by >>> I just saw this item on TV about a beaver getting a police escort
>>> through the city back to the water. The announcer on the local station
>>> said that the beaver was just "looking for wood."
>>> Tesser
>> Ahhh, I'll admit some irritation, at public employee time
>> being taken up to help a beaver get back home.
>> While admitting quite a while back, my time was also
>> spent in wierd efforts to "keep the peace".
>> Yeah, I'm prejudiced.
>> My daughter bought me a T-shirt that says:
>> "damn Beavers!"
>> (More might follow,,,, if seems any interest.)
> Did she tell you why she bought it? What meaning she attributes to it?
> BTW how old is she?
hope you do not mind.)
Daughter is around age 30.
Probably mostly because she knew I and my wife
were having to put on hip waders once a week
and spend 1 to 1 1/2 hours playing in the woods
and creek to clear out sticks etc. to keep our
house from being flooded.
Our big dog really enjoyed those trips,
If the wife asked him, "Should we go 'Beaver Busting?' ",
he errupted in happy & eager barking.
I did not particularly mind that job,
but will admit that after 10 to 20 trips to haul
stuff out of a culvert ('walking' very stooped over)
I got fairly winded at times.
The other areas of obstructions, were fairly pleasant
communing with nature.
But, it now appears that those times are pretty much
over now. The nearby downstream city got enough
complaints from their homeowners that they hired a state
approved trapper, and he removed at least 3.
Then my community was so upset about rather
massive loss of planted fruit & decorative trees
and some occasional flooding, they hired one
who took out 5 (one was well over 70 pounds).
We will see,,,, nature resists a vacume.
But, I tend to think beavers will not repopulate this
area as rapidly as racoons did at my old house!
Hey!! I found it!! Available in a form I can cut & paste!
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein
Maybe a bit long, but I'll claim "fair use".
'There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who "love Nature"
while deploring the "artificialities" with which "Man has spoiled 'Nature.'"
The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that
Man and his artifacts are not part of "Nature" - but beavers and their dams
are. But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-facie absurdity. In
declaring his love for a beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers'
purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of men)
the Naturist reveals his hatred for his own race - i.e., his own
self-hatred.
In the case of "Naturists" such self-hatred is understandable; they are
such a sorry lot. But hatred is too strong an emotion to feel toward them;
pity and contempt are the most they rate.
As for me, willy-nilly I am a man, not a beaver, and H. sapiens is the only
race I have or can have. Fortunately for me, I like being part of a race
made up of men and women - it strikes me as a fine arrangement - and
perfectly "natural" Believe it or not, there were "Naturists" who opposed
the first flight to old Earth's Moon as being "unnatural" and a "despoiling
of Nature." '