By Anne Kilgannon
These days, when choosing a nature book to read, a question either stops my reaching hand or propels it forward. “Will this book give me hope for the future?” Or, conversely, “Will I abandon it before finishing in despair?” Sometimes it’s a toss-up. Some books I pick up and put down, then pick up again knowing their messages are critically important. At other times, the sheer writing skill and the authors’ love for their subject matter pulls me past my welling sadness. And yes, they may even help me move through my anger at the bone-headedness of the forces undermining reasonable scientific solutions for stopping ongoing damage to species described in these books. Eager is just such a body of environmental writing about the ongoing threats to beavers and their critical importance to our ecosystems.
With thanks to Polly Zehm for suggesting I read Eager, I hold the hope that we two will meet along some beaver-dammed stream one day so that I can tell her I’m now a Beaver Believer. We’ll know each other instantly from the tears in our respective eyes as we gaze at the transformed, now vibrant ecosystem allowing birds, amphibians, butterflies, fish and other mammals to live in rich enough terrain to flourish in a beaver-created world. We’ll know it’s a miracle created by letting beavers do what beavers do – while we humans simply get out of the way and allow them to dam and engineer their waterways as only they can. Polly and I will know how precious, crucial and rare our forbearance is. And we’ll thank author Ben Goldfarb for sharing the stories of the hardy pioneers he credits with working to restore beavers to our landscapes wherever possible.
What beavers “do” is simple and yet the ripple effects are so profound that reading about them feels like having a giant missing piece fall into place in a puzzle of “how does the world work?” Begin with what the North American continent looked like and how it operated as a macro-connected ecological system in the time when beavers were widespread actively building their dams and other structures on streams and rivers, practically everywhere. Then move into a dark, more recent time of frenzied trapping and wanton killing simply to rid the land of all beavers. After all, they are predators, aren’t they? Yes, dynamite their dams, kill them ruthlessly wherever they appear, again and again.
Then, watch the land flood and dry up, alternately by season. Watch the diversity of species formerly supported by the slowing and husbanding of water, the filtering of silt and pollution and other side benefits of beaver activity, dwindle and disappear. As the land loses its stored water, as unharnessed streams carve themselves deeper and deeper to bedrock and as aquifers are not replenished when there is nothing to stop waters rushing away, all that depended on water – and what life form does not – loses hold, loses the means of survival. The environment is degraded and destroyed. And yet, even during droughts, even when beavers are merely an “inconvenience,” too often people still kill them; still erect barriers – physically and through a tangle of bureaucratic policies and laws. We continue to hinder them from their natural work of saving water, and we too often ignore the need to restore these beaver populations who should be our best allies in replenishing our sorry landscapes.
Ben Goldfarb, like the beavers he studies, persists. He crisscrosses the continent searching out programs and studies that demonstrate how beavers can help us reclaim damaged water systems and revive all the life that depends upon them. Wherever there are imaginative programs, visionary enthusiasts, experiments and documented success stories, Goldfarb shows up to learn, cheer and publicize the work. His travel and story sharing creates a network – a veritable watershed – of beaver advocates who are working to restore beavers where they have been eradicated or protect them where they are threatened. Goldfarb tells the story of the Beaver Believers’ work. They are reeducating the public about the worth of these animals as they address laws and policies based on old prejudices and myths that hamper that recovery. Goldfarb gives voice to those adding to our scientific knowledge of beaver life and their ecological contributions. He builds the case for why we humans should let go of our hubris that leads us to think we are the only beings capable of constructing the world. We need to “let the rodents do their work.” His writing is clear-eyed, wry and yet brimming with hope and affection.
I have been heartened and enthused by this book. Definitely, I’ve become a Beaver Believer.
