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SPEAKER_03: And for this week's Select, I've chosen our October 2020 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, on the ecosystems that they move into. So behold and enjoy the beaver.
SPEAKER_05: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
SPEAKER_03: Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Brian over there and there's Jerry somewhere. And this is Stuff You Should Know, the Orange Incisors edition. Oh, I thought you were gonna make a bad naked gun joke.
SPEAKER_03: No, no, it did run through my head over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. It's hard though when you're our age.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah. And you saw those movies. For sure. Yeah. Dumb joke though.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, I mean, it's a naked gun joke for Pete's sake. Come on. So this kind of ties in, I think, a little bit with our porcupine episode
SPEAKER_04: in that beavers are, you know, they're porcupinesque in some ways. I think it ties in even more to our wetlands episode,
SPEAKER_03: 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 I like that about them.
SPEAKER_04: 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. Which really demeans them, I guess, but yes.
SPEAKER_03: Rodent's such a, it's not a bad word.
SPEAKER_04: There's so many great rodents. Who? Beavers, porcupines, squirrels. I know you have a thing with squirrels, but.
SPEAKER_03: Well, I know I like squirrels now. Momo and I and Yumi sometimes comes with us to chase squirrels across the street in the park and feed them peanuts. We give them peanuts 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 of on squirrels now. Momo loves squirrels. Chipmunks, mice. Chipmunks too. Yeah, rodents are okay, Chuck. I think there are fewer terrible rodents and the only ones I can think of
SPEAKER_04: that are terrible are those scary New York City sewer rats.
SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah. Okay, so rodents are all right. Up with rodents, I guess is the way. Rabbits? And I don't think they're rodents. Oh, they are. You like a hamster? Sure, hamsters. I don't know if rabbits are rodents, are they? It makes sense that they would be, but... It's what rodent.com says. 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 in that there's what you could call old world and new world beavers, but there's really just two species. And one is found in North America and one is found in Eurasia. And it's easy peasy, no fuss, no must. These are the beavers that are alive on the planet.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so we've got the American beaver. They weigh between 15 and 65 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're dangerous, they're really not. But it's such a large thing that you're like, wow, they're bigger than I thought, usually has run through my head when I see a beaver. Yeah, I mean, 60 or 30.
SPEAKER_03: No, yeah, 65 pounds is about 30 kilograms. It's a big beaver. It is a big beaver. And I had to convert it to kilograms for at least our friends in Canada, because beavers, their national emblem, they have beaver on their nickel, which is amazing. Like this just makes me love Canada all the much more, you know?
SPEAKER_04: So for that 60 pounds, you're going to be a couple of feet long, 23 to 40 inches long. That's without the tail. You don't count the tail when you're measuring a beaver. The tail, we'll talk a little bit more about it, but they're anywhere from seven to 12 inches. If you're Eurasian, you're about the same size. You can be a little bit smaller. Oh, I thought bigger. Well, you can be a little smaller on the, I think the range is bigger. Okay. So you can be down in the 20s poundage wise, but up to the 70s poundage wise. Uh, 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_03: So, um, yeah, but that tail is what everybody understands when they see a beaver, just like with a porcupine and its quills, a beaver and its tail is, they're just synonymous. Everybody recognizes a beaver because of his 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 got sparse, coarse hair associated with it. It looks like a blackjack that some old timey like roughs would beat you up with. And yet it's one of the most amazing appendages any animal has as far, it's like a Swiss army knife, but for tails.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, they're very useful in a lot of ways. They, um, obviously if they're swimming and beavers, by the way, can swim five to seven miles an hour, they have a little web feet, they have, you could, they can close their ear holes and their nose holes and they can roll their, a film over their eyeballs. Yeah, nictitating membrane. Yeah, it's amazing. So if they're going to be swimming, then that tail is going to be acting as a rudder and as a propeller. It's also, if they're on land, it's going to act as a little kickstand at times.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah. When they stand up on their back legs, they use their tail to kind of lean against to 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, um, like you were saying, they're familial. They are actually fairly social animals and they live in family units. So they would want to warn like, you know, the wife and the kids back at the lodge.
SPEAKER_04: 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 beavers eating tree stuff. Oh yeah. Yeah. And which we'll get to. And one day when I was in the lake, I saw a mammal's head coming toward me and I don't know if it was, we also have river otters, 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?
SPEAKER_04: What's he doing? Where is he? Is he coming at me or not?
SPEAKER_03: Were you swimming in the lake at the time? Yeah, I was swimming in the lake. I saw this large mammal head, you know, dunk under.
SPEAKER_04: I could feel you. And if it was, I'm not sure how long beavers can hold their, or otters can hold their breaths, but beavers can hold their breath for about 15 minutes, which is pretty remarkable. I think it's remarkable too.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it really just goes to show like just how adapted they are for life in the water. And they are mammals, so they have lungs, so they need to breathe air outside of the water. But yeah, the fact that they can hold their breath for 15 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 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. 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, they're, they're in their happy place. Yeah. And imagine when they dive for 15 minutes and are swimming around,
SPEAKER_04: what do you think those fish think? Oh, here comes a beaver. Do they know? Or are they just like, what in the world is that big hairy thing?
SPEAKER_03: I would guess that they, I would like to think they know. I like to think of communities of animals or ecosystems just... They know each other. Yep. They know each other. They know each other's foibles. They've come to accept one another. They have their own things, but they always kind of, you know, they, they, in the end that when somebody, you know, like a human comes in and tries to screw things up, they'll all band together and, you know, raise money for the community center so that the developer can't buy it. So if you are a North American beaver, you can live pretty much anywhere in North America,
SPEAKER_04: except for the desert, because you want water around. You're probably going to be near a pond or a lake or a marsh or a swamp or a river. Your Asian beavers used to live all over Europe and Asia, but they were hunted, over-hunted because at one point in time, wearing beaver pelts and beaver hats was like really high fashion. So now they're only found in Germany, France, Poland, Scandinavia, Southern Scandinavia, and Central Russia.
SPEAKER_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. How many beavers used to be here? Like 400 million? That's the estimate is that in North America, prior to Colombian contact, that they were, there were about 400 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. When I say luckily, I don't just mean for the beavers, but I mean for the planet as far as North America is concerned, 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 radically as they do.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, what are they called?
SPEAKER_03: They're a keystone species. Keystone 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_04: All right, that's a great place to take a break. And I say when we come back, we talk about the two fundamental fulcrums on which beaver life is based, the dam and the lodge. Okay.
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SPEAKER_04: All right, we're back. And there are a couple of things, you know, you've heard busy is a beaver. 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 been hiking and stuff in America, you've probably seen a beaver lodge by a river or lake. It's a little dome made out of sticks and grasses and moss and mud. Maybe you thought a local witch had built it.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, maybe it does look like a little, what do you call witches houses?
SPEAKER_03: Witches house? I think there's a cottage.
SPEAKER_04: Oh, sure. I think there's a different name, but a witch's house. There's a name for those.
SPEAKER_03: I thought so. No, I don't think so. Witch house?
SPEAKER_04: Maybe I'm thinking of Covins. Hausa de witch?
SPEAKER_04: No, there's a word. We just, I just watched the witch, the movie again. I think there's a word for it. Man, I love that. That might be my favorite movie.
SPEAKER_04: We did a movie crush round table on that, by the way. It was really good. It is a good one.
SPEAKER_03: That's the guy who did the lighthouse, isn't it? Yeah, Robert Eggers. God bless that man. I can't wait to see his biking movie too.
SPEAKER_04: Oh man, I can't imagine. 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. It's like sort of a ski in chalet if you're snow skiing.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, which makes sense because again, they spend so much time in the water, but also protects them from terrestrial predators because they can get into the water and escape when a predator is like at their door.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and you know, this is, they're nocturnal. They don't hibernate, but most of this action is 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 in a beaver lodge, you might find a mom and a dad who are monogamous mates for life. And they might have their three, two year old, almost two year old children. And then they might have their little grand babies.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because when they have their babies, which are called kits, which admittedly is not as cute a word as porcupettes. No, but they're cute. But dude, just press pause right now, everybody, and go look up some baby beaver pictures. Those little tails. Oh my God, they're cute. So they have baby beavers. One of the reasons why they're so cute is because they stick around for so long. They stick around so long because they're so cute. That's what I mean to say. But they do, they stay as part of the family unit and help like work on the family lodge and dam 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 think is super cute.
SPEAKER_04: It is. I think we should talk about dams though. I mean, the lodges 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_03: Yeah. So a beaver will move into an area that's dry as a bone. That's maybe cropland, 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 crick, maybe a creek, something like that. And they stop it up. They build a dam and they build this dam so that the water backs up behind it and floods this area and turns it into a wetland. And they do this not to irk humans or just for fun. They do it because they're altering the ecosystem to better suit themselves. Like I said, they survive much better when they're in the water, they move faster, they can work faster. 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_04: 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, we're beavers all of a sudden. And you're pushing this mud and gravel up from the bottom of the stream. Yeah. And if, let's say, it's a place where the crick 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 going to 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_03: Right. But they're so good at using their hands and they're so strong. You said, you know, 60, 65 pounds or about 30 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 bodybuilders. But they can take, they'll take sticks and like plant them in the bottom of this stream or whatever and start forming a lattice work that they weave in between and fill up with mud to really stop up some, you know, fast moving current. Like that's the level of manipulation that they're doing. They're building a dam that they eventually successfully back up the flow of water from.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, which is, I've tried to do that before and it's hard to do. Yeah. My buddy Scotty and I, who, 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 11 or 12 days. Wow. And we wanted to build a waterfall next to our campsite. So it sounded better. So we spent days and days with sticks and big rocks and trying to reroute and change the river. And it was some of the hardest work I've ever done.
SPEAKER_03: Imagine doing that at like 48 inches long and only 65 pounds. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04: 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, Pa, Ma, is this 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 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. Oh, I saw that they do daily maintenance on it.
SPEAKER_03: That one way to tell whether beavers are in the area is to find their dam, make it like a little minor hole in it, and then go back and look the next day. And if it's patched up, the beavers are around there. And giving you the middle finger.
SPEAKER_04: Right.
SPEAKER_03: Exactly. Like, okay, yeah, we're here. You figured it out. Please leave our dam alone. But yeah, these things are 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 use to build this stuff with are trees around the area. And they can, they 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_04: 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. Well, porcupines can too, remember?
SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's right.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, they can, they can digest cellulose because they probably have a very similar
SPEAKER_03: kind of bacteria that helps them, helps digest it for them. But they digest a lot of the cellulose that they eat, and it's really hard to break down normally for mammals though. Yeah, but like, you know, you said they're essentially creating these wetlands.
SPEAKER_04: They're preventing erosion. They are helping to purify the water. Oh, let's, let's talk about what the dams can do.
SPEAKER_03: Okay, Chuck. I mean, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_04: They're, it's, it's like a little environmental coalition that goes into the woods to make things better. Yeah, so I think in the wetlands episode, I said something like, like a beaver creates
SPEAKER_03: the equivalent of some, like a $5 million wastewater treatment plan or something like that. I could not find that again to save my life, but I think that was roughly it. They, they create this, this structure that creates the artificial wetland. And in doing so, it filters the water because it slows the water down so much that the stuff can trickle down to the bottom. It turns a normal terrestrial piece of land into a wetland. So aquatic plants come. And they've also found out that not only does it filter water of like sediment and particles, it also is capable of handling farm runoff, fertilizer, which is really pernicious because, you know, when all that fertilizer makes its way into 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, by fixing nitrogen, excess nitrogen from fertilizer. It prevents it from flowing. Bacteria chomps down on it and releases it as nitrogen gas into the atmosphere. And the stuff the bacteria doesn't eat floats down to the bottom, gets eaten up by aquatic plants, which when they die, lock it into the sediment. So this, this farm runoff, that's a huge problem as it stands, is actually mitigated by beaver dams they've recently found out.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah. And talk about just what kind of impact it has on who lives there. I mean, it's basically like an invitation to, 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 species of bird that didn't think that you would flourish here, time to change that attitude. Right. 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 going to be safer. What else?
SPEAKER_03: 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. What if you're a moose, let's say, probably no good for you, right?
SPEAKER_04: No, you're going to love this if you're a moose.
SPEAKER_03: 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 moose and it gets even better because when the beaver family finally like is, you know, move, 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 the erosion that was prevented, and all of a sudden you have a lush, beautiful meadow that deer can come eat on.
SPEAKER_04: 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. They leave it better than it was when they first got there.
SPEAKER_03: Amazing. It is amazing. The problem is, is that humans frequently have much different plans for those same areas and beavers want to follow 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.
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SPEAKER_00: All right, so, um, we love Beaver.
SPEAKER_03: You love Beaver. Everyone out there listening. There's a lot of people who don't love Beaver. Is that Beaver? It is now. Okay. And the reason why is because if you own like a, a, a stand of timber, your plan is to eventually cut that timber down and sell it for wood planks or books, you know, like, um, stuff you should know, colon and incomplete compendium of mostly interesting things available everywhere you get books to pre-order now. Um, there's 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 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. No.
SPEAKER_04: And I think, uh, how many tens of millions of dollars? I think it was like $20 million a year or something.
SPEAKER_03: I think more than that. Cause I think I saw Alabama alone suffered like $14 million in losses from timberland, just Alabama.
SPEAKER_04: From beaver damage. And not only that, it'll, it'll, um, flooding for crops. It can make, um, what was ordinarily a very stable bridge or road now unstable and cause damage to roads and stuff like that. From like saturating the soil that was holding it up just fine before.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah. The good news is, um, back in the old days, they would just, you know, they would just call as many beavers as they could to get rid of them. These days, and this is kind of a weird stat, but it says 75% of, of beaver human conflict can be resolved without trapping or killing the beavers. So I take that as in they will somehow move them along in a way that's humane.
SPEAKER_03: 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, this wetland and it wasn't there before and you're taking it as a problem. And that's the, the, the thing that I'm seeing that it seems to be like the new paradigm for viewing beavers as far as their relationship to humans. It's like, really what's, what's the problem. If it's, yes, they're damaging cropland. Okay. That's a problem. If they're killing timberland, that's a problem. If they've, um, if they're washing out a road, that's a problem. But if they just created a wetland that wasn't there before on your property, where you bought the property and it was dry and now there's a wetland there that you didn't plan for, is it really a problem? And I think that's what they're saying is that 75% 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_04: Yeah. And you know, it really gets my dander up when I, uh, this lake that I go to there, 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 12 gauge. Yeah. And it's just like, you don't, I've never understood the people who want to move to nature to kill the nature. Yeah, I know. It's just, it's unnerving. And, uh, I have seen some beaver damage and I love it. I welcome it. So yeah, you would be one of the 75% who would say like, nope, it's no problem whatsoever.
SPEAKER_03: You probably wouldn't even say it was an issue. No, you wouldn't even be asked that question. You would just know from the outset that it's not a problem. I call that a beaver beavering.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's right. Beavers are going to beaver. And so we know now that like they are a keystone species. They're so important that it's, 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 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 were two others, Chuck. They prevent flooding, three others. They prevent flooding by slowing the flow of water. So things downstream from the dam don't get overwhelmed as much. 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 firebreaks, which helps contain forest fires. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04: I have a feeling when we're done, we're going to be mad because there were like three more things we didn't think about.
SPEAKER_03: That happens to me a lot and drives me nuts.
SPEAKER_04: Here's some of the things that people do try and do though to mitigate their, what they perceive as their beaver problems. Yeah, no, because they do create some problems as far as human settlement is concerned.
SPEAKER_04: 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. Yeah, it's like so long that the beaver's like, it doesn't think to go to the end of
SPEAKER_03: 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_04: 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 10% of your work is already done. Why don't you just start here? So they'll do that. Yeah, the beaver says hot dog.
SPEAKER_04: And then another thing is to design, well, there's two kinds of fences. There's the pre-dam 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_03: 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 meant 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 culvert outward at 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 12 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 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 harmed. The beaver just moves on to a different spot that it likes.
SPEAKER_04: Right. And if you have a tree that you really love that you see has a 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. It's like the nail biting stuff, I'll bet. Oh my God. Somebody wrote in about that. What did they say? I didn't see that. I think they were just asking like what it was. I'm sure they still have it, but I don't remember what it was.
SPEAKER_03: I believe, remember Lee Press-On nails? I think they had a sideline in that stuff.
SPEAKER_04: I'm sure it was. It's probably just like clear nail polish. Yeah. But it tastes like garbage.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that tasted really bad. Tasted like what? What? I thought it was like hot. No, it was bitter.
SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay. Yeah, I wouldn't like that at all.
SPEAKER_04: No, it 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 60 to 128 days and have one to six little babies. And the American beavers gestate from 100 to about 105 to 107 days. Again, one to four little kits. And they are weaned around two weeks of age, whereas the Eurasian beaver is weaned at about six weeks of age.
SPEAKER_03: Right. And so, Chuck, I saw that beavers tend to live, like you said, they were monogamous typically, and so that they live about 10 to 15 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 staying and working on it in Alberta, right?
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's huge. And I guess everyone just got in on the party. Yeah, they think since the 70s that some beavers have been keeping it up.
SPEAKER_03: Very appropriate. Yeah, pretty much.
SPEAKER_04: And those little kits, by the way, can swim about just one day after they're born. They're already swimming around.
SPEAKER_03: Right. So, like we said, I think that they are, I think that they become sexually mature at age three. And around that time, they're going to start producing something called castorum or castorium, right? Yeah. And castorum is like, a lot of people think that it's like the origin of castor oil. That'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_04: Yeah, I mean, 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, though, 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. Right. I think it says 200, about 292 pounds annually total. Right. So, I imagine it's expensive.
SPEAKER_03: It is very expensive. And you can still find in some places, I think I saw a whiskey that uses it. Chanel's perfume, what is it called? Cor de Russie, I believe, it still uses it. Not really. And it's a flavor ingredient too, because it's, or like you were saying, it's generally recognized as safe, but it also adds like a vanilla raspberry flavor. That's what it tastes like to humans. And they think that there are some ice creams out there that still may use that, like old timey ice creams that use beaver castoreum, like beaver scent. That's what it is. It's beaver musk. It just so happens that beaver musk tastes like raspberry vanilla to humans.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah. But they were hunted for a really long time, which kind of led to this one myth, didn't it? The testicle myth?
SPEAKER_04: Yeah. Yeah, up until about the 1100s, people thought beavers ate or bit off their own testicles. And apparently this has its origins in ancient Egypt, in medieval Europe. It continued where I think what they said was that beavers knew that hunters were coming after them because of that castoreum, which originated in their testicles. And none of this is true. I think their testicles, they don't even have hangers, right?
SPEAKER_03: No, they don't. They're located inside them, which automatically disqualifies it. But also, so the beavers were basically saying like, no, you can't have my castoreum. 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 hunters would leave them alone if they didn't have testicles. Maybe. No, that's not 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_04: The, yeah, the Pope in the 16th century said, you know what? That's 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. It's close enough to a fish. Yep, exactly.
SPEAKER_03: It qualifies as a fish. So you could eat beaver back in the 16th century, thanks to the Pope. That's right.
SPEAKER_04: As far as I know, I teased earlier 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_03: 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 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? That was just bad luck. So a guy in Belarus 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.
SPEAKER_03: His family has to live like that for the rest of their lives. Beaver attack.
SPEAKER_01: I know.
SPEAKER_03: And there's been some other attacks too. But yeah, I think they just kind of give beavers bad name unwarrantedly, don't you? Shot through the leg. And you're to blame. You give beavers a bad name. Oh, goodness. Todd. Well, I guess that's it for beavers, huh? That's it. I'm glad we finally got to do this one. Leave them alone. Yeah, let them do their beaver thing. Beaver in, like Chuck says. Beaver's going to beaver. If you want to know more about beavers, 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 mail. All right, I'm going to call this Braver Angels.
SPEAKER_04: Hey, guys, listen to your episode on swing states. You mentioned the dangerous level of polarization going on between reds and blues in America. Oh, yeah. Thanks for reading this one. You're welcome. And I wanted to let you know that there's something we can do about it. There's a great grassroots organization with a specific goal of depolarizing America called Braver Angels, which organizes events to bring reds and blues together to have real nuanced discussions about things they disagree about and help us understand and respect each other. That's great. It is great. I mean, that's quite a service. Yeah, I would love to peek in on one of these meetings and maybe go to one. Yeah. They're doing a lot of online events 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 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 Krista. And just go to braverangels.org, B-A-R-A-V-E-R-A-N-G-E-L-S.org. B-R-A-V-E-R-A-N-G-E-L-S.org.
SPEAKER_03: That is correct. Okay, cool. That's fantastic. Thank you, Krista. And thanks to all the Braver Angels out there who are trying to keep the country together because, like Krista said, we kind of need it right now. And it is brave. It's daunting to step outside your echo chamber.
SPEAKER_04: Oh, man, it is. And it's just harder and harder because the echoes have gotten stronger and stronger.
SPEAKER_03: So to hear something other than that is just almost like it makes your brain melt. Pretty neat. All right. Well, if you want to get in touch with us to let us know about some group or service that the country or the world is in dire need of, we want to hear about it. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast.ihartradio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio.
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