How beavers can fully revitalise a farm
At Mossy Earth, we're always exploring nature-based solutions for our rewilding projects. With numerous initiatives across Scotland, delving into the impact of beavers has piqued our curiosity. Join us as we uncover the incredible role these creatures play in restoring ecosystems and revitalizing landscapes.
🌾 To support our work you can become a member here: mossy.earth
MOSSY EARTH MEMBERSHIP
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The rewilding membership that restores nature across a wide range of ecosystems.
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Learn more and become a member here: mossy.earth/
⏱️TIMESTAMPS⏱️
0:00 Intro
1:01 History of beavers in Scotland
3:15 Benefits of beavers to the Ecology
6:36 Benefits of beavers to the people
🌳 MENTIONED IN VIDEO
Beaver Trust - beavertrust.org/
Toms Farm - argatyredkites.co.uk/
Farms instagram - instagram.com/argatyredki...
🔎 ABOUT THIS VIDEO
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In this video, we delve into the fascinating world of rewilding, with a focus on the remarkable role of beavers in Scotland. We explore the history and resurgence of Eurasian beavers in the UK, from extinction to reintroduction efforts as we showcase the invaluable contributions of beavers to wetland ecology and biodiversity, while addressing challenges and misconceptions surrounding their reintroduction.
If you would like to support our rewilding projects then please consider becoming a member here: mossy.earth - Cheers, Duarte
So you weirdos use plastic zip ties instead of hemp rope. You don't care about the environment..
There's nothing like trying to build a dam of sticks and mud to put you in absolute awe of the beaver- amazing creatures- and the lodges are more incredible still!
"Beaver Magic" was my nickname in high school
I am sure that there is a reason, but have you folks tried driving pilings in the stream beds angled up stream and just let the debris in the stream get caught in the pilings. Picture a bunch of "fingers" sticking out of the stream "grabbing" stuff. Might be less work on your part and require less material to be brought with. I only mention it because as kids we used to do something similar to cause pools to form on our local creek to make more frog habitat (kids love catching frogs).
Do not release the beavers yet or they will eat all the few trees there. May you plant more trees in England so that together we will help re-green Mother Earth and make this planet cooler..
A very important point was said: with or without the presence of beavers, farmers should be incentivized to "keep water in their lands" as opposed to clearing and plowing every square meter right up to the river banks.
Yes, a part of the bigger picture incentives really do need to be in place to ensure coexistence. Cheers, Rob
Not even just for conservation reasons, but like the farmer here said, it keeps the farm itself more resilient through dry times by giving the ground more of a chance to absorb the water as it flows through! It's surprising that's not a standard part of responsible farming practice
The weird thing is, any intelligent person should have seen the natural incentive of doing that. It's as if we have to pay people to drink enough water every day - don't your own senses provide the incentive you need?
Permaculture farmers are all about water capture. As one myself I would love a beaver family on my farm, if I could provide a habitat they’re thrilled with.
@@Ealsante I don't think the average person is taught about ground water much, if at all. A handful of people may learn a cherrypicked selection of things if they get a well dug/drilled, but the average person doesn't think much about what they don't know. For a (likely) personal example to you, did you know it's much less carbon intensive to repair an iPhone than purchase a new one?
I see mossy earth beavers. I click. These are exactly the kinds of projects that made me a member in the first place and why I continue wanting to help. It is truly wonderful what you're doing!
I wish one day to be able to make such a generous contribution. It makes so happy to see people supporting conservation and restoration efforts. I thank you because these projects benefit our whole society even if we live far away and even if we'll never see them in person, they enrich us all
Just as a small info: KZhead takes a 30% cut of the 'Super Thanks' donations. 🤔
@@duck3265 what!!!
@@duck3265 omg really? Good to know
I am so grateful to the editors for allowing that very thoughtful and informed farmer to speak his whole statement. Too often testimonies like that feel cut down and sound-byted. So thank you again, Mossy Earth!
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I agree! He really captured well the hurdle to greater collaboration and implementation of these reintroduction projects.
Specially since he talked about reasons why farmers can feel skeptical of efforts by conservationists, and how they tend to want opposite things
Yes. Tom seems like a guy I'd love to invite over for dinner.
Yes, this video was unexpectadly open and even handed about the positives and negatives of beaver re introduction. It didn't shy away of admitting this isn't a cure all and that there are complexities to the situation.
i fucking love beavers man.
So do we!!!! Cheers, Rob
@@MossyEarth❤❤❤
Language, for fucks sake... 🧐
I love fucking beavers too.
i love fucking beavers man
The beavers came back up the creek near my house last year and really changed the local ecology for the better. We had water all summer in the pond, some of which I pumped onto my garden and will be crucial with the changing climate. Better yet the beaver pond provided habitat for mink which have significantly reduced the ground squirrel and rabbit populations, which were a plague in my garden. The pond also provided habitat for more frogs and dragonflies which help keep the mosquito population down. The presence of the beavers are a huge win for us.
Wow... As a USAmerican who lives in native North American beaver range, I'm even more thankful to live somewhere where the beaver is still thriving. I live in a wetlands area and once or twice I've seen beaver chewed stumps and branches! So cool!
Sounds really cool, lucky to be so close to them. Cheers, Rob :)
Here in the US we have a lot of a work to do restoring watersheds to be viable beaver habitat but good work is being done by grad students at Oregon State studying the effects of BDAs in the upper Great Basin
@@benmiller3358 Yes! Love Oregon State. Easily the leading U in the country in quiet, dedicated environmental and ecological studies and research. Unlike so many now where they constantly squawk and holler across ever single medium they can of their narratives, OSU consistently remains quiet and rather stoic with it. That's the way to do it, too. Not in everyone's faces and feeds nonstop screaming the world is burning and we're all gonna die. It's ironic too given so much of their studies, research and work has proven a load of the mainstream climate related narratives false. And I adore that. They allow nature, history and the ecosystems to teach them, not the usual way around.
@@TheCriminalViolin "much of their studies, research and work has proven a load of the mainstream climate related narratives false" Yeah, they've been proven the situation to be WORSE than the previous predictions, not better......where's the logic in doing nothing in an emergency/disaster, just because people are trying to convey how bad the problem is? You're stuck in your OWN narrative.
They are still enemy number 1# for farmers here. I was privileged enough to find beavers that had inhabited a small farm pond many years ago. But the farmer must have trapped or shot them. I have not been back out to the pond in recent years. Beavers are supposedly extinct here since the days of trappers. But finding them once, shows they aren't. I am in the US in the farming state of Ohio. I have to believe the population they came from is in the local protected waterway, which is called Alum Creek, which runs a few miles away.
In the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom beavers were in some places under protection since at least 1529 and they did not go extinct in the XVIth century in Central Europe, as suggested in the video. Although they were on the brink of local extinction due to WWII. But now it's over 100 000 little guys roaming around in the mentioned areas.
What about WWII made them almost disappear? Pollution? Shellings?
@@BrentwoodFamilyinVietnam a lot, you could say.
@@gamedominatorxennongdm7956 Poor little fellas :(
@@BrentwoodFamilyinVietnam to clarify, I'm not really knowledgeable about this topic but knowing the history of the eastern front, it's not hard to grasp whatever horrible things those beavers where subjected to.
@@gamedominatorxennongdm7956 It's so good that they can live peacefully now :). This makes me want to see one in person, but I live in Vietnam, and they're not native here.
There is no such thing as enough videos about our all mighty beavers!
Indeed! More to come ;) - Cheers, Duarte
Where I live in the US, beavers have come back over the last 20 years... Such a positive change along the river I live next to... More birds, fish and insects. More and more native plants seem to be coming back, too. It's slow and subtle. For certain, our droughts don't dry up the river as before. Cheers to Moss Earth!
At one of our local lakes/natural areas, we actually have to remove beaver induced buildups in the culverts that were installed to encouage waterflow out of the stream that escapes from the lake. The area is already a well managed wetland, as well as having a restored prarie and a thriving old growth forest. The beavers have very nice infrastructure along the streams north inflow that feeds the lake, and the thought is that the path that goes around the lake doesnt need to be more flooded than it already gets in the spring. Cool to see the opposite take place here.
My friend used to collect information in parks in the Midwestern USA, and the beavers were so determined to build dams, they would gum up mechanisms the park officials used to monitor the water. She had many frustrated stories about how clever and resourceful they were. They would weave brambles, feces and all kinds of scavenged materials into the monitor sites in escalation to stop the workers from removing their constructions. It was one case where the beavers weren't beneficial in a very certain case, but when they didn't need to "argue" about locations, they could see why the beavers were able to transform landscapes so easily.
Ive been binging about rewilding projects in Scotland all weekend. This is just the cherry!
A tasty beaver cherry on your Scottish rewilding cake! Cheers, Rob
In Canadian schools I was taught about how European fur traders were obsessed with beaver pelts, I assumed Europe didn't have beavers because of the absurd demand, but it seemed weird how quickly it caught on as it seemed like they all knew what they were already doing. didn't consider that you used to have beavers lol, perfectly explains the excitement, they knew exactly what they had, it's value and how to use it. I wish we had more beavers in my part of the country, but we were known more for the massive herds of bison, which would flatten the great plains as they migrated, not as sophisticated as beavers but they did shape their environment, don't really have much roaming bison these days which is disappointing, there is historically there were herds with thousands of bison, but it is not like that anymore, I never seen a single bison or beaver in the wild.
I've heard talk that the Finnic languages got into northeastern Europe precisely because they were running the beaver trade like 1000 BC-500 AD.
If you had lived in Manitoba for any length of time you would see beavers everywhere. The numbers in Canada are back to pre fur trade levels.
The discussion on conservationists vs farmers and the 'one doing something to the other' at 9:30 is very relevant here in Belgium, where after continued protests by farmers, there is now a push from some politicians and farming unions to no longer allow two large conservation entities in Belgium (Natuurpunt en Bond Beter leefmileu) to no longer be allowed to buy any land that could be used for farming and turn it into conservation. This came to a conflict where farmers actually drove their tractors to a conservation outreach event where families were planting a (tiny!) new forests and protested there.
Its gotten to a very sad place... :( There must be a way to balance things and have both a productive and healthy landscape. Tom in this video really leads the way. - Cheers, Duarte
@@MossyEarthIndeed! What saddens me most is that it has turned nature conservation into a political battle. Now, being interested in conservation has become yet another thing that is an us-versus-them, and no longer just people, regardless of background, who want to help restore mother nature and give our children a greener, healthier world.
Our dear politicians turned nature conservation into a political scapegoat so that when farmers were suffering they could just blame nature restoration and direct their anger towards those who are trying to fix an unsustainable system, instead of actually helping farmers with their real problems which ironically come from competing with products which don't follow the correct standards, and the gradual deterioration of the soil due to intensive farming practices, we are being made to fight when we should be moving towards the same goal, and I find that the worst form of lying politicians and distribution companies have done and I hope both nature and farmers manage to notice who the real enemy is and we stop going at each others throats because of ignorance
I think that is partly due to conservation being hijacked by a certain faction of the political spectrum, creating natural resistance in the "opponents". Thinks are viewed black and white and with only a short term outlook. But what the farmers see is their livelihood threatened. So the farmers should be helped so they can practice regenerative agriculture insofar possible, and allow conservation efforts as it ultimately benefits them too.
@@purpurina5663 while you are partly right, it doesn't help that at the same time farmer unions and such have been also hijacked by the other side, big corporations that sell them seeds and pesticides and are therefore interested in maintaining a status quo, it all essentially leads to conservationists and farmers being used for a proxy war between megalomaniac politicians and corporations, and that can never end well
It's unfortunate that the farmers like Tom are not the ones we generally see and hear from. In so many countries, the umbrella organisation for farmers is dominated by large farms, conservative and reactionary farmers, and the companies they deal with. There are so many small farmers trying to work with nature, but their point of view is rarely heard. As Tom said, there have been a few occasions where reintroduced beavers have had a negative impact on the farmer, but these are disproportionately cited, while the positive impacts are rarely heard. Of course, this is typical of 'news': more people seem to 'click on' bad news than good. However, considering that beavers are native animals, it does seem bizarre that one needs a licence to reintroduce them, especially when you consider that there is no control at all over owning cats, who cause incalculable damage to native wildlife. Another lovely video, Rob, especially those wonderful shots of beavers feeding - as another commenter mentioned, I can't get enough of these! ❤
It's insane when you contrast the necessary steps to release some few native beavers, vs those necessary to release hundreds of millions of exotic birds annually. Nice video.
OMG another beaver update!!!! J'adore!!!
There's so many interesting ways to talk about beavers!! Cheers, Rob
I've really been wanting to see beavers get rewilded. Born and raised in Oregon, it's insane how much they were hunted to almost nothing. Oregon is the beaver state yet we have so few beavers around here nor. I really hope we see a mass influx of beavers. Wetlands are so important to create a flourish ecosystem
We have native beavers here in the mid-west. They do a tremendous job of revitalizing areas for wildlife. It is reckoned that most of the best farm land in the US was made by beavers. There are many schemes to bring these wonderful animals back to a real they have been missing from. In some places beavers make burrows not lodges.
It's the same with the European beavers. Here in Sweden they often make burrows. If there's enough water anyway they don't bother with huts and dams. They still fell trees though, storing branches as winter food under the ice.
Perfect time to get involved in environmentalism in Scotland, I started my MSC Environmental Management this January, can't wait to get more in the field!
Fun fact all the beavers in England were eaten up because the church classified them as fish for some wild reason
That is wild... a little disturbing! Cheers, Rob
@@MossyEarth it is, and thanks for the heart, Rob!
Nothing wild, church people wanted to eat meat during their fasting and classified beavers as 'fish' entirely for that reason. not that christian, huh
Catholics did the same in South America with the Capibara. Because it spends so much time water, they classified it as a fish so the faithful would have something to eat during Lent when they're supposed to forego eating meat.
Just like alligator is fish in Louisiana haha
It's always awesome to know that in my area (rural east germany) we still have decent wildlife populations. For example there are multiple beaver families in the neighbouring towns. I really enjoy just taking a rest in the open lands here; you can watch deers, birds and so much more just sitting down. It's very calming.
That is the effect nature has :) We need to have it in our landscape! - Cheers, Duarte
Love beavers for their important role in the environment, their adorable behavior and also the way a "beaver eats cabbage" (search for video with that title). Also love this video: Beavers vs. Otters in the Winter.
As a polish person i must say BOBER KURWA ALE ZAJEBISTY
😂
I don't know what that means, but I 1,000% agree with your energy. GO POLAND!!!
The short interview with the farmer was really insightful, even if short. 👍
As someone who lives in North America inside of the NA beaver’s range, I couldn’t imagine life without them. They’re so ecologically important. I’m happy they’re being reintroduced!
beavers are so industrious, what productive little champions
I love beavers. It’s crazy how much we’ve changed the way the world has been for millions of years
Beavers suddenly made a home in one of the local state parks near me (in the U.S., lower New England region) and it's fascinating! Suddenly seeing random trees fallen around the massive lake and seeing them build dams everywhere there is moving water. So cool
Everytime I tell someone my favorite animal is a beaver they look at me funny… and I love it
In parts of the US they are reintroducing beavers in the hopes of controlling forest fires. These can be a huge problem at times, wiping out whole towns and destroying forest areas. The water the beavers store can play a part in keeping the land moist and reducing the damage. In the Northeast, where I live, beavers are protected, and where they do cause a problem (by flooding roads and so on) they are live trapped and moved to a more remote area.
As a Canadian, I love that the Beaver is our national animal. I can't imagine what kind of wasteland my country would be without them.
wasteland XD
Beavers amazing little creatures ❤❤❤
They are little rewilding legends!! Cheers, Rob
Tak!
Great video! Really interesting to hear from Tom, and his position from seeing both sides of the conversation, a much needed voice.
Exactly! The balanced opinions between the extremes are often ignored... - Cheers, Duarte
I'm an American and grew up in prime beaver territory (Colorado). They've always been some of my favorite animals, and it's awesome to see them come back to their native ranges! Great job, I love seeing what you guys are getting up to!
0:20 I love that the beaver reenactment was referenced. I hope there will be many more chances for it to return in future videos. Made me smile so wide. As did the video as a whole. I love hearing more about beavers and these efforts.
if you ever want to restore the savannah of the south east US, the native habitat project on youtube is a great group to reach out to, and I would totally volunteer to help with any labor probably bigger projects to work on, I just see these videos and wish there was something local i could volunteer with :(
This is a way to go , farmers and conservationist working together to mutual benefits, and of course beavers 😊 great video as usual, guys . Cantw wait for the next one ..
its always nice to see something like this every now and again, especially in the uk as its one of the most nature depleted countries in the world
Glad that there is hope that we can clean up the mess others have made in the past. Keep up the great work! On a side note I wish we could teach this kinda stuff to kids in a class room. That way they can be more mindful.
They are educating Beavers now! They gonna be a true engineers soon!
Would love to see a project focusing on beavers in Italy too! they have just been spotted after 500 years of being thought "extinct" in the whole country! love your work guys
Bobers!
I knew the meme would come haha! Thank you! - Cheers, Duarte
Yay 🎉 Congratulations on getting your beavers back! ❤ We love our beavers in Virginia USA! Cheers!
Beavers have always seemed so cool to me, interesting to hear more about them
Yeah they're a rich topic when it comes to nature restoration, Cheers - Rob
As usual, well bloody done.
Great job Rob on presenting this impactful animal and for documenting what they’ve done to Tom’s farm
proud to be a member of your organisation, you're doing awesome work. keep it up.
What a nice start to the week, learning about beavers.
I don’t have much but if any of my donation goes to helping expand this ecological work, it’s worth it!
I love the new visuals of the maps, well done!
Yeah we've upped that part of our production, pleased you enjoy them! Cheers, Rob
I have always been fascinated by this animals.
16 beavers is a nice thought. Scotland needs about 100,000.
If it goes the way one project in Colorado did, the population will double about every three to four years. They started with eight beavers and a dozen years later there were over 100. In another dozen years that would come to over 2,000 beavers.
You are so right: when I visited "Bever-areas" I felt 100% the same: very close and very related to nature. It was a wonderful feeling. Places where you want to stay forever. It has something magic and the fact that these areas attract so many other living species - plants, fish and other animals is great. You get very happy in these places, and you recognise that this is the way nature is meant to be.
regenerative farming methods that work with nature rather than trying to modify it for conventional farming could also work a lot better with beavers
Fabulous video Rob!! You nailed it! Again!! Your aura is absolutely beautiful 🤍💚
One of the issues is that many building zones are almost always flood zones (close to sources of water et al). Beavers return these zones to potential high water marks that puts said building zones "at risk".
Yeah, by farming and building on flood plains its no wonder we see conflicts. I feel that proper incentives to landowners to compensate for any losses is key to longterm success. Cheers, Rob
@@MossyEarth Who will pay for the incentives and compensation? As far as I can make out the people in Govt for the last 12 years or so have offered successive tax cuts election after election in part to secure election victories. That's utterly degraded so many public services - education/police/social care/NHS the list goes on and on. I can't see that the wider voting public will want to be paying more tax to compensate farmers for Beaver action. Then if anyone goes after the big corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share, there's all the hullaballoo that gets dragged out if anyone proposes that kind of idea.
Here in Vietnam, we don't have any native beavers, but this video has definitely made me wonder about whether they would be able to impact the environment positively here. Thanks for uploading! :)
Beavers are cute and adorable.
Wonderful! Loving what you are doing all over the planet! Thank you from New England :o)
I have a family of beaver that lives in the stream behind my apartment building here in Sweden. I can watch these little guys do their thing all day long, they’re really fascinating creatures!
Hi guys from chick forest technician, sylviculture (Josie my gmaw was from Birmingham), my mother in law (from Carradale, Scotland) had a coat, I couldn't give it away when she passed, Fast fashion, much love from Montreal! 🙋😘
thanks for your work in Scotland!
There's a book from BC, Canada called 'Three Against the Wilderness'. It's about trappers in the early 1900s and their lives. The trapper observed beaver behaviour and noticed how it could prevent forest fires. Something that we should pay attention to our here, because we have had many problems with forest fires. Our beavers are not extinct. However, the British hunger for beavers in the 1800s nearly drove them to extinction here in Canada. We are lucky we still have them.
More Farmers like him, would be nice
I live in Berlin and we have Beavers in every waterway right into the city center. They reintroduced themselves and it was wild to see them spread over the past ten years, changing the banks of our rivers, even flooding some small valleys outside the city.
Excellent news about beavers. Keep up the good work, Mossy Earth. Proud to be a member!
For the first time in my 50 years, I saw beavers in Croatia, specifically the north of Croatia, 30 km from the Drava river and Hungarian border, and yes, they shape the landscape in a surprising way. They submerged some forest paths that I liked to walk on.😅
I am really impressed with the solutions Mossy Earth deploys for such complex issues! Thanks for the great work!
Heard from the project manager at the farm I'm voluntering at in Wales is there are plans and discussions ongoing with certain rewilding groups to re-introduce beavers within the farm-owned forest (which contains a small river and lake), would be very cool.
Save them all😊😊😊
I'm always happy to see these videos, they make my day.
First beaver introduction project was in Kent in 2001. Never sure why it never gets mentioned
When I was a kid, there was a muddy swimming hole and so we made a natural filter dam. The water still passed through and became crystal clear and even deeper as the water filled up more where we routed it. It was cool. It seemed like more wildlife was there after.
This is incredible. Nearby my home in Australia we have an enormous amount of mono-culture forestry and other farming, hopefully there will be changes here soon.
As an engineer working on enhancing sections of watercourse affected by HS2 this video has been very interesting. Would like to see beavers introduced elsewhere in the UK
Awesome work!!! I hear so many positives about Beavers for the surrounding environment
Still a proud member 🎉
Beavers are so cool!!!
There's plenty of beaver here in Canada, and we have discovered a way to relocate them without too much trouble instead of trapping or killing them when they damage human structures (flooding roads or farmlands). Here's the thing : beavers go crazy when they hear the sound of running water, and it motivate them to change place and build their home closer to that sound. So we just put a little radio where we want them to relocate, destroy their problematic nest, and boom, they build where we want without being armed. Of course, we talk about a few meters away, not kilometers, but it can make a huge difference.
We love your work guys! keet it going!
Beavers are family!❤
You are doing a great job. Keep it going! Much love!
Thank you! Much appreciated :) - Cheers, Duarte
A problem in Germany is that many fields/areas have a lot of drainage. So water just gets diverted and does not penetrate the ground. In the summer (mainly) the farmers are crying about droughts... Just reintroduce more wetlands - hydrate your ground! Love the beaver episodes!
Love this, I’ll definitely start donating!
Thank you for the support Sebastian! - Cheers, Duarte
Here in northern Germany the Beavers are coming very fast back now they are everywhere
I guess that's why Michigan became popular in the 16th century as a destination for beaver pelts. Native Americans hunted them already, but that activity increased when European, namely French traders came here in search of pelts. Here as well, beaver are a protected species for the same reason as it is in Europe. Great story. Great work.
Here in Croatia some beavers were released 15 or so years ago. The thing is, some of them were hybrids with the North American beaver which are more aggressive in their damming practices. When you combine that with a complete absence of natural predators controlled hunting may be essential in a few years.
Nice, finally knowledge form the school(I was at primary school at 80's) goes on!
So different from where I live in Wyoming... We have a large beaver population in the middle of town, and people love it. Better fishing, better water quality, the ranchers appreciate the extra water.... Beavers improve local ecology
Great project, please more videos ☺️we need more videos about your great projects. Good to be your member
Top work this Chanel does.
Inspirational stuff! Keep up the good work😃
Great story. Go Beavers
This reminds me of once when I went on a hike with some friends in Colorado. They said to bring fishing gear, which baffled me when we got to the trailhead and the area was all patchy spots of plants on clay. But not even a mile from the trailhead the land changed to lush growth with scattered groves of trees growing along a series of ponds. Maybe twenty years earlier the area wildlife authorities had introduced several breeding pairs of beavers to a section where there was still trees and brush, and since then those beavers' offspring had spread both upstream and down until there were something like three miles of stream that was just beaver pond after beaver pond. And with the beaver ponds, trout returned to the stream -- thus the fishing gear, with which we caught our own lunch and dinner.
Beavers are so cool.
I love beavers. I live on the Rhine in Switzerland, and from time to time a big beaver comes along the bank and starts eating twigs and leaves, not caring about me sitting 2 meters away.
Why does the government care if you have Beavers on your land or not? Its your land and its not effecting them.
THIS is why I signed up for Mossy Earth! More BDAs!!