Large snake eats beaver, swims across river where kids play

[jpak]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/29/officer-spots-snake-eating-a-beaver-along-prescups/

WESTBROOK, Maine (AP) - The hunt for a large snake seen feasting on a beaver in Maine has residents atwitter.

Police in Westbrook say the 10-foot-long snake finished its meal early Wednesday and then swam across the Presumpscot River and disappeared into brush on the other side. Residents are alarmed because children swim and feed ducks in that section of the river.

The snake was quickly dubbed Wessie and the Presumpscot Python by residents on social media. A Twitter hashtag was created, and someone made a fake account for the snake.

Police are patrolling the riverbank. But the snake is nowhere to be seen.

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[pinboy3niner]

1. That headline could also apply to many humans

[mia]

2. Scientists Acquire More Proof That Only Beavers Can Save the World

We’ve already seen how beavers can save California from its seemingly endless drought. Now it looks like they can save the world from industrial farming by changing the chemistry of the water, making them natural biochemists.

For quite some time, the world starved for nitrogen. It’s a necessary component for life, and essential for growing crops. Nitrogen makes up most of the atmosphere around us, but getting it out of the air and into the soil could only be done by certain plants and creatures. As nitrogen was sucked from the soil, crop land grew less and less productive and people went hungry. The discovery of nitrogen fixation — grabbing nitrogen from the air and putting it into fertilizers — has saved billions of people from starvation.

But every discovery has its drawbacks. Nitrogen fertilizers on farm land get washed into streams, where they fuel an algae population boom. The algae use up the oxygen in the streams, the rivers, and eventually parts of the ocean, leaving nothing for the fish and leading to large “dead zones.”

Biologists at the University of Rhode Island were studying the nitrogen content of streams and noticed something odd: whenever there were beaver ponds upstream, nitrogen levels dropped. Beaver ponds slow down river water, and they mix it with organic matter, which must have an effect on river chemistry, but scientists didn’t know exactly what was happening in that murky water....

http://gizmodo.com/scientists-acquire-more-proof-that-only-beavers-can-sav-1737859426

[MADem]

3. At least he ate first before he started skulking around the kiddies! nt

[intrepidity]

4. Found him

thanks to:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018876930