46 Union Bay 



vers are facing almost insurmountable obstacles. Although 

 nearly everybody likes them, nobody is willing to pay the 

 price for their support. The desirable trees near the water 

 are netted, the less-favored ones are disappearing. Many of 

 the trees in nearby residence districts are being protected. 

 It is quite unlikely that the available trees will support more 

 than a few pairs of these animals, yet if a pair is around they 

 will multiply. 



Under that harsh unwritten human law which says that 

 the existence of the so-called lower animals must be subor- 

 dinated entirely to the needs and wishes of man, there seems 

 to be only two means of tolerating the increasing beaver 

 supply. One is their limitation to the back country where 

 they can do no damage and where conditions favor them. 

 The other lies in the possibility that they will modify their 

 diet and get away from the shadow of the dollar by relying 

 completely on the waste products which it is said they now 

 eat when trees are unobtainable. I had always considered 

 such diet flexibility extremely improbable until Nature Mag- 

 azine recently published an article in which the well-known 

 biologist, Dr. Victor B. Scheffer of the United States Fish 

 and Wildlife Service, expresses the opinion that in the semi- 

 arid conditions of eastern Oregon ". . . the animals [beavers] 

 will, if necessary, exist comfortably on a diet of aquatic 

 grasses and willows." 



Important as this observation is, it is overshadowed by the 

 statement: "The beavers soon establish a condition of 'sus- 

 tained yield/ the goal of the professional forester." In elabo- 

 rating, he says : 



Judging from observations, a colony of beavers may establish such a 

 relationship with the willow vegetation that as fast as the bushes are 

 consumed or destroyed, a like amount of new vegetation grows up to 

 replace the loss. While no one would seriously suggest that the 

 beaver "plans" the sustained yield program, the end result is the same. 



