For some reason, in the last few years, I’ve become obsessed with beavers. I’m not sure why. I’ve never met one personally. Admittedly, they are adorable with those plump, waddly bodies, beady eyes, thick fur, big ol’ teeth, and rubbery tail. But I think I mostly admire their persistence.
Thanks to human greed for their thick, glossy fur, beavers were nearly extirpated in North America between the seventeenth and late nineteenth century. Protections have allowed them to rebound back to maybe 10 or 13 million, probably a fraction of their original numbers. And now, finally, humans are beginning to appreciate these little engineers for their ecosystem genius.
Beavers create refugia. Their damming habits create habitat for loads of plants, mammals, birds, amphibians, fish, and insects. And their engineering skills adjust water flow in a way that makes landscapes resilient amid drought, flooding, and fire—their structures even detoxify water by slowing it down and letting pollutants sink.
They just can’t help it; it’s what they do. They gnaw away until they get the job done. As we humans try to repair places we’ve damaged and build back health and resilience, we can look to the savvy and persistence of beavers. I don’t know if I’m allowed to have a spirit animal, but if I can, I think mine is the beaver.
OK, sure, sometimes they get busy building in places where we humans wish they wouldn’t, but as a recent article in the National Geographic notes, more and more communities are realizing that we can gain a lot of benefits from partnering with beavers and learning from their wisdom, especially in protecting areas from wildfire: “First, they were pelts, then pests, but now they are emerging as climate heroes.”
In fact, did you know that people are now creating “beaver dam analogues” or “BDAs” to help improve habitat? Or that there are “conflict management” groups that help mediate between people and beavers, maybe fencing off a culvert, for example, where beaver activity has plugged things up? Also, reintroducing beavers to appropriate areas has become a common practice in wildlife management. Some people in Europe are so enthusiastic about beaver restoration, they engage in “beaver bombing” or “beaver black ops,” releasing beavers without permission. Obviously, that practice is controversial. However, in many places, beavers are being quite officially and intentionally reintroduced. In 2023, California celebrated the launch of a big beaver reintroduction program, partnering with Indigenous leaders.
Sometimes, perhaps impatient with us clumsy humans, beavers even “take matters into their own paws.” This delightful story from the Czech Republic recounts how a family of beavers,without being asked, cut through months of government red tape and fixed a wetland for free in two days, saving the government some $1.2 million dollars.
Beavers:1. Government: 0. 🦫 A colony of 8 beavers in the Czech Republic have just completed a dam project in two days, something local officials had been planning for the past 7 years. 💪 While administrators were still pulling permits together, the beavers took the matters into their own paws, completing higher-quality work than humans would have been able to do anyways. 😎 Ultimately, they saved $1.2 million (or nearly 30 million Kč) by completing the project for free. 🦫 📸 Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic #beavers#nature#animals#beaver#buildingadam#environment#goodnews
Canadians, being the sensible people they are, have long honored the beaver—on their coins, on their stamps, even on their parliament building. (The Latin name for North American beavers is Castor canadensis.) Engineers love the beaver, too, for obvious reasons. I’m still learning more about them all the time. They really are a wonder. Beaver teeth contain iron to make them stronger! Beaver tails store fat! Beavers have a transparent eyelid to protect their eyes underwater! They produce their own fur conditioner from a gland located, well, never mind!
The thing about reintroducing beavers, though, is that you can’t just randomly select a few individuals and plop them near a river. They mate for life. They stick with their family. So they do much better if you relocate family groups together. Send a family group to a reasonably suitable spot, and they will get right to work.
Perhaps beavers could be the spirit animal for The Reformed Journal, too. We are nothing if not persistent, after all. The Reformed Journal legacy goes back generations. Despite times of threats to the RJ’s survival, we are now thriving. In the past fourteen years especially, we’ve built a gathering space for writers and readers here on our website with our daily blog, substantial essays, book reviews, poems, podcasts, and now our book publishing endeavor, Reformed Journal Books.
And we stick together as a family. I hope that you, our faithful readers, feel as if you have found-family here. In a world threatened by drought, fire, and soil erosion both literal and metaphorical, we are working together here to create a healthier ecosystem of thought and reflection, where we challenge and encourage each other, ponder and muse, joke and lament and consider. Think of us as busily working to put up life-giving spaces that serve as firewalls, like this little fella.
The Reformed Journal comes to you for free. No surprise invoices, annoying ads, or niggling fees. Most of this operation runs on volunteer labor, because we believe the work is important. However, it does cost money to keep the website going.
We’d be grateful if you could help us with your financial support. Give a one-time gift, help us with a monthly donation, or take advantage of this year’s “But Wait…There’s More!” special offer. Click on the purple box below to find all the information, opportunities, and options.
Thank you for being a part of this persistent, life-giving family. Let’s keep at it.
PS: Note how I nobly resisted making any “dam” jokes.
Hamnet is getting excellent reviews, deserved in many ways. Beautiful cinematography, excellent acting, quiet and intensely sad—you can plan on a couple Oscar nods for this one. As your resident Shakespeare professor, however, I will suggest—no surprise here—that the film is only tangentially related to the actual Shakespeare.
In a world threatened by drought, fire, and soil erosion both literal and metaphorical, we are working together here to create a healthier ecosystem of thought and reflection.
Our final episode of Season 4! This week, we travel to Hawaii with a whole troop of good people to visit some remarkable refugia spaces near Kaneohe Bay on Oahu. This episode, produced by Colin Hoogerwerf and Jim Stump, first aired on the Language of God podcast in April of 2025.
Beavering Our Way, Reformed Style
For some reason, in the last few years, I’ve become obsessed with beavers. I’m not sure why. I’ve never met one personally. Admittedly, they are adorable with those plump, waddly bodies, beady eyes, thick fur, big ol’ teeth, and rubbery tail. But I think I mostly admire their persistence.
Thanks to human greed for their thick, glossy fur, beavers were nearly extirpated in North America between the seventeenth and late nineteenth century. Protections have allowed them to rebound back to maybe 10 or 13 million, probably a fraction of their original numbers. And now, finally, humans are beginning to appreciate these little engineers for their ecosystem genius.
Beavers create refugia. Their damming habits create habitat for loads of plants, mammals, birds, amphibians, fish, and insects. And their engineering skills adjust water flow in a way that makes landscapes resilient amid drought, flooding, and fire—their structures even detoxify water by slowing it down and letting pollutants sink.
They just can’t help it; it’s what they do. They gnaw away until they get the job done. As we humans try to repair places we’ve damaged and build back health and resilience, we can look to the savvy and persistence of beavers. I don’t know if I’m allowed to have a spirit animal, but if I can, I think mine is the beaver.
OK, sure, sometimes they get busy building in places where we humans wish they wouldn’t, but as a recent article in the National Geographic notes, more and more communities are realizing that we can gain a lot of benefits from partnering with beavers and learning from their wisdom, especially in protecting areas from wildfire: “First, they were pelts, then pests, but now they are emerging as climate heroes.”
In fact, did you know that people are now creating “beaver dam analogues” or “BDAs” to help improve habitat? Or that there are “conflict management” groups that help mediate between people and beavers, maybe fencing off a culvert, for example, where beaver activity has plugged things up? Also, reintroducing beavers to appropriate areas has become a common practice in wildlife management. Some people in Europe are so enthusiastic about beaver restoration, they engage in “beaver bombing” or “beaver black ops,” releasing beavers without permission. Obviously, that practice is controversial. However, in many places, beavers are being quite officially and intentionally reintroduced. In 2023, California celebrated the launch of a big beaver reintroduction program, partnering with Indigenous leaders.
Sometimes, perhaps impatient with us clumsy humans, beavers even “take matters into their own paws.” This delightful story from the Czech Republic recounts how a family of beavers,without being asked, cut through months of government red tape and fixed a wetland for free in two days, saving the government some $1.2 million dollars.
Canadians, being the sensible people they are, have long honored the beaver—on their coins, on their stamps, even on their parliament building. (The Latin name for North American beavers is Castor canadensis.) Engineers love the beaver, too, for obvious reasons. I’m still learning more about them all the time. They really are a wonder. Beaver teeth contain iron to make them stronger! Beaver tails store fat! Beavers have a transparent eyelid to protect their eyes underwater! They produce their own fur conditioner from a gland located, well, never mind!
The thing about reintroducing beavers, though, is that you can’t just randomly select a few individuals and plop them near a river. They mate for life. They stick with their family. So they do much better if you relocate family groups together. Send a family group to a reasonably suitable spot, and they will get right to work.
Perhaps beavers could be the spirit animal for The Reformed Journal, too. We are nothing if not persistent, after all. The Reformed Journal legacy goes back generations. Despite times of threats to the RJ’s survival, we are now thriving. In the past fourteen years especially, we’ve built a gathering space for writers and readers here on our website with our daily blog, substantial essays, book reviews, poems, podcasts, and now our book publishing endeavor, Reformed Journal Books.
And we stick together as a family. I hope that you, our faithful readers, feel as if you have found-family here. In a world threatened by drought, fire, and soil erosion both literal and metaphorical, we are working together here to create a healthier ecosystem of thought and reflection, where we challenge and encourage each other, ponder and muse, joke and lament and consider. Think of us as busily working to put up life-giving spaces that serve as firewalls, like this little fella.
The Reformed Journal comes to you for free. No surprise invoices, annoying ads, or niggling fees. Most of this operation runs on volunteer labor, because we believe the work is important. However, it does cost money to keep the website going.
We’d be grateful if you could help us with your financial support. Give a one-time gift, help us with a monthly donation, or take advantage of this year’s “But Wait…There’s More!” special offer. Click on the purple box below to find all the information, opportunities, and options.
Thank you for being a part of this persistent, life-giving family. Let’s keep at it.
PS: Note how I nobly resisted making any “dam” jokes.
Image credit: iNaturalist
Hamnet: Quiet Grief, Sentimental Speculation
Hamnet is getting excellent reviews, deserved in many ways. Beautiful cinematography, excellent acting, quiet and intensely sad—you can plan on a couple Oscar nods for this one. As your resident Shakespeare professor, however, I will suggest—no surprise here—that the film is only tangentially related to the actual Shakespeare.
Beavering Our Way, Reformed Style
In a world threatened by drought, fire, and soil erosion both literal and metaphorical, we are working together here to create a healthier ecosystem of thought and reflection.
Angels At Large
“Ha ha. Anyway, I’m OK. Actually, I’m in a better place now, you know? Having ‘Angel At Large’ status for a while isn’t so bad.”
Refugia Podcast Episode 40 Kipuka to Kipuka: Islands of Life, Faith, and Restoration
Our final episode of Season 4! This week, we travel to Hawaii with a whole troop of good people to visit some remarkable refugia spaces near Kaneohe Bay on Oahu. This episode, produced by Colin Hoogerwerf and Jim Stump, first aired on the Language of God podcast in April of 2025.