Nothing against the beaver community, but it seldom repairs the damage of the swamps it constructs and the accompanying foul bacteria of its stagnant water. When President Trump coined Washington the “swamp” and called for the need to dredge it, he was spot on with his analogy. Where else can we start to stem the flow of corruption and influence peddling other than by limiting the time any one representative can serve in office. Six years seems like a logical time frame. But how do we get the beaver to sign on when limits are not in his interest and they themselves are in the swamp building business? This would take a constitutional amendment. But who would propose such a radical piece of legislation? And trapping is regulated by swamp family members. Shooting them is illegal unless their population is threatening other creatures as well as the survival of the beaver population itself. Like an over abundance of white-tailed deer similar to what happened in the Quabbin over a dozen years ago. Hunting them was considered more humane than a winter of starvation and savage coyote attacks.

So, what’s it going to be? The proliferation of the swamp with all its infectious ways or a controlled cessation of the beaver community. Is the beaver inherently bad or just misguided? But right now he seems incorrigible. It’s all about nature — and good and evil.

Brad Brigham

Colrain