Really great to be here. So appreciate you all coming out. And you down. Oh, my pleasure. Well, this is so im also a new author, so im trying to get as much love and good in the publishing world as possible. Im already getting it from you before i could even give you gift you gave me yours, which is a number of beaver theme songs for my little boy river and. I had brought this for you because this has been sitting the back of my closet and i havent worn it in forever. And i want you to have. 1957 portland beavers, jersey. Oh, no way. Yes, right. Olympian johnny. I just played. Oh, my gosh. For the portland beavers back in the day. Its great. Now i have to go to readings wearing this. Yeah thats why i gave it to you. And you have to go to the office and play that. And blair, this over the eager the beaver and beaver and the honeybee. It sounds great. All right. Lets talk about our favorite little aquatic rodent now. How you fall in love with beavers and why and what was the genesis origin story of beaver land . Well, the origin story was really serendipity or accident, because i was just walking in the woods one day and i heard this crack a literally thought a gun had gone off my froze. I froze. But then i looked out to where my dog looking and i saw the which had been just kind of dry swamp had become this so gleam of water and i thought, wow, what has happened here . And then i saw this beavers swimming back and forth. Then they slammed their tail again. It was just incredible, you know, i think we think of moments of all as being big. But that for me was a moment of awe. And i thought, i have to understand this. They are one of natures engineers at, least for this part of the world. Talk about they made america well. How the indigenous folks thought of them and reacted to them. Yeah. And so their origin story on this continent. Well let me just back up to how they made america because beavers really did make america its not an overstatement so first of all transatlantic trade jump starts, beaver pelts and the fur trade and by 19th century you got capitalism the engines of capitalism just roaring into fast pace with the fur trade. So our first economies are based on beavers. But it isnt just that the River Systems of north america were shaped by beavers. And this is huge and this is why theyre playing incredible role now in our environmental future, because we need them back now to help us restore the integrity, integrity of our river system. So its really exciting, new role they have to play. So we almost wiped them out through the fur trade. But thank goodness we didnt. How to extinction do they think we were . Well, no ones exactly sure. But the estimate is that Something Like 400 million beavers were living throughout all the water sheds of north america. So just imagine that creek, that river that you used to seeing as maybe a thin stream of water was actually once a river scape. It was just a messy multiple circulatory of water going into the land with because beavers were there managing there are original rivers river keepers and now theres probably 10 to 15 million beaver but efforts were made big efforts were made in the 1900s to bring them back. And we really have to, you know, applaud whoever was behind that. And remember that we have a lot of mistakes. We have a lot of success stories. And beavers are one of them. Theyre one of the greatest conservation stories we have. Theyre like the comeback. Exactly. Im actually working on a special for cnn. It airs sunday night about whales and one of the other huge comeback stories, whales which were driven all right to the brink, but they are the oceans, farmers and engineers. They are the biggest fertilizer pumps. So they go down deep and bring up all this nutrients and fertilize the the top of the sea. And they create more food wherever theres more whales. Saw this with wolves in yellowstone. Right. That you take a key species out of a landscape for profit or ignorance. But what was it that brought back the beaver did someone thought think they were cute or do they understand this role . I think it was mixed. I mean, i think there have been beaver there have been people throughout history who have understood the importance of beavers and their message has been out and its been forgotten. Theres been a kind ecological amnesia, but i should say who the is because the Indigenous Peoples who have always lived have had long standing indigenous, ecological knowledge bases and understanding of the value of beavers. So here in the east, up and down the atlantic seaboard, they peoples hunted beavers, but very carefully and stories like the great beaver really teach us again and again their role in river system. Can you share that a little bit of that story . Oh, thats a great story. So about beavers in the connecticut and i open the book with that because book starts in connecticut. Its about beavers where i live and i live in northeastern in connecticut right now. So this rascal beaver comes to the valley and theres no water there yet, except a little bit of a creek. And he dams it up and he creates the Connecticut River and it becomes so big it starts flooding everybody and the humans are hysterical. And obamacare, the the shafer is called upon to discipline the beaver because the are going to perish. So finally tries to discipline the beaver the beaver will not listen to reason and obamacare has to him up and down the atlantic seaboard into the great lakes and, where he follows the beaver a of geography, follows lakes and waterfalls. So this is its teaching story about geography place, but its also there are many algonquin stories, the dangers of hoarding resources is. So its a kind of environmental parable and love it because its so subversive course. Its humans that really need learn not to be greedy not the beaver its you know so heres a story you like and this is going to feel like industry gossip. But its not because i think its probably still online, but years ago i used to have this little lake house in northern jersey, sussex, way up right near where the appalachian trail goes through new jersey. Beautiful, beautiful, natural at the top of a watershed with wetlands on either side and beaver dams and. I love them. And theyd swim in the lake and id paddle board them and watch them all the time. But then they came for like one of my prized trees. Right. Which they will do, which will do. But really, it was their tree if you think about it properly. And i posted on twitter, i said other chicken wire. What do i do about, this beaver problem . Chris cuomo was a colleague at the time, replied baseball bat in a tarp, which. Yeah so a lot their attitude towards beavers but is that still prevalent are they seen as as pests that are just need to be managed around our arctic. Yeah in our landscaping. Well mean thats a really great question and it varies region to region because i think beavers definitely need a rebrand. I mean they were pelts then they were considered pests and now theyre water superheroes. So i mean, beavers can help us with every environmental problem. We have to do with accelerated Climate Change. We have drought. We have too much water and then too little water. Were in this climate whiplash. So thinking about things in the east, when have beavers in the river system creating, wetlands, when we have an extreme rain event, that water isnt going to go into the river system and rush out into the ocean. Its going to be held the wetlands which are like sponges under the ground are going to hold it. Theyre going to store, theyre going to cleanse it. So you have groundwater recharge and that water is cleansed and, you know, a wet sponge, a really great way to hold floodwaters. So theyre also being discovered about ten years ago. The light bulb went on in california about how could actually be harnessed help with wildfire mitigation. And in the book, i have a picture of and the idaho wildfire in 2018 they went back and theyre these picture of charred mountains. And in the middle of that is where the beavers were. And its a green refugia. So where beavers are. Theres wildfires closed down and theres a resurgent. Its after a wildfire. So theyre incredibly valuable in the watershed. Oregon, washington, calif to utah have been harnessing the work of beavers for the last ten years. So the light bulb is turned on in many places where Climate Change has had extreme outcomes. Here in the east, its mixed and i think theres still a lot of places where people to realize that what they do is more valuable than the inconvenience, right . They are going to flood because. Were living in lowland places where river used to be. So were not going to move infrastructure. Were not going to move manhattan. Were not going to move hartford. But there are a lot of places where we can tolerate coexistence with, beavers and get the benefits from what they they do but it is it is going to require lot more education. Yeah. So i have a first book coming out in april were kind enough to take a look at it and actually i devote a few pages to beavers, not the whole thing. But my book is called life as we know it can be and it its sort of addressed as letter to my kids, but its framed around a reexamination of maslows hierarchy of needs in the age of Climate Change. So i my way up through the pyramid of the basic physiological needs a chapter on air, water, temperature. And then we go to shelter and security and all of that and i came across so many Inspiring Stories of people and. Really, the big takeaway is the communities that get through this, these changes the most, the ones that have the most trust, the most connection with each other and nature and. People who are using these beaver dam analogs out west that try to bring back wetlands thought, hey, maybe if we could just beef up this beaver dam, lets see how long it lasts and how much more of the wetlands are recovered. And its led to these dams even in the arid west. If you arrange rocks in a certain way that just slows down the water the way the beavers, even if they dont live there, its a way forward in a healthier way. You in this . Yeah. Yeah. And i think know here in new york there are other examples of you know we might call that nature based restoration and using the power of nature to restore a degraded environment. You know with beavers its really interesting because in a place like the chesapeake just hundreds of thousands of dollars spent every year to try to restore the waterways going into the chesapeake with engineered solutions. And i interview this man called the beaver whisperer in the book and he is an environmental leader. And he will talk openly how yeah i can build you water storage for 1,000,000 or you can have beavers do it for free, you know. So i think the light bulb is on also that that communities, individuals and municipalities can save lot of money. And out west you know ranchers who historically were at war with beavers are now calling up beaver places. The utah Relocation Center and saying, can you get me some beavers . My cattle need grass in my Stream Systems going dry. And you know, when i have beavers, its wet for an extra month. So as people realize how valuable they. But i do want to loop back because out west in the arid plains people like the blackfeet had strict against hunting beavers at all because they knew how valuable they were to the grass ecology. So they were dependent on the bison, which are dependent on the grass and it was really the beavers were just managed in the water that would lead to the grass. It would it just incredibly foolish to them to all these europeans arrive and want pelts like why would you want to pelt if it means youre not going to have a bison. You know, that just didnt add up. But took the europeans a while to figure it out as it does. Is there a beaver trapping trade today . I know. I think you spoke to some in the book and what is whats the industry like and whats their attitude about this new era . Well, i think its changing. I mean, i everything now in an era of accelerating Climate Change is but i talk a lot about and i profile herb semansky you met in the book he was a fur who really was my first mentor about, beavers. And this was so surprising to me. Im an lover. Im an environmentalist and here i am out tromping through the swamps with a fur trapper. There were times i was like, what am i doing here . And i learned so from her. He was an extra ornery conservationist. He knew the beavers better than anybody. And i didnt come from a family that of hunters. Conservationists like, sort of came from a family that enjoyed well, weve farm the Hudson Valley. So i guess i always was interested in the interface between humans and the natural world. But in kind of way and it was really, it was actually from herb that i got the title of the book because one day he was out in the swamp and he looked around him and he just loved the wetlands and he loved the beavers and he said this beaver land with so much in his voice, i thought, wow, i have to write that down. I have no idea what hes talking about. And after several of research i would understand so was an example of how you knowledge comes to us in different ways and we need to if were going to solve Climate Change problems, we need to be open to solutions that come from every and listen to all different kinds of people. And thats, you know, absolutely. Thats the trust building exercise. It takes some bravery sometimes to talk to somebody that you think may not agree with you on these sorts of things. But imagine the wisdom he can offer to the greater cause. And if treated with respect, an ally can become an ally right. Yeah. And im ive been monitoring a beaver now. I write about it in the afterword and when i was out there with scientist river scientists measuring the water and we were trying to figure out we basically were i watched two very young beavers flee a drastic situation go down into the river system and a a dam over a dry area and within Something Like three months in pound. Over 5 million gallons of water. It was incredible the speed at which they did this. But nobody had any idea about the animals themself. And i realized, okay, ill do what herb taught me. I built a bait pile and i brought them in and i exactly how to do it because i watched him. So i wasnt bring them into a trap. I was bringing them into wildlife, but i had the beavers on within 24 hours and they were like, howd do that . And i was like, well, maybe there something to learn from fur trappers. He knew exactly. You know, i was just thinking what would perv do . And so so anyway i think theres theres some value in that. What is happening in my home state of wisconsin when it comes to legal yeah beaver futures. Well you know wisconsin is one of those states that has is really the light bulb is coming on a slow way because theres been this myth about beavers that because they slow down the water, they warm it too much for trout and therefore trout lobby has been taking out beaver dams in the midwest. Trout unlimited. Well, actually, trout and ducks unlimited are now very much working with pro beaver. Okay. Because and i read about this in the chesapeake some of the farmers down there are realizing maybe these beavers are flooding a half acre of corn, but that beaver pond they have created i can sell a duck hunting lease there for a lot more than i could ever sell corn. So, you know, i think, you know, farmers tend to be practical people they have to pay bills and theres like, okay, now wed rather have some beaver ponds than than corn right there, which is probably what should have always happened, because they in low lying areas. But in wisconsin, i think historically, beaver, beaver dams were being removed because they thought that they were bad for trout. Now, out in the northwest theyre actually and many of the Indigenous Tribal Councils working the do and the tulalip Tribes Council up in washington, they are working to recover salmon by bringing beaver back because now we understand what the peoples understood, which is that beavers taught salmon to jump and. Actually, they coevolved theyre both necessary for the ecosystem. I mean, if you think about it why we was taught that salmon to jump. Yeah thats actually an expression out in the northwest and trout are also a cold fish so i think thats changing and theres actually a lawsuit happening right now on behalf of the watershed, which is really interesting. And the watershed is the plaintiff for the well theyre suing Wisconsin Department of fish and wildlife. I believe thats the organization and saying look, you removed 17,000 beavers that you didnt need to and you damage the watershed and you are supposed to be protecting the watershed. And you know what theyve they were like, well, we dont have an answer for that. So i think theyre actually making well, they put an actual dollar figure, the value of a beaver colony or that sort of thing. Yeah, actually, i about some of that in the book, i mean extraordinary now that a dollar figure is being put so out in milwaukee. There was a study in 2020 and they figured that beavers in the upper watershed of the milwaukee within 25 years would generate 1. 7 trillion gallons of water storage a year and that much water hold on it is valued at 3. 3 billion a year. And thats just its not that many beavers either. Its like 4000 beavers. Yeah. And so and this this is 900 square miles of land thats open. Its as if you have to move someones soccer or worry about infrastructure. We have a lot of open land that is beaver ready that people just havent thought about. So i think, you know, the coexistence strategies that you mentioned before are important putting in pond level areas to control when they flood. You can control the level of flooding culvert to protect culverts. But i think it also we need to change our thinking in some places maybe we put the soccer field in in the wrong and we could move it someplace else. Exactly. It takes some humility and some you have to do that. But the of that are amazing. What are you i want to read your quote you were saying that in reference to the 2023 Supreme Court decision to really roll back protections the waters of the u. S. You call that nothing of delusional. What do you mean by that . Well, the sackett decision from last may narrowed the protection, the river system to just visible and continuous water. So what now understand about the river system . And again, the we i have to say sort of contemporary science because the Indigenous Peoples who have always lived here didnt think about beavers out and manipulating the river and in fact out in california you if i may, in on the klamath river, the europe tribe has actually given the r