dammed beavers: the truth, the half-truth and kinda-like the truth

Like so many of these stories, it arrived in my e-mail in-box. In this case, courtesy of the LinuxSA-Talk mailing list. And it began, again, in typical fashion.

This is an actual letter sent to a man named Ryan DeVries by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Quality, State of Pennsylvania. This guy's response is hilarious, but read the State's letter before you get to the response letter.

Unlike most such tales, this one happens to be true.

Like most such tales, however, the widely distributed version isn't especially accurate.

For a start, the events chronicled in the letters happened in Michigan, USA; not Pennsylvania, USA.

As well, the author credited in the version sent via e-mail is Ryan DeVries.

Now, DeVries is the person addressed in the original letter from David Price of the Michigan Department Of Environmental Quality.

In the version that arrived in my e-mail In Box, however, he's also presented as the author of the infamous letter even though the actual author of the 'dammed beavers' letter is Stephen Tvedten.

So, why did DeVries get the original letter only to have Tvedten write the infamous reply? This is easy to answer: because DeVries was Stephen Tvedten's tenant in 1997, when David Price wrote and sent the 'you need a permit to build a dam' notice.

And why did the 'Pennsylvania version' switch the US state and the author credits (and date, as we'll see below)? This is harder to answer.

The easy thought is to put the errors down to so-called Chinese Whispers. The Pennsylvania version, for example, doesn't include the address from which David Price wrote, making it easy for the state to be switched in error.

The switch of authorial credit required active editorial effort somewhere along the way, however. And this editorial effort likely extended to switching the state as well.

Tvedtan's letter begins as follows:

Your certified letter dated 12/17/97 has been handed to me to respond to. You sent out a great deal of carbon copies to a lot of people, but you neglected to include their addresses. You will, therefore, have to send them a copy of my response.

First of all, Mr. Ryan DeVries is not the legal landowner and/or contractor at 2088 Dagget, Pierson, Michigan -- I am the legal owner

Note Tvedtan gives the full address of the property in question (2088 Dagget, Pierson, Michigan) and explains he's answering because he, not Mr DeVries, is said property's legal owner.

The Pennsylvania version, however, alters this text as follows:

Your certified letter dated 12/17/02 has been handed to me to respond to. I am the legal landowner but not the Contractor at 2088 Dagget Lane, Trout Run, Pennsylvania.

This 're-write' pushes the date up to 2002; removes one snarky comment; elides the reference to Ryan DeVries, but leaves the 'I'm the legal landowner but not the contractor' in, even though these words don't make a lot of sense without the DeVries reference; and changes the address to 'Trout Run, Pennsylvania.'

(FWIW, Trout Run, Pennsylvania, USA is a real place but it's nearly 730 km east of Pierson, Michigan, and it's a fair bit further by road, since you have to swing south to avoid Lake Erie.)

The Pennsylvania version also alters the valediction. Tvedten closes his letter as follows:

Sincerely, Stephen L. Tvedten xc: PETA

Note the formal 'Sincerely' and the 'xc: PETA', making it clear he's sent a copy of the letter to the US-based PETA organisation (whether they were the best folks to 'xc' is another matter altogether).

The widely distributed version 're-writes' the valediction thus:

Thank you. Ryan Devries and the Dam Beavers

No formality, and a final 'joke'.

These aren't the only differences between the original and altered versions, of course. The Pennsylvania version removes the in-letter reference to PETA, for example, and there are other changes. But the two changes detailed above are the ones which concern authorship and things which can establish authorship.

And, so far as I can tell and even though I've no idea why, these changes were made specifically to subvert the actual author's identity.

Which is both insulting and troubling.

Insulting because Stephen Tvedten wrote a clever indictment of over-blown bureaucratic behaviour and it's not unreasonable that he get the credit for his cleverness. And troubling because knowing who actually wrote the letter makes it easier to learn more about the actual events.

Events, it turns out, which aren't as funny or simple as the mis-attributed letters suggest.

The snopes.com report starts us off on the right track, establishing the letters are true and making it clear said letters are the public portion of a dispute between Tvedten and a neighbour.

And said neighbour stands accused of some fairly villainous behaviour: specifically, killing beavers and then complaining about their 'abandoned' dam to various people in officialdom.

The next step is Tvedten's own site. Here we find copies of the original correspondence and follow-up letters concerning the 'dammed beavers' Internet fame.

The second of these pages includes Tvedten's explicit claim his neighbour killed the beavers and that Tom Brokaw

made [the neighbour] look like a fool and called him my "Dam Neighbor" on April Fool's Day a couple of years ago.

I've not been able to dig up vision or a transcript for this, but Vanderbilt University's TV News Archive does list an available report with the headline Michigan/Dam Mess. The abstract makes it clear the report concerns this story (although it gets Tvedten's name wrong):

The dispute in Michigan over unauthorized beaver dams featured; dam scenes shown. [Landowner Stephen TWEEDEN, dam neighbor David HUGHES, Michigan department of environmental quality Ken SILFVEN -- offer differing opinions on the damn beaver dam!]

And the date for this report? 1st April, 1998.

Even without seeing the NBC Evening News broadcast for 1st April 1998, I'm inclined to believe Tvedten's claims at this point. And I'm inclined to think more than a little ill of David Hughes.

Which got me wondering. When I first got distracted by this, I wasn't expecting more than a 30-second trip to snopes.com to get the 'this isn't true' URL for posting back to the LinuxSA-Talk mailing list.

With Snopes telling me the story was true I started looking for evidence of Chinese Whispers at work.

When it became clear (or clear to me: you may not be convinced by the notes above) the Pennsylvania version was deliberately crafted to remove Tvedten's authorship, I wondered who might have done the crafting.

And I'm still wondering as I type.

Trout Place, Pennsylvania is a real place, which is some (albeit slim) evidence the perpetrator of the inaccurate version is associated with that town. OTOH, it's just as likely said perpetrator chose the name at random, or because they think it has a more 'country' feel to it, when compared to 'Pierson, Michigan'. Also, we don't have a motive for pinning the inaccurate version on someone associated with this little town.

Appealing to motive, perhaps David Hughes is the source of the Pennsylvania version. After all he's been made to 'look like a fool' on national US television. Further, he's been credibly accused of beaver killing.

In such a circumstance I might be tempted to deflect attention away from myself by turning the core of the event into an 'urban legend', passed around from e-mail in box to e-mail in box, but with the relevant details altered, so as to make it harder for the 'funny story that everyone wants to tell' to be associated with the rather nastier tale of beavercide and petty selfishness.

This isn't an accusation, of course. I've neither the time nor resources to track down the Pennsylvania version to an actual source.

(If someone else is interested, some quality time with Google's Advanced Search would likely track the first appearance of the altered version on a mailing list or Usenet, which wouldn't be far off it's first appearance in e-mail. The source of that first public posting would be the person I'd start asking for information about where the Pennsylvania version came from in the first place.)

Whoever they are, however, I'd like to go on record as saying they -- and the many folk like them -- are sad and pathetic.

Stephen Tvedten's letter isn't funnier for being attributed to Ryan DeVries. Mary Schmich's 'Wear Sunscreen' column isn't funnier or wittier because you took the trouble to misattribute it to Kurt Vonnegut and misrepresent it as a commencement speech rather than a newspaper column.

I mean, come on! This doesn't even raise to the level of plagiarism.

Whatever emotional void is filled by deliberately changing the credit for material freely available via the web (not free as in beer, I hasten to add, but free as in speech) and then sending it out into the wild, get over it.

Author: Brian Forte

6 thoughts on “dammed beavers: the truth, the half-truth and kinda-like the truth

  1. I enjoyed your work on tracking down the original, Brian. I suppose you will now get a lot of ‘don’t waste space’ flak from linux_talk. . .

  2. Like you I went to Snopes to post the “Isn’t true!” url, only to find it being true! ;-)

    Unlike you I did not have time to spend on this for doing more than reading Snopes…

    Fun reading! :-D

  3. Hi Brian.

    Another interesting piece of investigation :) I had seen this email some years ago and found it funny, but I didn’t bother to trace its origins. Without taking the time to follow the trail myself I would have to take other peoples’ word for what happened, but certainly from what you’ve said I would tend to agree with your conclusions.

    So anyway, here is a sign (that) other people on this earth are reading this stuff :-)

    MAtt.

  4. Brian,

    I vaguely remember this story from years ago, whether through the news or email I don’t recall.

    The original was a great piece of creative writing and you’ve done an excellent job of researching it. Knowing the original author’s name is a real bonus. Bylines are important.

    Thank You, Steve

  5. I live in Williamsport, PA and was a resident of Trout Run (suburban Trout Run–second mountain on the right). What struck me was the reference to Dagget Lane. US 15 and 14 run through it, but there are very few streets. It was easy for me to know that Dagget Lane is not in Trout Run, PA. As for the source of this change, it couldn’t be someone from around here or they would have changed it to a street named Mill, Creamery, Main, Liberty or to Truman Road.

  6. From: tdkuehl@hotmail.com To: binary8@snopes.com Subject: snopes.com: Photo/Video Submission – The Full and Ongoing Saga of The Dam Beavers of Spring Pond Pierson, Michigan

    Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 23:34:08 -0400

    Your reporting of “Dammed Beavers” falls short of the complete story.

    http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/dammed.asp

    You report that Mr. Devries (tenant of Stephen Tvedten – owner of Spring Pond) admitted to physically maintaining abandoned beaver dams. The property owner Stephen L. Tvedten has publicly taken exception to that statement by the Michigan DNR/DEQ and has requested the Michigan DNR/DEQ (recently converted back into one state agency) to provide evidence of any human physical involvement with maintenance of the beaver dams. In 2005, the Montcalm County Road Commission (MCRC) asked Stephen L. Tvedten if he would allow them to hire contractors to trap the beavers at Spring Pond and open the dams- thus proving that the beaver dams at Spring Pond are not abandoned by the beaver. PDF copy of the letter attached.

    Mr. Stephen L. Tvedten has built up a reputation as an environmental champion and taking on bureaucratic governmental agencies. The Beaver Dam incident is only a minor part of his environmental advocacy. I am sending you a PDF with a copy of the MCRC letter to Stephen L. Tvedten in 2005 along with links to Mr.Stephen L. Tvedten web pages. He is an activist and expert regarding pesticide pollution. He has testified at U.S. Congressional Hearings and amazingly at Michigan DEQ hearings on application of commercial pesticides and resulting pollution. He is a licensed pest control provider.

    I currently live about 20 miles away from Spring Pond and am active outdoors man in the immediate area of Spring Pond in Pierson, MI. Spring Pond is aptly named, its water source is springs and a trivial amount of water is gained through any other source (No significant inlet streams and virtually no runoff). This can be verified by looking at watershed maps for the Rogue River/Grand River and online maps at Montcalm County Government web pages. I have had the opportunity to walk around and on hundreds of beaver dams (in Michigan, Indiana, and Colorado). Many of these dams were on streams that become very swollen from runoff during spring snow melts and spring rains. Many of these dams have been abandoned as the food source was depleted around the pond. Most of these dams were very sound despite having been abandoned for long periods of time. The beaver just moved upstream or downstream and built another dam to safely access new food sources. Beaver are very resiliant and persistent. Earlier, while living in Northern Indiana, I have had beaver in my front yard on several occasions cutting down trees and shrubs (in a pond in a large populated subdivision and in a lake that was almost surrounded with year around homes with very heavy recreational power boat traffic). I wasn’t happy about the damage to the trees and shrubs but I appreciated the ability of the beavers withstand the human invasion and damage to their habitat. The lake that I lived on has a man made adjustable dam at an outlet stream to control changes to the water level. The beaver for many years have tried to increase the size of this dam and raise the water level despite human efforts to routinely tear their added debris down. Recently, a solution to continual removal of beaver handiwork was to install a drain pipe to the dam and locate the intake far our in the lake where the beaver are unlikely to find it.

    I have seen historical aerial views of this lake from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, The lake today is significantly smaller (by 50 to 60 acres). Some of the shrinkage is now a very shallow marsh but most of the drained areas are residential lake front property. The shrinkage was caused by several factors – 1. the Kankakee Ditch Project of the 1950s which created a vast network of ditches to drain Northern Indiana (the outlet stream was turned into a large deep drainage ditch). 2. The increased residential development of the lake shore to include dredging and filling shallow areas of the lake to create more building sites. and 3. The elimination of a dam maintained by beavers in favor of an adjustable dam controlled by humans.

    I suspect a similar history for Whitefish Lake.

    Spring Pond outlet stream travels less than 1/4 mile to empty into Whitefish Lake. If you look at http://nmviewogc.cr.usgs.gov/viewer.htm and zoom in you will see several large homes between the outlet of Spring Pond and its confluence into Whitefish Lake. I would wager that the homeowners didn’t pay any attention to Spring Pond when they jammed their homes into this lowland. As a former president of a homeowners association (that had an 8 acre pond) I have seen all sorts of wild fears dreamed up by homeowners that jumped before they looked. They wanted to blame the developer for problems they encountered with water levels and drainage. So they want to tear down the beaver dam – what does that do the property value of the parcel where Spring Pond is located – how far do they drop the water level in Spring Pond. Sounds like the the complainant is crying wolf or that he is afraid that his ox will get gored because he left it out in the open range. Tough luck – that is what flood insurance is for! You want to have a big house with lake front access in a low land along a stream – well then pay for it and don’t expect the beavers to give a dam if your yard gets wet. Another possible and likely scenario is that the beavers may have gone on a dining foray and swiped a few succulent ornamental trees or bushes not knowing it would start a war.

    If you send me an email address, I can send you a PDF with USGS aerial and satellite photos of Spring Pond, the outlet stream and the houses along the 1/4 mile stream flowing into Whitefish Lake. This is an upscale neighborhood with a golf course on one side of Spring Pond and large expensive homes on the other side of Spring Pond. On the other side of their property they are probably having to fight off the Canada Geese from crapping all over their lawns and docks.

    This is the cost and pleasure of living out in the country (Pierson is about 25 miles north of Grand Rapids, MI. Montcalm County is still a wildlife haven and is primarily zoned as agriculture.

    Sincerely,

    Tom Kuehl

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