Beavers,
Engineers and Evolution
Article from Nov-Dec
2005 Buckeye Trapper
by Butch
Barhorst
Beavers are amazing creatures. They can build dams of strength
and size that can hold back water as well as any man-made dam,
and they do it with nothing but sticks and mud. They've been doing
this for hundreds of years. Scientists like to use the word evolution,
so they say beavers have "evolved" into what they can
do. All I know is that nature’s first engineers, "the
beaver", are good at what they do.
This story actually started back last fall, when a very good friend
of mine informed me that a beaver had built a lodge on one of
his ponds. The next day I went to take a look. When I arrived
at the site, imagine what went through my head, when I laid eyes
on this lodge that was built directly under an old wooden electric
box with the main power cord going straight down from the box
into the beavers lodge! There was also a piece of PVC pipe running
parallel to the ground, and it too was going straight into the
side of the lodge.
I wondered if this beaver figured out how to have a home with
all of the creature comforts of electric utilities and indoor
plumbing? Has this engineer of nature "evolved" that
quickly?
This much evolution in such a short time scared me, so my friends'
boys, Logan and Luke, helped me work out a plan to stop this evolutionary
process in its tracks.
We waited until January, when the pond froze over and the snow
covered it, then we executed our plan. We set a well placed bodygrip
trap in a channel cutting through the pond bank and crossed our
fingers, hoping that this engineer of a beaver had never seen
a trap before.
The next morning the boys called and gave me the news that the
beaver's engineering days were over, as it was securely caught.
We now know for sure that this electrical, plumbing engineer of
a beaver cannot pass along its knowledge to the next generation,
as that knowledge passed on with the beaver in the bodygrip.
Not only did we stop this fast paced evolutionary process, but
also I wonder how many electrical and plumbing jobs we may have
saved? Have fun, and take a kid trapping. ### Butch Barhorst,
4058 Possum Run Rd., Dayton, OH 45440
|
