Well the good news is that in the slapdash load of documents CDFW  handed over there were accidentally many permits that were duplicates and even some triplicates. Which meant that after I painstakingly tracked down individual WIR numbers  (and oh my god what a pain) there were many less permission slips given to kill beavers than we were lead to believe.

In all 122 permits were issued in the state which allowed a total of 1478 beavers. Still too many but much much better than we thought. Mostly in the usual places but some beaver pioneers out there in Kern and Tehama. I still have work to do to show a finished product so I’ll leave you in Pamela’s capable hands.

Friday was document dump day at CDFW. Our PRA request for the 2025 depredation permits for beavers was released with usual horror. I’ll be busy at working pulling the numbers into a shapes that tell us what we want to know today but let me just start by saying the State of California with all its fancy new restoration team and help desk gave permission to kill more beavers than ever before last year and let that be enough for now.

I can’t think of any crowd of people more likely to appreciate this shirt than the attendees at out own beaver festival. Trailkeepers generous donation may have created a dangerous Christmas sale at the mall stampede moment.