the planet as far as North America is concerned.
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 because they're
one of the few species that alters their environment as
(10:57):
radically as they do.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Yeah, what are they called.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
They're a keystone species species because when they are present,
biodiversity thrives, 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.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
All Right, that's a great place to take a break.
And I say, when we come back, we talk about
the two fundamental fulcrumbs on which beaver life is based.
The dam and the lodge.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Okay, stop, stop, all right, we're back.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
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. Their homes
are called lodges. And you've probably seen, if you've ever
(12:22):
been hiking and stuff in America, you've probably seen a
beaver lodge by a river, ear lake. It's a little
little dome, a little hot out of sticks and grasses
and moss and mud.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Maybe you thought a local witch had built it.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah, maybe it does look like a little Uh what
do you call witch's houses?
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Witch's house? I think there's a cottage.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Oh sure, I think there's a different name. But I
thought so. Now I don't, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I think so witch house.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Maybe I'm thinking of Coven's.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
House a day witch.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
No, there's a word. We just I just watched The
Witch the movie again. I think there's a word for it.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Man, I love that. That might be my favorite movie.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
We did a movie Crush Roundtable on that. By the way,
it was really good.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
It is a good And that's the guy who did
the Lighthouse, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, Rob Potters, God bless that.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Man. I can't wait to see his biking movie too.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Oh man, I can't imagine. Okay, So the beaver lodge is,
you know, about eight feet wide a few feet high.
They're on the banks of these ponds or on lake shores.
They have this is one of my favorite parts. Many
of them have a little underwater back door.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
It's like sort of a ski in chalet if you're
snow skiing.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yeah, which makes sense because again, they spend so much
time in the water, but also it protects them from
terrestrial predators because they can get into the water and
escape when a predators like at their door.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Yeah. And you know this is they're nocturnal, they don't hibernate,
but most of this action's going on at night, and
everyone pitches in the whole family. I don't think we
said yet. They live with their children till they're about two.
And 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 two year
(14:08):
old children, and then they might have their little grand babies.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Yeah, because when they have their their babies, which are
called kits, which admittedly is not as cute a word
as porcupets.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
No, but they're cute.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
But dude, just baby for press pause right now, everybody,
and go look up some baby beaver pictures, little tails.
They're cute. So they have baby beavers. And one of
the reasons why they're so cute is because they stick
around for so long, or they stick around so long
because they're so cute. That's what I mean to say. Yes,
but they do. They stay as part of the family
(14:41):
unit and help work on the family lodge and damn
until about two when they wander off, and then at
three they start to mate. But they build their own
lodge 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 learn as they go. But
they also learn from their family unit first, which I
(15:02):
think is super cute.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
It is I think we should talk about dams though.
I mean, the lodges are are cool and it's a
great place to live if you're a beaver. But the
dams is where they really that's where they get their
shining moment as a species. That really helps out the
environment because they help create these wetlands, don't they.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, So a beaver will move into an area that's
dry as a bone, that's maybe crop land, that's maybe timberland,
that is 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 a brook, maybe a creek,
(15:45):
maybe a creek something like that, and they stop it up.
They build a dam, and they build this damp 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.
(16:09):
Like I said, they survive much better when they're in
the water. They move faster, they can work faster. So
they actually make this ecosystem into an aquatic ecosystem where
before there wasn't an aquatic ecosystem. And they do it
all by building this dam, and the way that they
build dams is magnificent in and of itself.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, so you know, you got your dam base, the
foundation basically where you're going to use mud and gravel
that 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're beaver's all of a sudden,
and you're pushing this mud and gravel up from the
bottom of the stream.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
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, they're going to say, you know what, We're
going to take these sticks. We're gonna pile these things
up all along the bottom until basically it's like building
from the ground up until they're strong enough to stay
in place.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Right. But they're so good at using their hands, and
they're so strong. You said, you know, sixty sixty five
pounds or about thirty kilograms. They're mostly muscle too. They're
really strong little little rodents, especially for being like herbivores.
You know, they're like those vegan body builders. But they
can take they'll take sticks and like plant them in
(17:34):
the bottom of this stream or whatever and start forming
a lattice work that they weave in between and fill
up with mud to really stop up some you know,
fast moving current. That Like, that's the level of manipulation
that they're they're doing. They're they're building a dam that
they they eventually successfully back up the flow of water from.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Yeah, which is I've tried to do that before, and
it's hard to do. Yeah. My buddy Scotty and I,
you know, we went camping once in California, and it
was when I was young in the film industry, so
there was 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 wow.
And we wanted to build a waterfall next to our campsite,
(18:21):
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 the hardest
work I've ever done.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Imagine doing that at like forty eight inches long and
only sixty five pounds.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah. So 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, add it to the pile. And then
once they're done, they like, there's a periodic like inspections
that go on, Yeah, because they got to make sure
(18:58):
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 like a human might do.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Oh, I saw that they do daily maintenance on it.
That one way to tell whether beavers are in the
area is to find their dam, make it like a
little miner hole in it, and then go back and
look the next day, and if it's patched up, the
beavers are around there and giving you the middle finger
right exactly like okay, yeah we're here, you've figured it out,
Please leave our dam alone. But yeah, these things are
(19:38):
like water tight for the most part, or 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,
one of the things that they used to build the
stuff with their trees around the area, they can they
(20:00):
use their teeth, those really really sharp, strong teeth that
I said are like kind of orangish 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.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yeah, they're up 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.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Well, porcupines can too, remember, Oh that's right, Yeah, they can.
They can digest cellulos because they probably have a very
similar kind of bacteria that helps them helps digest it
for them. But they digest a lot of the cellulos
that they eat, and it's really hard to break down
normally for mammals though.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Yeah, but like you know, you said, they're essentially creating
these wetlands. They're preventing erosion, they are helping to pure
the water.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Oh, let's talk about what the dams can do. Okay, Chuck.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
I mean it's amazing there. It's like a little environmental
coalition that goes into the woods to make things better.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Yeah. So I think in the Wetlands episode, I said
something like a beaver creates the equivalent of some like
a five million dollar wastewater treatment plan or something like that.
I could not find that again to save my life,
but I think that was roughly Yet, they create this
this structure that creates the artificial wetland, and in doing so,
(21:32):
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. 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
(21:54):
is really pernicious because you know, when all that fertilizer
makes its way into watersheds and wetlands, it creates algae blooms,
which suck up all the oxygen and kill off a
bunch of fish, right, which is a big problem. They
figured out that beaver dams actually work against that by
fixing nitrogen excess nitrogen from fertilizer. It prevents it from flowing.
(22:18):
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 up by
aquatic plants, which when they die, lock it into the sediment.
So this farm runoff that's a huge problem as it stands,
is actually mitigated by beaver dams. They've recently found out.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, and talk about just what kind of impact it
has on who lives there. 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.
If you're a new speci he's a bird that didn't
(23:01):
think that you would flourish here, time to change that attitude.
If you're a duck or a goose, 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.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
What else, 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 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.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
What if you're a moose, let's say, probably no good
for you, right.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
No, you're gonna love this if you're a moose, so
buckle up, because the beaver has turned it into a wetland.
It's now an aquatic environment, and moose like aquatic plants
that grow on the edge of like marshy areas. So
these plants that weren't there before are suddenly there for
the moves. And it gets even better because when the
(24:04):
beaver family finally like is you know, 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 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
(24:26):
the erosion that was prevented, and all of a sudden,
you have a lush, beautiful meadow that deer can come
eat on.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Like they they help out all
these animals and introduce all these new animals that can
live together, and then once it's done, it becomes a
flowery meadow for deer.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
They leave it better than it was when they first
got there.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Amazing.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
It is amazing. The problem is is that humans frequently
have much different plans for those same areas, and beaver
want to foul them. I say, 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?
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Stop stop stop.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Shut all right? So we love beaver. You love beaver.
Everyone out there listening, there's a lot of people who
don't love beaver.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Is it beaver?
Speaker 1 (25:43):
It is now okay? 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 wood planks or books, you know, like stuff you
should know. Calling an incomplete compendium of mostly interesting things
available everywhere you get books to pre order. Now, there's
(26:06):
things you can do with trees that you grow. And
if beavers move into your area and they build the dam,
those dams are effective. This isn't like a little puddle
we're talking about. They can create basic basically like lakes, ponds,
like enormous wetlands. And when you have standing water over timberland,
those trees are not They're not aquatic trees that you're
(26:27):
growing there, so they actually die again, remember they die
off and bugs move in 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.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
No, And I think how many tens of millions of dollars.
I think it was like twenty million dollars a year
or something.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
I think more than that because I think I saw
Alabama alone suffered like fourteen million dollars in law really
from timberland, just Alabama.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
From beaver damage. And not only that it'll it'll flooding
for crop. It can make what was ordinarily a very
stable bridge or road now unstable and cause damage to
roads and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
From like saturating the soil that was holding it up
just fine before.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, the good news is back in the old days,
there 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 seventy five percent of beaver human conflict
can be resolved without trapping or killing the beavers. So yeah,
I take that as in they will somehow move them
(27:34):
along in a way that's humane.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
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 beavers and they've created this wetland and that
wasn't there before, and you're taking it as a problem.
And that's the thing that I'm seeing that it seems
(27:58):
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.
If they've if they're washing out a road, that's a problem.
But if they just created a wetland that wasn't there
before on your property where you bought the property and
(28:19):
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 seventy five
percent of the people who are asked that question will say, actually,
I guess it's not. I'm going to learn to love
the beaver. I love beaver.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah. And you know, it really gets my dander up
when I this lake that I go to 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 of that with my twelve gageah. And
it's just like, you don't. I've never understood the people
(28:57):
who want to move to nature to kill the Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
I know, it's just it's.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Unnerving and I have seen some beaver damage and I
love it. I welcome it, So yeah, you eat all
you want.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
You would be one of the seventy five percent who
would say, like, no, it's no problem whatever. You probably
wouldn't even say it was an issue. You wouldn't even
be asked that question. You would just know from the
outset that it's not a problem.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
I call that a beaver beavering.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Beaver's going to beaver.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
And so we know now that, like they are a
keystone species. They're so important that it's great. The impression
I'm getting is it's kind of like, no, it's not
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
(29:46):
should be protected because again not just the fact that
they were almost hunted to extinction. They provide so many
really important services. I don't even know if we talked
about it. There are 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
(30:06):
as much. Right, the stuff in the dam helps recharge
aquifers below. Whereas before there's just a little stream trickling
over it was doing jack for the aquifer. Now the
aquifer is getting recharged on the daily. And then the
third one is they provide natural fire breaks, which helps
cane forest fires. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
I have a feeling when we're done, we're gonna be
mad because there were like three more things we didn't
think about.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
That happens to me a lot and drives me nuts.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Here's some of the things that people do try and
do though to mitigate their what they perceive as their
beaver problems.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Yet Yeah, no, because they do create some problems as
far as human settlement is concerned.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
They will use beaver pipes, 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.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah, it's like so long that the beaver's like it
doesn't think to go to the end of the pipes.
It just sees that there's something around its dam, and
it probably dams up around the pipe, but that still
lets the flow of water go through.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Yeah, this is kind of cool. They will build a
pre dam If they want beavers away from a certain
place and in a different place, they'll basically say, hey,
look over here, we got this fence. It's like a
foundation for your new home. Right, It's kind of you
got ten percent of your work is already done. Why
don't you to start here. So they'll do that, Yeah,
the beaver says, hot dog. And then another thing is
(31:35):
to design that. Well, there's two times of fences. There's
the pre damn fence that encourages them to come, and
then there is another kind of fence to keep them
from building there in the first place.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Yeah, those are called beaver deceivers, and they are. It's
just basically so like a culvert is a frequent place
that a beaver likes to dam up, and that's where
it causes a lot of damage because culverts are helped
are to help drain water, to keep roadways stable and
that kind of thing. Right, So you would just basically
put a fence radiating out from either side of the
(32:09):
culvert outward and an angle kind of like in a
V shape, and then those two 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 beaver is going
to be like nuts to this. This just isn't even
worth it. I'm not going to try to build a
(32:30):
dam here, or if it does start to build a dam,
it's going to give up eventually, and your culvert is
saved without the beaver being hurt or harm. The beaver
just moves on to a different spot that it likes.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Right, And if you have a tree that you really
love that you see has some beaver activity, you can
wrap like chicken wire around the base of it if
you want. 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.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
It's like the nail biting stuff whole bit.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Oh my god, somebody wrote in about that.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
What did they say? I didn't see, though.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
I think they were just asking, like what it was.
I'm sure they still have it, but I don't remember
what it was.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
I believe remember lee press on nails. I think they
had a sideline in that stuff.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
I'm sure it was. It's probably just like clear nail polish. Yeah,
but it tastes like garbage. Yeah, that tasted really bad.
Tasted like what what I thought, it was like hot? No,
it was bitter.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Oh okay, yeah, I wouldn't like that at all.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
That was very bitter. I don't think we mentioned the
I mean we should talk a little bit. We talked
about the kits. But they do live in large groups.
They're very social. They're called colonies, and they mate in
the winter during the first few months of the year.
The Eurasian beaver gestates for sixty to one hundred and
(33:48):
twenty eight days and have one to six little babies,
and the American beaver's gestate from one hundred to about
one hundred and five to one hundred and seven days,
again one to four little kits, and they are weaned
around two weeks of age, whereas the Eurasian beaver is
weaned it about six weeks of age.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Right, And so, Chuck, I saw that beavers tend to live,
like you said, they were monogamous typically. I said that
they live about ten to fifteen years in the wild,
which is so cute. But you can also build a
pretty respectable dam in that time too. And I think
actually the largest dam that they've ever seen. Is they
think it is from many, many, many generations of beavers
(34:31):
staying and working on it in Alberta.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Right, Yeah, it's huge, and I guess everyone just got
in on the party.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Yeah. They think since the seventies that some beavers have
been keeping it very appropriate. Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
And those little kids, by the way, can swim about
just one day after they're born, they're already swimming around.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Right, So, like we said, I think that they are.
I think that they become sexually mature at age three.
On that time they're going to start producing something called
castorum or castorium, right, yeah. And castorium is like a
lot of people think that it's like the origin of
(35:12):
castor oil. It's not correct. From the castor bean. I
believe this stuff is like the opposite of castor oil.
It actually like tastes and smells like really good.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
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 ingredients. And the thing is that
there's just not a lot of it. It's very tough
to and it's a lot of work to go out
there and try and extract this flavor ingredient from the
beaver tail. I think it says two hundred about two
(35:45):
hundred and ninety two pounds annually total, so imagine it's expensive.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
It is very expensive, and you can still find in
some places. I think I saw a whiskey that uses
it Chanelle's perfume. What is it called kar de RUSSI.
I believe it still uses it, really, And it's a
flavor ingredient too, because it's like you're saying, it's generally
(36:11):
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 creams
that use beaver castorium, like beaver scent. It's what it is.
It's beaver musk. Yeah, it just so happens that beaver
musk tastes like raspberry vanilla to humans. Yeah, but they
(36:36):
were hunted for a really long time, which kind of
led to this one myth, didn't it.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
The testicle myth?
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Yeah, Up until about the eleven hundred's, people thought beavers
eight or bit off their own testicles, and apparently this
has its origins in ancient Egypt. In medieval Europe it
continued where I think the what they said was that
beavers knew that hunters were coming after them because of
(37:04):
that castorium which originated in their testicles. And none of
this is true. I think their testicles they don't even
have hangers, right, No.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
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 tastorium. I can't have it anymore either.
I would rather bite off my own testicles than let
you have them. I guess maybe as a survival mechanism,
like they thought that the body would leave them alone
if they didn't have testicles. But maybe no, that's not
(37:38):
true at all. And then there's one other great fact, Chuck,
that I think you got to take to take us
out with.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
The Yeah, the pope in the sixteenth century said, you
know what, that tale is pretty scaly, and they sure
are in the water a lot. So during the fasting days,
go ahead and eat that beaver.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
It's close enough to yep, exactly. It qualifies as a fish.
So you could eat beaver back in the sixteenth century
thanks to the pope.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
That's right, as far as I know, it teased early
if they were dangerous, they're not. Beavers are very nice
little fellas and ladies. And 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.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Yeah, they, like all mammals, can get rabies, but like porcupines.
I get the impression that that's one of the few
diseases you can get from a beaver. The thing is
is if they are rabid and they do charge at you,
they can do some serious damage with those teeth, Like
they can chew through three foot diameter trees, they can
(38:45):
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 them in the last
decade or so, right.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
That was just bad luck.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
So a guy, Tila Russ 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, and there's been some other
(39:22):
attacks too, But yeah, I think they just kind of
give beaver's bad name unwarrantedly. Don't you shot through the
flag and you're too blame you give beaver's a bad name.
Oh goodness, Todd, Well, I guess that's it for beaver's Huh,
that's it. I'm glad we finally got to do this one.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Leave them alone.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Yeah, let them do their beaver thing. Beaver in, like
Chuck says, be's going to beaver if you want to
know more about beavers, So 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 listener male.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
All right, I'm gonna call this Brave Angels. Hey, guys,
listen to your episode on Swing States. You mentioned the
dangerous level of polarization going on between reds and blues
in America.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Oh yeah, thanks for reading this one.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
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 have real, nuanced discussions about things they disagree
about and help us understand and respect each other.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
That's great, It is great.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
That's quite yeah. I would love to peek in on
one of these meetings and maybe go to one. They're
doing a lot of online events now due to COVID
and among other things, just launched a campaign called Hold
America Together to prepare a response to potential election related
conflict in November. Could you please tell your listeners about
Braver Angels. Yes, and help keep our country together because
(40:58):
America 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 E r A n g e l s dot org.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
B R A v r A n g e l
s dot org.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
That is correct.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Okay, cool, that's fantastic. Thank you, Christa, and thanks to
all the braver angels out there who are trying to
keep the country together because, like Christa said, we kind
of need it right now.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
And it is brave, it's it's uh, it's daunting to
step outside your echo chamber.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
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 makes your brain melt, you know.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Pretty neat all.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Right, Uh, 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 to hear about it, you can send us
an email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Everyone. It's Josh, and for this week's Select, I've chosen
our October twenty twenty episode on beavers because it's one
of our best animal episodes, which is really saying something
because our animal episodes are pretty great. And it turns
out that beavers aren't just cute and diligent at work.
They have a huge cascading effect, a positive one too,
(00:21):
on the ecosystems that they move into. So behold and
enjoy the Beaver.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
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, Steve, you should know the Orange Insizer's edition.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
No, I thought you're gonna make a bad naked gun joke.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
No, No, it's We've run through my head over and
over and over and over and over and over and
over again.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Though it's hard though when you're at our age. Yeah,
and you saw those movies, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah. Dumb joke though, Yeah, Well, I mean it's a
naked gun joke for Pete's saying, come.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
On, So this kind of ties in I think a
little bit with our porcupine episode and that beavers are
you know, they're porcupine esque in some ways.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
I think it ties in even more to our Wetlands episode,
which gave birth to the idea for this episode. You know, yeah, absolutely,
I mean I'm pretty excited about this one. I think
beavers are 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
(01:48):
I like that about them.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, and I also love their familial aspects. Yeah, which
we'll get to all this stuff. But what we're talking
about is the largest rodent in North America.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Which really demeans them, I guess.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
But yes, rodent's such a it's not a bad word.
There's so many great rodents. Oh, beavers, porcupines, what else. Squirrels.
I know you have a thing with squirrels.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
But well, I know I like squirrels now. Momo and
I and you me sometimes comes with us to chase
squirrels across the street in the park and feed them peanuts.
We give them peanuts is like to kind of buy
them off after mo chases them up a tree. But
the squirrels across the way will actually come to you
and eat peanuts out of your hand. So I'm kind
(02:38):
of on squirrels now. Momo loves squirrels, chipmunks, mice, chipmunks too. Yeah.
Rodents are okay, Chuck.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
I think there are fewer terrible rodents, and the only
ones I can think of that are terrible are those
scary New York City sewer rats.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Oh yeah, okay, so rodents are all right up with rodents,
I guess rabbits and I don't think they're rodents.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
They are you like a hamster?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Sure, hamsters. I don't know if rabbits are rodents. Are
they It makes sense that they would be.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
But it's what rodent dot com says.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Okay, well, who am I 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 what you could call Old
World and New World beavers. But there's really just two species,
(03:31):
and one is found in North America and one is
found in Eurasia. And it's easy, pasy, no fuss, no must.
These are the beavers that are alive on the planet.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah, so we've got the American beaver. They weigh between
fifteen and sixty five pounds, which is very large. If
you've ever seen a large beaver in the wild, it's
not scary because you know, and we'll get to whether
or not they they're dangerous. They're really not. But it's
such a large thing that you're like, wow, they're bigger
(04:03):
than I thought. Usually has run through my head when
I see a beaver.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, I mean sixty or thirty No, yeah, sixty five
pounds is about thirty kilograms.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
It's a big beaver.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
It is a big beaver. And I had to converty
to kilograms for at least our friends in Canada because
beaver's 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.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
So for that sixty pounds, you're going to be a
couple of feet long twenty three to forty inches long. Hm,
that's without the tail. You don't count the tail when
you're measuring a beaver. The tail will talk a little
bit more about it, But they're anywhere from seven to
twelve inches. If you're Eurasian, you're about the same size. Mate.
You can be a little bit smaller, Oh I thought bigger,
(04:49):
Well you can be a little smaller on the I
think the range is bigger. Okay, so you can be
down in the twenties poundage wise, but up to the
seventies poundage wise, and you're probably a little bit longer,
and your skull and your tail are going to be narrower,
or your tail's narrower and your skull is smaller.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
So yeah, but that tail is what everybody understands when
they see a beaver. Just like with a porcupine and
its quills, a beaver in its tail is they're just synonymous.
Everybody recognizes a beaver because of its tail, and also
the tails help 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
(05:32):
got sparse, coarse hair associated with it. It looks like
a black jack that some old timy like ruffs would
beat you up with. And yet it's one of the
most amazing appendages any animal has as far as it's
like a Swiss Army knife foot for tails.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah, they're very useful in a lot of ways. They
obviously if they're swimming, and beavers, by the way, can
swim five to seven miles an hour. They have little
web feet they have, they can close their ear holes
in their nose holes, and they can roll their film
over their eyeballs.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yeah, nictitating membrane.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, it's amazing. So if they're gonna be swimming, then
that tail is gonna be acting as a rudder and
as a propeller. It's also if they're on land, it's
gonna act as a little kickstand at times.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, when they stand up on their back legs, they
use their tail to kind of lean against the balance.
It's a big one for sure. They also, and this
is a sure sign that you have frightened slash upset
a beaver. They will slap the water with their tail
in part to frighten you away, to say like, don't
mess with me, but also to warn other beavers because,
(06:46):
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.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah. And here's the thing. I spent a lot of
time at a lake here in Georgia, and I have
heard 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
(07:19):
was in the lake, I saw a mammal's head coming
toward me and I don't know if it was. We
also have river otter, so I don't know if it
was an otter or a beaver, but either way it
was it was a large head. And even though I
know that they weren't going to like come after me,
when that thing pops under the water, You're just like,
where's he going, what's he doing? Where is he? Is
(07:41):
he coming at me or not?
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Were you swimming in the lake at the time.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, I was swimming in the lake and I saw
this large mammal head, you know, dumped under I could
feel you. And if it was I'm not sure how
long beavers can hold their or Otters can hold their breasts,
but beavers can hold their breath for about fifteen minutes,
which is pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
I thought. I think remarkable too. I mean, it really
just goes to show just how adapted they are for
life in the water. And they are mammals, so they
have lung so they need to breathe air outside of
the water. But yeah, the fact that they can hold
their breaths for fifteen minutes, that they have nictitating membranes
that cover their eyes like little goggles so they can
see and work underwater. They spend a significant amount of
(08:22):
their time underwater. In fact, they're most protected in water.
That's where they can move the fastest. They can swim
pretty fast, way faster than they can waddle on land. Sure,
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 their they're in their happy place most.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yeah, and imagine when they dive for fifteen minutes and
are swimming around. What do you think those.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Fish think, Oh, here comes a beaver.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
They do they know or are they just like, what
in the world is that big hairy thing?
Speaker 1 (08:59):
I would guess that I would like to think they know.
I like to think of communities of animals or ecosystems.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Just they know each other.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yeah, they know each other. They know each other's foibles.
They've come to accept one another. You know, they have
their other things, but beaver foibles 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.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
So if you are North American beaver, you can live
pretty much anywhere in North America except for the desert.
Because you want water around, you're probably going to be
near pond or a lake, or a marsh or a
swamp or a river. Eurasian beavers used to live all
over Europe and Asia, but they were hunted over hunted
(09:50):
because at one point in time, wearing beaver pelts and
beaver hats was like a really high fashion. So now
they're only found in Germany, France, Poland, Scandinavia, Southern Scandinavia,
and Central Russia.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
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.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Beavers used to be here, like four hundred million.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
That's the estimate is that in North America prior to
Colombian contact, that there were about four hundred million beavers
and they were hunted down to near extinction within the
hundreds of thousands from what I saw, and were luckily
held back from the brink. And when I say luckily,
I don't just mean for the beavers, but I mean
(10:36):
for the planet as far as North America is concerned.
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 because they're
one of the few species that alters their environment as
(10:57):
radically as they do.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Yeah, what are they called.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
They're a keystone species species because when they are present,
biodiversity thrives, 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.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
All Right, that's a great place to take a break.
And I say, when we come back, we talk about
the two fundamental fulcrumbs on which beaver life is based.
The dam and the lodge.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Okay, stop, stop, all right, we're back.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
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. Their homes
are called lodges. And you've probably seen, if you've ever
(12:22):
been hiking and stuff in America, you've probably seen a
beaver lodge by a river, ear lake. It's a little
little dome, a little hot out of sticks and grasses
and moss and mud.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Maybe you thought a local witch had built it.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah, maybe it does look like a little Uh what
do you call witch's houses?
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Witch's house? I think there's a cottage.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Oh sure, I think there's a different name. But I
thought so. Now I don't, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I think so witch house.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Maybe I'm thinking of Coven's.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
House a day witch.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
No, there's a word. We just I just watched The
Witch the movie again. I think there's a word for it.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Man, I love that. That might be my favorite movie.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
We did a movie Crush Roundtable on that. By the way,
it was really good.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
It is a good And that's the guy who did
the Lighthouse, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, Rob Potters, God bless that.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Man. I can't wait to see his biking movie too.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Oh man, I can't imagine. Okay, So the beaver lodge is,
you know, about eight feet wide a few feet high.
They're on the banks of these ponds or on lake shores.
They have this is one of my favorite parts. Many
of them have a little underwater back door.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
It's like sort of a ski in chalet if you're
snow skiing.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yeah, which makes sense because again, they spend so much
time in the water, but also it protects them from
terrestrial predators because they can get into the water and
escape when a predators like at their door.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Yeah. And you know this is they're nocturnal, they don't hibernate,
but most of this action's going on at night, and
everyone pitches in the whole family. I don't think we
said yet. They live with their children till they're about two.
And 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 two year
(14:08):
old children, and then they might have their little grand babies.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Yeah, because when they have their their babies, which are
called kits, which admittedly is not as cute a word
as porcupets.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
No, but they're cute.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
But dude, just baby for press pause right now, everybody,
and go look up some baby beaver pictures, little tails.
They're cute. So they have baby beavers. And one of
the reasons why they're so cute is because they stick
around for so long, or they stick around so long
because they're so cute. That's what I mean to say. Yes,
but they do. They stay as part of the family
(14:41):
unit and help work on the family lodge and damn
until about two when they wander off, and then at
three they start to mate. But they build their own
lodge 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 learn as they go. But
they also learn from their family unit first, which I
(15:02):
think is super cute.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
It is I think we should talk about dams though.
I mean, the lodges are are cool and it's a
great place to live if you're a beaver. But the
dams is where they really that's where they get their
shining moment as a species. That really helps out the
environment because they help create these wetlands, don't they.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, So a beaver will move into an area that's
dry as a bone, that's maybe crop land, that's maybe timberland,
that is 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 a brook, maybe a creek,
(15:45):
maybe a creek something like that, and they stop it up.
They build a dam, and they build this damp 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.
(16:09):
Like I said, they survive much better when they're in
the water. They move faster, they can work faster. So
they actually make this ecosystem into an aquatic ecosystem where
before there wasn't an aquatic ecosystem. And they do it
all by building this dam, and the way that they
build dams is magnificent in and of itself.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, so you know, you got your dam base, the
foundation basically where you're going to use mud and gravel
that 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're beaver's all of a sudden,
and you're pushing this mud and gravel up from the
bottom of the stream.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
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, they're going to say, you know what, We're
going to take these sticks. We're gonna pile these things
up all along the bottom until basically it's like building
from the ground up until they're strong enough to stay
in place.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Right. But they're so good at using their hands, and
they're so strong. You said, you know, sixty sixty five
pounds or about thirty kilograms. They're mostly muscle too. They're
really strong little little rodents, especially for being like herbivores.
You know, they're like those vegan body builders. But they
can take they'll take sticks and like plant them in
(17:34):
the bottom of this stream or whatever and start forming
a lattice work that they weave in between and fill
up with mud to really stop up some you know,
fast moving current. That Like, that's the level of manipulation
that they're they're doing. They're they're building a dam that
they they eventually successfully back up the flow of water from.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Yeah, which is I've tried to do that before, and
it's hard to do. Yeah. My buddy Scotty and I,
you know, we went camping once in California, and it
was when I was young in the film industry, so
there was 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 wow.
And we wanted to build a waterfall next to our campsite,
(18:21):
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 the hardest
work I've ever done.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Imagine doing that at like forty eight inches long and
only sixty five pounds.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah. So 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, add it to the pile. And then
once they're done, they like, there's a periodic like inspections
that go on, Yeah, because they got to make sure
(18:58):
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 like a human might do.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Oh, I saw that they do daily maintenance on it.
That one way to tell whether beavers are in the
area is to find their dam, make it like a
little miner hole in it, and then go back and
look the next day, and if it's patched up, the
beavers are around there and giving you the middle finger
right exactly like okay, yeah we're here, you've figured it out,
Please leave our dam alone. But yeah, these things are
(19:38):
like water tight for the most part, or 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,
one of the things that they used to build the
stuff with their trees around the area, they can they
(20:00):
use their teeth, those really really sharp, strong teeth that
I said are like kind of orangish 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.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yeah, they're up 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.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Well, porcupines can too, remember, Oh that's right, Yeah, they can.
They can digest cellulos because they probably have a very
similar kind of bacteria that helps them helps digest it
for them. But they digest a lot of the cellulos
that they eat, and it's really hard to break down
normally for mammals though.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Yeah, but like you know, you said, they're essentially creating
these wetlands. They're preventing erosion, they are helping to pure
the water.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Oh, let's talk about what the dams can do. Okay, Chuck.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
I mean it's amazing there. It's like a little environmental
coalition that goes into the woods to make things better.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Yeah. So I think in the Wetlands episode, I said
something like a beaver creates the equivalent of some like
a five million dollar wastewater treatment plan or something like that.
I could not find that again to save my life,
but I think that was roughly Yet, they create this
this structure that creates the artificial wetland, and in doing so,
(21:32):
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. 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
(21:54):
is really pernicious because you know, when all that fertilizer
makes its way into watersheds and wetlands, it creates algae blooms,
which suck up all the oxygen and kill off a
bunch of fish, right, which is a big problem. They
figured out that beaver dams actually work against that by
fixing nitrogen excess nitrogen from fertilizer. It prevents it from flowing.
(22:18):
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 up by
aquatic plants, which when they die, lock it into the sediment.
So this farm runoff that's a huge problem as it stands,
is actually mitigated by beaver dams. They've recently found out.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, and talk about just what kind of impact it
has on who lives there. 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.
If you're a new speci he's a bird that didn't
(23:01):
think that you would flourish here, time to change that attitude.
If you're a duck or a goose, 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.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
What else, 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 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.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
What if you're a moose, let's say, probably no good
for you, right.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
No, you're gonna love this if you're a moose, so
buckle up, because the beaver has turned it into a wetland.
It's now an aquatic environment, and moose like aquatic plants
that grow on the edge of like marshy areas. So
these plants that weren't there before are suddenly there for
the moves. And it gets even better because when the
(24:04):
beaver family finally like is you know, 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 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
(24:26):
the erosion that was prevented, and all of a sudden,
you have a lush, beautiful meadow that deer can come
eat on.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Like they they help out all
these animals and introduce all these new animals that can
live together, and then once it's done, it becomes a
flowery meadow for deer.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
They leave it better than it was when they first
got there.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Amazing.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
It is amazing. The problem is is that humans frequently
have much different plans for those same areas, and beaver
want to foul them. I say, 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?
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Stop stop stop.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Shut all right? So we love beaver. You love beaver.
Everyone out there listening, there's a lot of people who
don't love beaver.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Is it beaver?
Speaker 1 (25:43):
It is now okay? 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 wood planks or books, you know, like stuff you
should know. Calling an incomplete compendium of mostly interesting things
available everywhere you get books to pre order. Now, there's
(26:06):
things you can do with trees that you grow. And
if beavers move into your area and they build the dam,
those dams are effective. This isn't like a little puddle
we're talking about. They can create basic basically like lakes, ponds,
like enormous wetlands. And when you have standing water over timberland,
those trees are not They're not aquatic trees that you're
(26:27):
growing there, so they actually die again, remember they die
off and bugs move in 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.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
No, And I think how many tens of millions of dollars.
I think it was like twenty million dollars a year
or something.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
I think more than that because I think I saw
Alabama alone suffered like fourteen million dollars in law really
from timberland, just Alabama.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
From beaver damage. And not only that it'll it'll flooding
for crop. It can make what was ordinarily a very
stable bridge or road now unstable and cause damage to
roads and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
From like saturating the soil that was holding it up
just fine before.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, the good news is back in the old days,
there 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 seventy five percent of beaver human conflict
can be resolved without trapping or killing the beavers. So yeah,
I take that as in they will somehow move them
(27:34):
along in a way that's humane.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
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 beavers and they've created this wetland and that
wasn't there before, and you're taking it as a problem.
And that's the thing that I'm seeing that it seems
(27:58):
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.
If they've if they're washing out a road, that's a problem.
But if they just created a wetland that wasn't there
before on your property where you bought the property and
(28:19):
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 seventy five
percent of the people who are asked that question will say, actually,
I guess it's not. I'm going to learn to love
the beaver. I love beaver.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah. And you know, it really gets my dander up
when I this lake that I go to 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 of that with my twelve gageah. And
it's just like, you don't. I've never understood the people
(28:57):
who want to move to nature to kill the Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
I know, it's just it's.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Unnerving and I have seen some beaver damage and I
love it. I welcome it, So yeah, you eat all
you want.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
You would be one of the seventy five percent who
would say, like, no, it's no problem whatever. You probably
wouldn't even say it was an issue. You wouldn't even
be asked that question. You would just know from the
outset that it's not a problem.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
I call that a beaver beavering.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Beaver's going to beaver.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
And so we know now that, like they are a
keystone species. They're so important that it's great. The impression
I'm getting is it's kind of like, no, it's not
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
(29:46):
should be protected because again not just the fact that
they were almost hunted to extinction. They provide so many
really important services. I don't even know if we talked
about it. There are 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
(30:06):
as much. Right, the stuff in the dam helps recharge
aquifers below. Whereas before there's just a little stream trickling
over it was doing jack for the aquifer. Now the
aquifer is getting recharged on the daily. And then the
third one is they provide natural fire breaks, which helps
cane forest fires. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
I have a feeling when we're done, we're gonna be
mad because there were like three more things we didn't
think about.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
That happens to me a lot and drives me nuts.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Here's some of the things that people do try and
do though to mitigate their what they perceive as their
beaver problems.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Yet Yeah, no, because they do create some problems as
far as human settlement is concerned.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
They will use beaver pipes, 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.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah, it's like so long that the beaver's like it
doesn't think to go to the end of the pipes.
It just sees that there's something around its dam, and
it probably dams up around the pipe, but that still
lets the flow of water go through.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Yeah, this is kind of cool. They will build a
pre dam If they want beavers away from a certain
place and in a different place, they'll basically say, hey,
look over here, we got this fence. It's like a
foundation for your new home. Right, It's kind of you
got ten percent of your work is already done. Why
don't you to start here. So they'll do that, Yeah,
the beaver says, hot dog. And then another thing is
(31:35):
to design that. Well, there's two times of fences. There's
the pre damn fence that encourages them to come, and
then there is another kind of fence to keep them
from building there in the first place.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Yeah, those are called beaver deceivers, and they are. It's
just basically so like a culvert is a frequent place
that a beaver likes to dam up, and that's where
it causes a lot of damage because culverts are helped
are to help drain water, to keep roadways stable and
that kind of thing. Right, So you would just basically
put a fence radiating out from either side of the
(32:09):
culvert outward and an angle kind of like in a
V shape, and then those two 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 beaver is going
to be like nuts to this. This just isn't even
worth it. I'm not going to try to build a
(32:30):
dam here, or if it does start to build a dam,
it's going to give up eventually, and your culvert is
saved without the beaver being hurt or harm. The beaver
just moves on to a different spot that it likes.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Right, And if you have a tree that you really
love that you see has some beaver activity, you can
wrap like chicken wire around the base of it if
you want. 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.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
It's like the nail biting stuff whole bit.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Oh my god, somebody wrote in about that.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
What did they say? I didn't see, though.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
I think they were just asking, like what it was.
I'm sure they still have it, but I don't remember
what it was.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
I believe remember lee press on nails. I think they
had a sideline in that stuff.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
I'm sure it was. It's probably just like clear nail polish. Yeah,
but it tastes like garbage. Yeah, that tasted really bad.
Tasted like what what I thought, it was like hot? No,
it was bitter.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Oh okay, yeah, I wouldn't like that at all.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
That was very bitter. I don't think we mentioned the
I mean we should talk a little bit. We talked
about the kits. But they do live in large groups.
They're very social. They're called colonies, and they mate in
the winter during the first few months of the year.
The Eurasian beaver gestates for sixty to one hundred and
(33:48):
twenty eight days and have one to six little babies,
and the American beaver's gestate from one hundred to about
one hundred and five to one hundred and seven days,
again one to four little kits, and they are weaned
around two weeks of age, whereas the Eurasian beaver is
weaned it about six weeks of age.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Right, And so, Chuck, I saw that beavers tend to live,
like you said, they were monogamous typically. I said that
they live about ten to fifteen years in the wild,
which is so cute. But you can also build a
pretty respectable dam in that time too. And I think
actually the largest dam that they've ever seen. Is they
think it is from many, many, many generations of beavers
(34:31):
staying and working on it in Alberta.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Right, Yeah, it's huge, and I guess everyone just got
in on the party.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Yeah. They think since the seventies that some beavers have
been keeping it very appropriate. Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
And those little kids, by the way, can swim about
just one day after they're born, they're already swimming around.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Right, So, like we said, I think that they are.
I think that they become sexually mature at age three.
On that time they're going to start producing something called
castorum or castorium, right, yeah. And castorium is like a
lot of people think that it's like the origin of
(35:12):
castor oil. It's not correct. From the castor bean. I
believe this stuff is like the opposite of castor oil.
It actually like tastes and smells like really good.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
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 ingredients. And the thing is that
there's just not a lot of it. It's very tough
to and it's a lot of work to go out
there and try and extract this flavor ingredient from the
beaver tail. I think it says two hundred about two
(35:45):
hundred and ninety two pounds annually total, so imagine it's expensive.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
It is very expensive, and you can still find in
some places. I think I saw a whiskey that uses
it Chanelle's perfume. What is it called kar de RUSSI.
I believe it still uses it, really, And it's a
flavor ingredient too, because it's like you're saying, it's generally
(36:11):
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 creams
that use beaver castorium, like beaver scent. It's what it is.
It's beaver musk. Yeah, it just so happens that beaver
musk tastes like raspberry vanilla to humans. Yeah, but they
(36:36):
were hunted for a really long time, which kind of
led to this one myth, didn't it.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
The testicle myth?
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Yeah, Up until about the eleven hundred's, people thought beavers
eight or bit off their own testicles, and apparently this
has its origins in ancient Egypt. In medieval Europe it
continued where I think the what they said was that
beavers knew that hunters were coming after them because of
(37:04):
that castorium which originated in their testicles. And none of
this is true. I think their testicles they don't even
have hangers, right, No.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
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 tastorium. I can't have it anymore either.
I would rather bite off my own testicles than let
you have them. I guess maybe as a survival mechanism,
like they thought that the body would leave them alone
if they didn't have testicles. But maybe no, that's not
(37:38):
true at all. And then there's one other great fact, Chuck,
that I think you got to take to take us
out with.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
The Yeah, the pope in the sixteenth century said, you
know what, that tale is pretty scaly, and they sure
are in the water a lot. So during the fasting days,
go ahead and eat that beaver.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
It's close enough to yep, exactly. It qualifies as a fish.
So you could eat beaver back in the sixteenth century
thanks to the pope.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
That's right, as far as I know, it teased early
if they were dangerous, they're not. Beavers are very nice
little fellas and ladies. And 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.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Yeah, they, like all mammals, can get rabies, but like porcupines.
I get the impression that that's one of the few
diseases you can get from a beaver. The thing is
is if they are rabid and they do charge at you,
they can do some serious damage with those teeth, Like
they can chew through three foot diameter trees, they can
(38:45):
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 them in the last
decade or so, right.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
That was just bad luck.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
So a guy, Tila Russ 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, and there's been some other
(39:22):
attacks too, But yeah, I think they just kind of
give beaver's bad name unwarrantedly. Don't you shot through the
flag and you're too blame you give beaver's a bad name.
Oh goodness, Todd, Well, I guess that's it for beaver's Huh,
that's it. I'm glad we finally got to do this one.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Leave them alone.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Yeah, let them do their beaver thing. Beaver in, like
Chuck says, be's going to beaver if you want to
know more about beavers, So 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 listener male.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
All right, I'm gonna call this Brave Angels. Hey, guys,
listen to your episode on Swing States. You mentioned the
dangerous level of polarization going on between reds and blues
in America.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Oh yeah, thanks for reading this one.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
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 have real, nuanced discussions about things they disagree
about and help us understand and respect each other.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
That's great, It is great.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
That's quite yeah. I would love to peek in on
one of these meetings and maybe go to one. They're
doing a lot of online events now due to COVID
and among other things, just launched a campaign called Hold
America Together to prepare a response to potential election related
conflict in November. Could you please tell your listeners about
Braver Angels. Yes, and help keep our country together because
(40:58):
America 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 E r A n g e l s dot org.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
B R A v r A n g e l
s dot org.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
That is correct.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Okay, cool, that's fantastic. Thank you, Christa, and thanks to
all the braver angels out there who are trying to
keep the country together because, like Christa said, we kind
of need it right now.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
And it is brave, it's it's uh, it's daunting to
step outside your echo chamber.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
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 makes your brain melt, you know.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Pretty neat all.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Right, Uh, 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 to hear about it, you can send us
an email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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