World's biggest beaver dam

How big can a beaver dam get? Would you believe half a mile long? Here's a story about the world's biggest beaver dam, located in Northern Alberta. Check out the picture at left.

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Too many beavers

When I was a boy, there were few beavers around. This was true even in rural Oregon, the beaver state. Well now there are more beavers than you can shake a stick at.

Too many beavers, in fact, since they're undoing what people have done to tame nature and otherwise control water.

It's funny, we liked them for the fur, we love them as a symbol (see Oregon state flag at right, the only state flag with images on two sides, and look there's a lovely little beaver on the back!)

What'll we do with too many beavers? Start a bounty program to get rid of them? Or learn to live with them?

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Urban beaver the delight of many

What's the best part of New York City? The beaver of course. And I don't mean Jim Bouton's voyeuristic kind.

Jose the Bronx beaver is back. Ironically, he lives wild in the Bronx zoo, where he cut down his own Christmas tree for a December nibble.

Jose is a success story, beaver were nearly exterminated from the US, after numbering perhaps 60 million at the time of European settlement in the US. After reaching a low near extinction, beaver are making a comeback. He joins the Manhattan falcons as a prominent symbol of nature in the city.

A little bit of wild in New York, brought to you by the riotous, rollicking power of life to make itself manifest.

See the photo? Yup, he's back. Go Jose, live, breathe, and inspire.

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