Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Discussion thread: BEAVER episode is published! (Patreon)

Published:
2024-12-18 20:46:08
Imported:
2026-06

Content

That’s correct. It’s beaver time.

Please enjoy this new published episode about the pond rodents that have captured our hearts. Rob Rich has studied and tracked them for years and we had a delightful convo about everything from their architecture to orange teeth, ancient uses for their … secretions, their population decimation and rehabilitation and some very common questions about slang. I love this one.

Also, let’s discuss the secret at the end. Was Teagan right?

Get into it,

Ward and the Beaver

Files

Castorology (BEAVERS) with Rob Rich - alie ward

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 questio

Comments

Jo

Fantastic episode!! Super happy that my question was answered!! (also fucking impressed Alie pronounced my name right) I really enjoyed the cold open in the beginning!!!

JENN 'Benthopelagic squirrel' ALVAREZ

Still listening but I didn't know they were that big! I was thinking they were the size of a basketball. Clearly I've never seen a beaver *giggles forever*

Doug Pettepier

Loved this episode. I live in a town of about 70,000. We have a bike trail that runs through the city along houses, and it has a small stream running alongside it. I've never seen the beaver that live around that stream, but there's clear evidence with gnawed off trees and trunks with marks. I would not have expected beaver(s) to live within a city. I wish I would have asked that question.

Loch Ness Voices

Looking forward to listening to this one. We’ve had Beaver reintroduced near Glen Affric and it’s been reasonably successful so far. There’s been some ‘unofficial’ releases down near Tayside that hasn’t gone down too well with some of the local farmers. But apparently the population is doing well despite them being effectively dumped there and left to get on with it.

T Noz

Go BEAVS! Too bad they aren't going to make it to a bowl game this season. Guess I can still root for the Ducks.

GhoulNextDoor

I’m not even half way done with the episode yet but damn I love beavers. I had no idea how cool they are but I admire them so much already 🤩

GhoulNextDoor

It’s been a stressful day and beavers are now patching up the holes in my heart and sanity! I needed this dose of wonder

Michael Sherman

How smart are beavers!? Do they have rat like intelligence or are they lacking in the brain department. Also is the running water thing flim-flam?

Maximilian Galindo

Hey I’m Max from the review Alie shouted out. I was not expecting it and it genuinely brought a smile to my face. Ologies is the only podcast I subscribe to and I loveee this episode 💙🦫 Thanks Alie and the team, I like you too 🥰

Emily Krieger

i am loving this ep! the vanilla gland!? where I live, there's a wetland that's home to some beavers and borders a train track and volunteers manage the beaver builds so that they don't cause the water to back up too high against the tracks. the head volunteer is a cognitive psych professor in town and I love thinking about a cog psych expert and a beaver going toe to toe over years.

Tegumante

Wonderful episode, as ever. I'm sure I don't have anything clever to add to what everyone else is saying, so at the risk of being (accurately?) considered a miserly, conservative nit-picker, I will comment on the format. And specifically the "cold open". Oh, so very trendy! Everyone else is doing it. Doing what everyone else is doing is, of course, an option. A popular one, by definition. Another option is to do your own thang. I shall listen with delight anyway, however it starts, but I would sorely, sorely miss the "oh, hey!" opening that, all this time, has been my cue to get ready for the best moment of the week. There, that's my comment. I'm framing it as traditionalists versus fashionistas in the hope of getting other people on my side and convincing Alie to forgo this innovation, but ultimately it doesn't matter. This is still the best podcast, yeah? Cheers!

Ashley Marrs

Awesome episode! Can’t wait to watch the youtube video of the beaver lodge. I too have nearly died of cuteness overload watching the beaver try to build a “dam” out of random household objects. I’ve started using it as a metaphor for when I do things I’m trying to unlearn (ruminating, over-giving and the like). When this inevitably happens I repeat this phrase to myself - “beavers gotta beave” 🥹 and it helps me feel a little better.

Andrew McVay

Polar beaver here… Great episode! The 11 hours of audiobook I listened to from Ben Goldfarb’s book, Eager was a good primer for Castorology with Alie and Rob 👍

Jeri Rae Art

I thought the new intro was confusing. At first I thought I accidentally skipped forward in the episode, so I started it over and was like oh okay this IS the intro. Anyway great episode otherwise :)

Shoshannah

Love Ologies, love you, disliked new intro…. like, a lot. (Or would that be "dislike, a lot" 🤔)

Adrianne Mahon

I enjoyed this episode a lot! I coincidentally have a holiday cookie exchange that I'm participating in, so I have made the dough and it's chilling now. Thank you for saving me from decision paralysis with your secret!

Alli B

The vanilla butt cream shook me. What can’t these guys do?! Also, I like a good teaser cold open to a podcast to draw you in right away. I think people are just used to your funny intros first thing. Don’t worry, they’ll warm up, just like a beaver waterproofing its fur for a cold winter.

Laura McLean

Gonna be That Person, but I didn’t love the cold open. For a split second, I thought there was something wrong with the episode and quickly rewound it to make sure (while driving, which is not your fault). I also love the classic “Oh, hey…”

Waylo

The cold open threw me, but once I realized I hadn’t missed half the podcast, I thought it was very cool! Loved the Beaver pod. Love EVERYTHING Alie Ward! Is it OK that I watch Innovation Nation?

Elyce

Absolutely loved this episode! Not a huge fan of the cold opening but could be that I’m not use to it. It’s fine if it’s there but I don’t think it’s needed.

Keiki Kohne

I like the cold opening, Alie!!!!

Smiley Kylie (she/her)

Alie, I love your show so much 💗 I feel like you put so much effort in and it’s incredible already. I’d adding the cold opening is more work, I vote to skip it because it’s already amazing! Could live with or without it. I hope your holiday season is going incredible!💗

MarysaK

I loved this episode so much. I’m in Canada and so the beaver is stamped on our coins… and printed on our stamps and mascots all the lovely visitor hot spots and I never realized how little I actually knew about them!! Badass chompy lil creatures!! 🦫🇨🇦 Thank you for the hard work and the learning! If anyone comes to visit Canada please try a beaver tail (it’s a doughnut sort of thing not a real one). 🥮🍁❤️

Dylan

i vote no cold opening just because i rly love how episodes normally start so cozy. um also didn’t ever think about beavers as important to this scale. the impacting groundwater thing is so cool. definitely changed how i think about north american ecology !!

Pseudonym Jones IV

When I first heard the zinger opening, I thought Spotify was skipping part of the podcast. I think I restarted it three times before I realized that was the start.

Dylan

yup definitely took me a sec too lol

Alice Munn

I also vote no cold open. Ologies is already perfect 😍

Nicole S

Best eaten on the Rideau Canal RIGHT NOW!!

Sunflower star

Yay, I held off listening to this episode because I wanted to really listen and enjoy it and it didn't disappoint! I learned some about beavers from a local naturalist who keeps field cams on our local little Puget sound creek and her hypothesis is the beaver dams help wild (endangered) coho salmon spawn and creates habitat for them. Another plug for the book Eager- Beavers Matter that goes into the history of fur trade and how beavers were almost wiped out. This episode reminded of some factoids I'd forgotten and learned some new things too.

Alexandria Pinney

I’m listening to this episode right now and just got to the part where he talks about how they can be vectors of invasive plants spreading. First off I love that he specially name dropped Japanese knotweed and reed canary grass (my nemeses). I work in riparian restoration in Washington and took some great photos this summer at one of our restoration sites of beaver dams with knotweed built into and growing out of them. It’s kind of beautiful even though it also hurts a little to see, since a huge part of riparian restoration is controlling noxious weeds like knotweed. Like Rob said it’s a complicated balance, but fortunately compassionate beaver management and coexistence have become much bigger priorities in the restoration world in the past several years (at least where I work). I couldn’t share a photo directly in a comment on here so hopefully this link works? https://jmp.sh/s/r7V5pM7mdjm5qKiwwUiZ This is just one of the better photos in my opinion but I have plenty more, this was part of a series of dams along lower Cherry Creek (trib of the Snoqualmie River)! Also if you look at the background of this pic you can see that the channel is overrun with knotweed, RCG, and Himalayan blackberry.