Canadian Beaver. Friendly!

Beaver. Who doesn’t love beaver, eh?

Okay, so I stole that headline, or most of it, from Vancouver Theatresports when they competed for the world comedy improv championships in Australia. And I had to tweak it from “We’re going Down Under to come out on top!” but hey, it still works.

And who doesn’t love beaver? And Brazilians?

Okay, maybe Christopher Hitchens, but that was a Brozilian and, as such, completely different.

These beavers gone Brazil are still fully-furred. They are fully-fanged as well, and in a desperate attempt to divert attention from the cattle barons and soybean growing enviro-rapists of South America, a government-funded organization has labeled the mild-mannered (and, if anything, excessively polite) Canadian Beaver as the largest single threat to the South American ecosystem.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.

The document, presented to both governments this month, says only a multimillion-dollar project can protect South America from tens of thousands of beavers gnawing their way through its woodlands…

Fifty North American beavers, Castor canadensis, were introduced to Tierra del Fuego, in southern South America, in the 1940s in order to establish a fur trade. It was a catastrophic mistake. Numbers multiplied dramatically and beavers spread across the archipelago, crossed the Magellan Strait and are now spreading through the mainland….

‘The ecosystem in North America evolved along with the beaver,’ said Donlan. ‘Vegetation there has adapted ways for dealing with it.’ North American trees can grow back from their roots after beavers have gnawed them down, for example.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Now, nobody is pretending that a sudden, unnatural influx of Canadian Beaver is entirely without effect, my ex’s reaction notwithstanding and, indeed, that is why he’s an ex, but it is entirely possible to protect one’s precious and presumably precarious homestead from an influx of aggressive Canadian beaver without taking refuge in expensive governmental flights of eco-fiction.

Just tell her you need to fill your Valtrex prescription, for instance.