Interesting and funny encounter today

[OldBroad44]

This

We call 'em "Boomers".
They are very reclusive. I've seen two in my life and parts of our property are covered in their holes.

Why are they called Boomers? Do they make a sound?

 

[Local Loader]

This

Why are they called Boomers? Do they make a sound?

I think it's more cause you hear someone yelling "Fire in the hole!!"

 

[64MercurysRule]

Baby boomers are a generation of people born between 1946 and 1964, and the term comes from the "baby boom" that occurred after World War II. This period was marked by a sharp increase in birth rates, with over 3 million babies born in 1946, more than ever before in U.S. history. The term "baby boom" may have originated in England after World War I, and was used in U.S. newspapers toward the end of World War II. Financial columnist Sylvia Porter may have popularized the term in a 1950 article about the boom's economic impact. The term "baby boomer" itself may have originated in the 1970s, but was popularized by Landon Y. Jones' 1980 book Great Expectations: America & the Baby Boom Generation.

 

[ilikegunspdx]

This is Boomer

 

[64MercurysRule]

Or this guy

 

[OldBroad44]

I'm asking about why mountain beaver are called boomers. Not why humans born right after WII are called baby boomers.

 

[ilikegunspdx]

These are boomers

 

[Flopsweat]

I'm asking about why mountain beaver are called boomers. Not why humans born right after WII are called baby boomers.

Good, 'cause the boomer I dropped this morning is yet another kind, and you don't want to know much about that.

 

[WEE]

Good, 'cause the boomer I dropped this morning is yet another kind, and you don't want to know much about that.

Sooo, that's what I heard. I thought it was a sonic boom.

 

[OldBroad44]

There is a legit reason why someone might take just the antlers of a deer or elk. They wound the animal in the afternoon. Then give up tracking when darkness comes. Go back the next morning and find animal died in the night, and the meat has already turned bad. Under those circumstances most people would probably just take the antlers if they were impressive. Probably is illegal since animal is unreported. However, it's not immoral the way shooting an animal just for the horns or back strap on purpose is.

 

[64MercurysRule]

I'm asking about why mountain beaver are called boomers. Not why humans born right after WII are called baby boomers.

Mountain beavers communicate via tail slaps, which is why they are called 'Boomers.

 

[ilikegunspdx]

Mountain beavers communicate via tail slaps, which is why they are called 'Boomers.

This is a baby boomer

 

[OldBroad44]

Mountain beavers communicate via tail slaps, which is why they are called 'Boomers.

??? Mountain boomers have tiny tails . and a Wikipedia article says they don't build dams or lodges, cut down trees, or communicate by slapping their tails. They probably don't play violins or dance the polish polka either.

 

[CLT65]

We call 'em "Boomers".
They are very reclusive. I've seen two in my life and parts of our property are covered in their holes.

What's funny is that I didn't know that boomers are called mountain beavers. We had them on the banks of the irrigation ditches in the valley pastures on the farm where I grew up. We always had to be careful when riding horses in those areas because of the holes. The old-timers all called them boomers.
From Wikipedia: "Boomer" refers to the loud vocalizations that these usually-solitary animals make when in social situations, but this has not been recorded nor verified.

 

[OldBroad44]

I spent about six months camping out and hiking in an area near Alsea that was full of mountain beaver holes. Just left for a half day per month to buy food. Never heard any booms. Furthermore, mountain beaver have a tiny tail with no flattened end. I suspect they don't use their tail to make sounds. Maybe they just got called boomers by people who called real beaver boomers. Real beaver really do make a loud boom or smack. Have watched them when camping in the N woods in MN. Got to hear wolves howling too, but never saw one.

 

[GWS]

I was at a deli and some knothead with one of those horizontal shoulder holsters was covering everyone behind him. It got better when he started folding his arms and resting his hand on the gun. I asked him to be careful with where his gun was pointing and he had no clue about what I was talking about. Idiots like this are why I don't support open carry.

 

[RVTECH]

Got to hear wolves howling too, but never saw one.

What year was this?

 

[CLT65]

I spent about six months camping out and hiking in an area near Alsea that was full of mountain beaver holes. Just left for a half day per month to buy food. Never heard any booms. Furthermore, mountain beaver have a tiny tail with no flattened end. I suspect they don't use their tail to make sounds. Maybe they just got called boomers by people who called real beaver boomers. Real beaver really do make a loud boom or smack. Have watched them when camping in the N woods in MN. Got to hear wolves howling too, but never saw one.

I can't remember ever hearing them make any noise either, or any kind of booming noise in the valley, except when the duck hunters were out there in the winter.

I don't recall ever actually seeing a boomer either, though I saw muskrats, skunks, raccoons and the occasional beaver.

 

[OldBroad44]

What year was this?

Throughout the 1970s. Timber wolves. Only state in the lower 48 where wolves were never exterminated. They did get poisoned out of the southern 2/3 of the state, the corn belt, which Robert Frost, who lived on a rocky New England farm, said had soil so rich and deep and fertile he was tempted to just eat it straight instead of running it through vegetables. The North Woods in Minnesota is famous for its lakes, fishing, and canoe trails. The soil is pretty poor or shallow. So much so that trees tend to be somewhat stunted. So there's not much farming or livestock keeping for the wolves to get in conflicts with people over. In the southern 2/3 of the state there's much agriculture and not wolves. In Minnesota, as far as I was concerned the most fierce wild critters were the mosquitoes and ticks. There were so many ticks that when I walked my Siberian husky in a grassy or brushy area for an hour, he would pick up a hundred or more ticks. Everyone used tick collars with their dogs.

My first tiny garden was in my yard in St. Paul, Minnesota in that corn belt soil. Just dug it with a shovel. Planted stuff. Never fertilized or watered. Soil was perfect loam. No rocks. Everything grew. Water fell from the sky in suitable amounts at suitable intervals. Later, my first garden in Oregon was a shock. After May it only pretends to rain at best. And even class I Willamette Valley soils need regular infusions of mineral amendments to grow decent crops. And even soils classified as loams in Oregon have, cough, cough, rocks. What Western Oregon mostly doesn't have, though, is mosquitoes, ticks, and summers too hot for me to enjoy getting out in beyond early morning.

 

[johnny bob]

??? Mountain boomers have tiny tails . and a Wikipedia article says they don't build dams or lodges, cut down trees, or communicate by slapping their tails. They probably don't play violins or dance the polish polka either.

Oh no. Now someone will initiate a tax to teach them to play violins and dance the Polish polka.