As they arrive late to the dinner party people are, like, why are you late, Chuck?
"I was having the most amazing beaver experience of my life."
The wife winks, "I watched."
posted by Foam Pants at 12:02 AM on April 15, 2014 [21 favorites]

i love beavers
posted by PinkMoose at 12:23 AM on April 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

That was cool. Thanks for posting it.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:31 AM on April 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

I really enjoyed that - thanks!
posted by xammerboy at 12:34 AM on April 15, 2014

"The beaver stood up like an old man."

In a boat?
posted by KokuRyu at 12:36 AM on April 15, 2014 [7 favorites]

Those look like muppets. :D
posted by sexyrobot at 12:36 AM on April 15, 2014

Really cool footage! Though, I wonder, what would happen if a beaver and a platypus were vying for the same spot? I know I'd have trouble choosing sides.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 12:44 AM on April 15, 2014

Your honor, in the matter of whether Canandians, as they claim, do not actually say "aboot," I would like to enter into evidence this YouTube video, entitled "The Most Amazing Beaver Experience."

/gasps are heard in the courtroom, the lawyers for the Canadians lower their heads, knowing the case is, in fact, lost.
posted by Ghidorah at 12:56 AM on April 15, 2014 [5 favorites]

My most amazing beaver experience was listening to future TV Writer/Producer and Baseball Broadcaster (but NOT Game Designer) Ken Levine when he was playing Top 40 Disc Jockey with the nom-de-radio "Beaver Cleaver". Second most amazing was when the underrated 90's cartoon series The Angry Beavers did a satirical disco song titled (obviously) Beaver Fever (NOBODY named Justin anywhere near it). My media memories are intensely weird.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:58 AM on April 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

THIS IS THE COOLEST.

I want the moment at 1:39 to be meme'd plz.
posted by wemayfreeze at 1:08 AM on April 15, 2014

I like trees a lot more than I like beavers.
posted by tgyg at 1:12 AM on April 15, 2014

Dude. Before we all get too excited, let it be noted that: THIS MAN SCARED THE BEJEEZUS OUT OF A BABY BEAVER. Poor little guy.
posted by susiswimmer at 1:20 AM on April 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

"And how exciting to know that this is Canada's national animal."
posted by Dean358 at 1:30 AM on April 15, 2014 [5 favorites]

oregon's state animal, too. when you walk past a public building here, a beaver looks down on you from the back of our flag. from a distance, it looks like an egg yolk splattered on a field of blue.
posted by bruce at 2:14 AM on April 15, 2014

Beaver House - must be the technical term for what we laypeople call a lodge.
posted by univac at 2:49 AM on April 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

"That branch...looks like it's my neighbor's tree...hehhehheh."
posted by bricoleur at 4:10 AM on April 15, 2014 [3 favorites]

Since an imposter was mentioned, this is the original Beaver Cleaver.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:47 AM on April 15, 2014

I haven't had a beaver experience like that since the 70s!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 4:47 AM on April 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: From a distance, it looks like an egg yolk splattered on a field of blue.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 5:15 AM on April 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

The amazing beaver experience ended with the hole being calmly re-entered.
posted by nathancaswell at 5:38 AM on April 15, 2014

I also don't think I've ever seen an ice hole entered that calmly.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 5:48 AM on April 15, 2014

I kept waiting for him to get angrily ordered off the construction site for failure to wear a hard hat.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:49 AM on April 15, 2014

I like trees a lot more than I like beavers.

Then you should hope for more beavers -- their dams create higher water tables and more frequent inundation, which brings intense riparian tree growth. They know what they are doing, and effectively create tree plantations that provide food and building materials.

Rivers without beavers often erode into deep, incised channels, with the water table so far down that riparian vegetation can't survive. Beaver reintroduction is being used to bring those channels back up -- the illustrations here show the process exactly.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:08 AM on April 15, 2014 [17 favorites]

their dams create higher water tables and more frequent inundation, which brings intense riparian tree growth

This is a regional issue. In other areas their dams flood areas and kill even more trees.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 6:13 AM on April 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

I like trees a lot more than I like beavers.

A common refrain on r/trees .
posted by surplus at 6:26 AM on April 15, 2014

There really are beavers in Martinez.
posted by bukvich at 6:47 AM on April 15, 2014

I don't understand, are you saying there's some sort of innuendo in riparian growth and death?
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 7:11 AM on April 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

There really are beavers in Martinez.

I live just across the straits, in Benicia, and I've seen what I believe to be a beaver dam out in our state park several times. It used to be visible from Highway 780 between the Glen Cove and Columbus Parkway exits.

I haven't seen it for a bit, so it's great to see that Martinez has the situation well in hand.
posted by Myca at 7:43 AM on April 15, 2014

The association of feminine parts with the word "riparian" makes me profoundly queasy.
posted by Wolof at 7:55 AM on April 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

What is great about this is that "beaver" is also slang for a woman's vagina.

Wait, what?
posted by The Bellman at 8:03 AM on April 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

> Your honor, in the matter of whether Canandians, as they claim, do not actually say "aboot," I would like to enter into evidence this YouTube video, entitled "The Most Amazing Beaver Experience."

This is a common error. Canadians do not say "aboot" (/?'buwt/), they say /?'b?wt/, with a central-vowel diphthong that cannot be accurately represented by standard English orthography. The error is understandable, but it is also understandable that Canadians are annoyed by it; please do the right thing and give up this meme!

Also: great video—thanks for posting it!
posted by languagehat at 8:14 AM on April 15, 2014 [4 favorites]

Another memorable beaver experience ... Beaver attack!
Penn Powell has lived all his life in the woods, and has been attacked by "pretty near every animal in the bush" ... but when Canada's national symbol rounds on him on a dark and stormy night, the result is both hilarious and painful. In this much-requested clip, Powell gives CBC Radio's Markus Schwabe a colourful rendition of his encounter - including the fearful moment the ferocious rodent went "after my honeymoon jewels!"
posted by dougzilla at 8:20 AM on April 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

Love the wife watching with binoculars.
posted by jessamyn at 8:38 AM on April 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

In college, I took a date to the Boston Museum of Science to see the current Omnimax movie. It turned out to be called "Beavers," but we'd ridden the T a long way so we decided to stay and see it.

At the very last minute before the lights went down, two duuuudes snuck in and grabbed the aisle seats next to us. They were giggling and stank of weed. As the movie started up, and the giant rodents appeared onscreen, these two stoners shrank into their seats in horror.

(We later figured they must have come into the wrong theater: the Pink Floyd Laser Light Show is in the planetarium across the same lobby, and weekend evening MoS visitors have seen more than a few people in line for that show with bloodshot eyes.)

So anyway, the beavers -- being shown in fisheye-distored images three stories tall -- make this "chuff-chuff-chuff"noise as they go about their beavery day, and every time they did that the duuuuuudes would flinch a little deeper into their seat cushions. Before long we were the ones giggling, and the stoners fled the theater as soon as the credits rolled.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:53 AM on April 15, 2014 [11 favorites]

I love the SERIOUS BIZNESS beavers being all "DUDE, WE'RE TRYING TO WORK HERE GET OUT OF THE WAY, MONKEY."
posted by rmd1023 at 10:01 AM on April 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

Feels incomplete without the CBC logo showing up somewhere at the end.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:05 AM on April 15, 2014

This appears to be the original video upload.
posted by maudlin at 10:12 AM on April 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

Baby beaver slo-mo freakout!
posted by jessamyn at 10:17 AM on April 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yeah, mods should switch out the link to the original uploader.
posted by Think_Long at 10:22 AM on April 15, 2014

Done!
posted by jessamyn at 10:24 AM on April 15, 2014

I would like to enter into evidence this YouTube video, entitled "The Most Amazing Beaver Experience."

Hmm. Doesn't work for me, but I'm Canadian and maybe I can't hear it. I need to get /?wt/ more.

All I hear is the normally enthusiastic voice of Brian Keating, who is the (now ex-, apparently) Conservation Outreach Coordinator for the Calgary Zoo. I'm always glad to hear him on CBC, because he's so enthusiastic, and so sharp when it comes to explaining why we should care about the natural world.
posted by sneebler at 11:00 AM on April 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

Came here for the US Airways jokes.

posted by mmrtnt at 12:20 PM on April 15, 2014

Isn't the whole point of a beaver lodge that it's an impenetrable fortress where beavers can eat and sleep away the winter in safety? It seems like single-minded construction efforts that ignore a potential predator at arms length would cancel out all that protection. I know the guy told the beavers that he meant them no harm, but everybody knows beavers don't actually understand English.
posted by vytae at 12:27 PM on April 15, 2014

Maybe these were really stupid beavers. Or maybe they were French Canadian?
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 12:59 PM on April 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

oregon's state animal, too.

Also, New York!
posted by Obscure Reference at 1:09 PM on April 15, 2014

It seems like single-minded construction efforts that ignore a potential predator at arms length would cancel out all that protection

Beavers are not stupid. They build at the dam site that they have, not at the dam site they would like. If you have a lot of people and a lot of beavers then you get dams built in people's yards.
posted by bukvich at 1:11 PM on April 15, 2014

[maudlin] This appears to be the original video upload.

[Think_Long] Yeah, mods should switch out the link to the original uploader.

[jessamyn] Done!

Excellent. Before posting I did a quick search to look for another/original source (because it appeared the link I found was probably not from the account of the narrator), but there¡¯s a lot of beaver on YouTube.
posted by D.C. at 2:21 PM on April 15, 2014

A bit sad that the title I quoted is not on the original, though. So it goes. He does say it on the video.
posted by D.C. at 2:29 PM on April 15, 2014

What a great video (although the constant mentions of the "beaver house" made me think of the honey badger going into the "house full of bees").
posted by jamesonandwater at 4:56 PM on April 15, 2014

OMG: Beaver Bombs.

In the 1940s, Idaho¡¯s Department of Fish and Game embarked on an effort both larger in scale and kookier in method. Finding long, dusty overland trips too hard on the beavers, the department instead packed pairs of the animals into crates, loaded them onto airplanes bound for drought-stricken corners of the state, and dropped them by parachute. (The crates were rigged to open on impact.)

posted by Mitheral at 7:32 PM on April 15, 2014 [6 favorites]

It seems like single-minded construction efforts that ignore a potential predator at arms length would cancel out all that protection.

Beavers aren't brilliant but they can recognize individual humans. "Guy who is around all the time and has never tried to hurt us" probably falls pretty low on their threat list.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:57 PM on April 15, 2014

I can't believe that nobody mentioned the little guy WALKIN ON HIS HIND LEGS, carrying all those sticks, just like you'd think they ought to but you'd guess they never do!

I mean, yeah, yeah cute animals, whatever, but seriously, bipedal beaver! Little dude is a vest, a watch chain, and a Kinks song away from being in a Wes Anderson movie!
posted by hap_hazard at 12:30 AM on April 16, 2014 [3 favorites]

All I hear is the normally enthusiastic voice of Brian Keating, who is the (now ex-, apparently) Conservation Outreach Coordinator for the Calgary Zoo. I'm always glad to hear him on CBC, because he's so enthusiastic, and so sharp when it comes to explaining why we should care about the natural world.

Thanks for the background sneebler! I really enjoyed his enthusiasm and educated narration as well, I could tell he wasn't just "some dude" by how professional and knowledgeable he sounded.

Love the video, thanks for posting D.C.!
posted by dubitable at 8:05 AM on April 16, 2014

Angry Beaver Stops Traffic To Protest Climate Change
posted by homunculus at 4:42 PM on May 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Leave it to Beavers
posted by homunculus at 8:09 PM on May 14, 2014