Beaver Tales: Audrey Tournay and the Aspen Valley Beavers [Paperback]

Audrey Tournay (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

For well over 30 years, Audrey Tournay has rescued and raised beaver kits. She successfully did what wildlife biologists told her was impossible: she reintroduced them to the wild.

Tournay is founder of the Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, where orphaned or injured moose, raccoons, ravens, skunks, foxes, fawns, woodchucks, muskrats, wolves, a lynx -- even a full-grown adult lioness -- have come into her care. Yet Tournay has a soft spot for beavers. That soft spot has occasionally been her bathroom, a makeshift den behind her woodstove, or on her lap. Her hands-on interaction with many beavers has given her a special understanding of these often misunderstood wetland animals.

These wonderful, moving and often very funny stories reveal life with one of North America's most intelligent, innovative, and inventive wild creatures.

(20030731)

Editorial Reviews

Review

[Tournay] has a passionate interest in these creatures ... her stories ... can be enjoyed by the whole family. (Judith Ruan Muskoka Magazine 200307)

Tournays' often compelling evidence is presented in her usual folksy way... revealing small wonders along the way. (Martha Armstrong The Muskokan 20030915)

In writing that is full of wit and compassion, Beaver Tales brings to life Canada's national symbol. (Macleans 20040812)

Beaver Tales is one of the best animal books that I've read in years. (Glenn Perrett Cottage Times )

From the Author

Sharing Beaver Tales has been both joy and privilege. Beavers are such wonderful beings! Even after all the years of knowing them, they still have much to teach me. Just now I have two orphaned beaver kits, Nipissing and Nipigon, who are the most stubborn, opinionated beavers I have ever known! (Though not siblings, they were both orphaned when their lodges, unwanted on golf courses, were dynamited.) Never before have I looked after beavers who did not like apples. These two prefer peaches -- which happen to be much more expensive. So I decided they would eat apples. I took all other food out of their enclosures. I cut two apples in half, and put them in front of the kits. And left them.

Half an hour later I returned. Four slices of apple, pushed through the wire, were lying uneaten on the floor. Nipissing and Nipigon were sitting on their big behinds, staring at me and waiting to be fed.

The day will come when, grown, these kits will swim away into the wild, and find the food that they prefer.

Meanwhile, I am enjoying them. Beavers are very, very special creatures.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: Boston Mills Press; First edition (May 5, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1550464108
• ISBN-13: 978-1550464108
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,026,376 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read, November 15, 2003

By 

Valerie Adolph "Coast Journal" (Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beaver Tales: Audrey Tournay and the Aspen Valley Beavers (Paperback)

This is the story of one woman's crusade to save beavers. The writer runs the Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in Ontario, Canada. It's a sanctuary that accepts all kinds of wildlife and nurses and nurtures them until most of them can be released back into the wild. But the writer has a special affinity for beavers and in addition to the regular work of nursing and nurturing she and individual beavers do a whole lot of education, especially in schools.

The writer is both literate and passionate about her subject. For many years she has been called upon to deal with the aftermath of human interaction with beavers. Farmers dynamite dams and she gets a phone call from a concerned observer "All the beavers seem to be dead except this one kit who is hurt/burned/starving. Can you help?" And so arrives Quibble, or Casey or Cassidy. One beaver at a time to be healed physically and emotionally as best a human can.

Transposed upon this "one at a time" are the facts and statistics: Canada was explored and developed in order to obtain beaver pelts. The beaver appears on the Canadian nickel not because it embodies the virtue of hard work but because it was once the back bone of the Canadian economy. And the writer points out that even now trappers in Canada "harvest" between 150,000 and 184,000 beaver pelts every year. (I'm Canadian, by the way, but it isn't just Canada that traps animals.) And these numbers don't count the number of beaver dams dynamited because they are inconvenient for farmers, home-owners and city planners.

The strength of this book lies in the juxtaposition of the mindless dreadful cruelty of mankind and the quiet humanity of rescuers and nurturers like the writer. (How can you fathom the mind of a reporter who turns up to do a story at the Wildlife Sanctuary wearing a beaver coat?) I loved this book. I laughed, I cried and I ended up angry and sleepless. Thank you Audrey Tournay and Boston Mills Press for a book I shall long remember.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read, November 15, 2003

By 

Valerie Adolph "Coast Journal" (Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beaver Tales: Audrey Tournay and the Aspen Valley Beavers (Paperback)

This is the story of one woman's crusade to save beavers. The writer runs the Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in Ontario, Canada. It's a sanctuary that accepts all kinds of wildlife and nurses and nurtures them until most of them can be released back into the wild. But the writer has a special affinity for beavers and in addition to the regular work of nursing and nurturing she and individual beavers do a whole lot of education, especially in schools.

The writer is both literate and passionate about her subject. For many years she has been called upon to deal with the aftermath of human interaction with beavers. Farmers dynamite dams and she gets a phone call from a concerned observer "All the beavers seem to be dead except this one kit who is hurt/burned/starving. Can you help?" And so arrives Quibble, or Casey or Cassidy. One beaver at a time to be healed physically and emotionally as best a human can.

Transposed upon this "one at a time" are the facts and statistics: Canada was explored and developed in order to obtain beaver pelts. The beaver appears on the Canadian nickel not because it embodies the virtue of hard work but because it was once the back bone of the Canadian economy. And the writer points out that even now trappers in Canada "harvest" between 150,000 and 184,000 beaver pelts every year. (I'm Canadian, by the way, but it isn't just Canada that traps animals.) And these numbers don't count the number of beaver dams dynamited because they are inconvenient for farmers, home-owners and city planners.

The strength of this book lies in the juxtaposition of the mindless dreadful cruelty of mankind and the quiet humanity of rescuers and nurturers like the writer. (How can you fathom the mind of a reporter who turns up to do a story at the Wildlife Sanctuary wearing a beaver coat?) I loved this book. I laughed, I cried and I ended up angry and sleepless. Thank you Audrey Tournay and Boston Mills Press for a book I shall long remember.