UPDATE:
Fun Kiwanis group, good questions and great crowd. Nice conversations about beavers and salmon, and whether we have “too many beavers” or “not enough”. Thanks Igor for inviting me! This officially concludes the October beaver event grandslam. Whew.
Wish me luck!
I was driving home last night listening to Michael Krasny interview author Terry Tempest-Williams, and she was describing her Mormon upbringing, which taught her both that every life had a spirit and that prairie dogs were worthless vermin that should be shot. She was interested in how enormously social the colony was, and how they survived through dependence on their community. She told Krasny earnestly (which made me pay attention) that Prairie Dogs were a keystone species, and that the holes and burrows they created made habitat for some 200 other species, including burrowing owl and rattle snake.
Just like beavers, America used to have millions more prairie dogs, which supported much denser wildlife. She told a breathtaking tale of the 1950s when the government decided it was going to exterminate the burrowers on the Navajo land to protect the roots of sparse grasses so sheep could graze.
The elders objected, saying to them,
“if you kill all the prairie dogs there will be no one left to cry for the rain”.
The officials smiled at these primitive words, assured them there was no relationship between prairie dogs and rain, and went off with their shotguns and poisons to eradicate the dog population. Let’s let her tell the rest of the story:
The desert near Chilchinbito, Arizona, became a virtual wasteland. Without the ground turning process of the burrowing animals, the soil became solidly packed, unable to accept rain. Hard pan. The result: fierce runoff whenever it rained. What little vegetation remained was carried away by flash floods and a legacy of erosion.
Finding Beauty in a Broken World: Terry Tempest-Williams
Without the network of holes to break up the soil, the ground could soak up no rain, and could only flash flood, not store water. These hard working and social animals (sound familiar?) tilled the land and made it possible for a very dry terrain to retain some moisture. America seems to have a learning disability when it comes to understanding how a bunch of rodents could impact the water table.
Just sayin’.
I like to eek out the “beaver stupid” news with a few morsels of good news along the way, but this is a whopping dose! Seems the state of Utah is giving Washington a run for its money in the “castor magnum civicus” contest this year. The Salt Lake Tribune is hooking with the State Department of Wildlife Resources to explain about the benefits of beavers in the habitat. They’ve launched a great video (below) and a major news article both featuring reporter Brett Prettyman. The article starts by mentioning how many beavers we used to have and how that changed with trapping. He writes:
Now, beavers are in demand again, not for their fur but for their engineering expertise, and the water conservation and forest restoration that result from their dam-building skills. “Dams change everything,” said Mary O’Brien, the Utah Forests program manager for Grand Canyon Trust. “Where water was once just passing through the landscape it is suddenly pausing there, recharging aquifers,creating a riparian area and making a place for all kinds of wildlife to live.”
Wow any article that starts with that sentence has my full attention. Its way better than “Once Upon A Time”…I could just nestle in for a nice cozy read.
The beavers may be ready to jump back into areas where their ancestors once felled aspen and willow, but catching live wild animals and hauling them around the state requires planning. That plan is being completed now by a committee formed by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) and will be presented to the public in a series of Regional Advisory Council Meetings in December. If approved by the Utah Wildlife Board, it will become the state’s first management plan for beavers.
Got that? A state beaver management plan that specifically addresses the benefits of beavers to the habitat. The plan, available here, will be voted on in December, and is facing some opposition from people who have long thought of beavers as only pests. To do this at the statewide level is a massive undertaking and involves the re-education of lots of people, including some stalwarts inside the DWR who should know better.
I am wholly impressed with this effort and the smart way it is being launched. It was pointed out to me that Mr. Prettyman’s name rather notably resembles my own, and it is true that his name is only a keystroke to the left away from mine. Similar spirits surely. The other hero of the article is Mary O’Brien, who lead the “sermon on the mount” at the Lands Council conference last year.
O’Brien likes to wonder what the forests of the Southwest looked like before the days when beavers were trapped to such low numbers. She suspects most of the mountain valleys had meandering creeks with lush wetlands frequented by a vast range of wildlife. It is an image she would like to see for herself in places where streams have turned into raging straight-cut channels that erode the banks and carry the water to faraway places.”Dams slow the flow of water coming off the mountains. They act like speed bumps and spread the water out on the land,” she said. “They create a dramatic change in the hydrology of the landscape, and that is a change that may serve us all.”
Ahhh Mary! You’re a girl after my own heart! Do you have any friends in California? I would love to meet them!
UPDATE: Beavers Allowed
Heard from Catherine tonight who was pleased with the meeting. Summary available here:
Our friends in Ontario wrote that the beaver issue of St. Catherine’s is up before the City Council tonight. Ahh memories. The primary recommendation was for a “population study” although they didn’t have the funds to execute one. It seems to me that whether you have 2 beavers or 20 beavers the thing you need to know how to deal with problematic behaviors, but I think they’re looking for an “insurmountable” number which suggest trapping is the only way. I’m sure they can find it too, if they count all the secondary dams, or assume that beavers seen miles apart are from different colonies and multiply each sighting by four.
They sent me a copy of the concluding staff report which recommends:
RECOMMENDATION:
For those of you following along at home, the report from the Recreation and Community Department describes methods for wrapping trees (wire and sand painting) and the possible technique of replacement feeding to discourage tree felling. At no point does it mention how to handle flooded roads or culverts through the use of Flow Devices or Beaver Deceivers.
Basically the only solution offered for those difficult behaviors is “Count Them” and then “Kill Them”.
I wrote them my thoughts and suggested they contact the reporter who had been interested in the story before, then sent the staff report to beaver friend Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions. Guess what he said?
“They don’t mention flow devices at all!”
Great minds…
He sent these pictures of his job on Friday, at the Audubon Property in Lenox, Massachusetts. St. Catherine’s staff, please take note!
Beaver Version!
A hundred girls between the ages of 6 and 16 yesterday learned about beavers to earn charms for their keystone bracelet. Look at those faces concentrate. Look at the other girls watching and learning. Every single one of them now knows more about beavers than, say, the average city council member.
So the otters come to the dam to eat the _____ and the ____ are there to eat the _____ and the ____ are there because of the beaver dams and the dams are built by the beavers and THAT”S why the beaver is a keystone species! Congratulations! You earned your keystone charm bracelet!
Okay imagine that 100 times over only much much cuter. I expect grand things from each of these remarkable girls.
Update: From the event organizer:
