Spring has arrived in Washington

I can only imagine how President Trump would have handled the three rogue beavers who chopped down America’s beloved cherry trees along the Tidal Basin.
The National Cherry Blossom Festival is underway in Washington, D.C. Some 3,700 cherry trees, given to America by the Japanese in 1912, are in full bloom.
I lived in the Washington, D.C. region for nearly eight years and greatly enjoyed hosting family and friends to enjoy that festival every year.
Back in 1999, however, three beaver vandals were chewing down cherry trees faster than you can say “timber!”
Washington bureaucrats and advocacy groups responded to the crisis in their usual convoluted ways.
PETA was first out of the gate with a reasonable solution: its spokesperson said it’s best to trap the beavers in the most humane way possible and relocate them.
No sooner was PETA’s idea floated than wildlife experts began crawling out of the woodwork.
One expert warned that it would be tragic to separate the three beavers, since they’re likely from the same family; one beaver is a yearling, she said, and beavers should stay with mom and dad until the age of two.
Another expert said you can’t move beavers to a new colony, anyway, because the new colony — beavers are Republican? — would reject the freeloaders.
A third wildlife expert said that all things considered, the most humane thing to do might be to just kill the buggers.
Boy, did the public react negatively to that suggestion. That’s because beavers are really cute.
Heck, if they looked more like their pointy-nosed cousins — rats — even PETA might ditch their principles to have those varmints whacked.
But PETA wanted nothing to do with euthanizing beavers. A spokesperson said they should leave the beavers alone — so what if they created a gigantic cherry tree dam.
I can only imagine how Trump would handle the situation if it happened now.

He would fire out a 3 a.m. tweet that said “Beavers are DESTROYING our beautiful cherry trees — a GIFT from Japan, very historic! Total disrespect for America! SAD!”
He would order the USS Harry S. Truman to steam down the Tidal Basin with its 4,500-round Gatling guns blasting away.
Trump would open his press conference by boasting “Nobody’s been tougher on rogue beavers than me!”
“But Mr. President,” reporters would shout, “Why didn’t you relocate the beavers?”
“I did relocate them,” Trump would say. “To Heaven!”
Alas, in 1999, after weeks of bickering, the Park Service finally hired a professional trapper who caught the beavers and carted them off to a “safe house,” which, I believe, is a sort of witness protection program for semiaquatic rodents.
But the beaver bickering did not stop. Multiple D.C. types complained about the solution. Some beaver advocates accused the Park Service of misinformation before that term was in vogue.
All I know is that spring has arrived in Washington and, like or dislike Trump’s aggressive approach to governing, he has taken a sledgehammer to the way Washington has long operated.
It’s lucky for Trump critics that the great beaver invasion happened in 1999 and not during his time in office.
Otherwise, tourists would be visiting the annual “Make Cherry Blossoms Great Again Festival.”
The Tidal Basin would be renamed “Trump Waterscape — 100% Beaver Free!”
And three very confused beavers would be wondering how the heck they ended up in Guantanamo Bay.

Copyright 2025 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.