Castorology (BEAVERS) with Rob Rich
Orange teeth! Vanilla butts! Architecture with twigs! Olde-timey joke books? Field naturalist, conservationist, wildlife tracker and “beaver believer” Rob Rich works with the National Wildlife Federation’s coordination of the Montana Beaver Working Group and answers all of our Castorological questions about: baby beavers, tooth tools, lodges, dams, the sound of water, the slap of a tail, who eats beaver and why, beavers in peril, in folklore, in smut books, in your neighborhood and in your dreams forever. Also: yes we discuss slang.
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A donation went to Tracker Certification North America
Links to things we discussed:
Drink This Now: Beaver Butt Whiskey at Art in the Age
Does Vanilla Flavoring Actually Come From Beaver Butts?
Pliny’s Pheromonic Abortifacients
HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS | Official HD Trailer (2023) | ACTION-COMEDY | Film Threat Trailers
Rescue beaver makes Christmas dam in house
Video: Beaver's Tail-Slap Warning
A Mathematical Model of Beaver Incisor Tooth Morphology
Dammed if They Do: How and why beavers are driven to build
Parachuting beavers. Video courtesy of Idaho Department of Fish and Game
Possible source of all beaver innuendo
General resources:
Beavers have engineered ecosystems in the Tetons for millennia
The Beaver That Didn't Give a Dam
The Gnawing Question of Saltwater Beavers
In the Arctic, Beavers Are Climate Winners. Should We Let Them Take Over?
Isle Royale Wolf-Moose Project
Montana Beaver Working Group & Montana Beaver Conflict Resolution Project
Rediscovering the North American Beaver: The Quest for a Keystone Species
Three recent beaver books:
Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter -
Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America
Once They Were Hats: In Search of the Mighty Beaver
Other episodes you may enjoy:
Oreamnology (MOUNTAIN GOATS ARE NOT GOATS)
Dasyurology (TASMANIAN DEVILS)
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Editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions and Jake Chaffee
Managing Director: Susan Hale
Scheduling Producer: Noel Dilworth
Transcripts by Aveline Malek
Website by Kelly R. Dwyer
Theme song by Nick Thorburn