Because the beaver isn't just an animal; it's an ecosystem!

Month: May 2010


Taryn Power Greendeer of Wisconsin has slowly been growing support for her beavers and their wildlife water works. There was another meeting about their fate with standing room only attendance. Now she is graced by this bit of lovely environmental reporting by Jim Solberg for the Jackson County Chronicle.

In March, I enjoyed a tour of a farm near Arcadia, Wis., where a beaver dam had made a slough deep enough for Tom and Sue Roskos to paddle their canoe through the Trempealeau River wetlands along their land. Well, another nature-loving couple invited me recently to view a beaver pond and the wetlands associated with it on their property in Vernon County.

The beavers have maintained a dam along a stream going through Bill and Taryn (Powers) Greendeer’s farm for around 14 years. Unfortunately, though, their concern for the beavers and the diverse community of life that has come to depend on them has put them in the center of a conflict with the town board over the pond’s proximity to a town road.

While she was pointing out the rich wetland habitat that surrounded the dam, Taryn expressed hope that the issues raised by the town board and neighbors could be solved while also preserving the wetlands. Bill told me, for instance, that their cattle have been moved so the beavers can continue building farther down the stream. Taryn said she is hoping the birds will be allowed to finish nesting before any further and possibly disruptive actions are taken to lower the water in the pond.

In the four hours I was there on that rather chilly day, I was surprised by the amount of life I saw or heard around the ponds. Three species of frogs were calling in the main pond — the gray tree frog, the green frog and a species of special concern in Wisconsin, the pickerel frog.

Five other species of frogs have also been heard calling there — the American toad, the spring peeper, chorus frogs, wood frogs and leopard frogs — so this wetland is clearly a breeding site for at least eight species of frogs.

We also heard and saw numerous redwing blackbirds that were singing and calling all afternoon. Barn swallows flitted in flocks over the water, feeding on insects that had emerged from the pond, while a pair of mallards and at least one pair of wood ducks flew around.

A pair of sandhill cranes fed below the dams while and a number of great blue herons flew overhead. There is, in fact, a heron rookery hidden behind a nearby hill. As we talked, a secretive green heron made a surprising appearance from deep within the thick growth of willows.

Later, I watched a kingfisher as it dove repeatedly from an overhead utility wire to catch fish, chattering noisily between dives. We saw plenty of fish as we walked around the various ponds. They provide food for many other critters besides the kingfisher, including the herons, raccoons, turtles and trout.

As the sun was setting behind the hills, the green heron posed majestically for me on a stump and as it flew away, a beaver emerged from the water of the creek very near my car. The beaver and I exchanged looks for at least a couple minutes, and the industrious rodent did not seem to be upset as I snapped its portrait.

Ahhhh this is a lovely and familiar tale! Take care of your beavers and beavers will take care of your wildlife and watershed! Thanks for letting us read about their magical effect and observe their impact on you as well. I am reminded of the summary I just put together for my upcoming beaver talk in Oakland.

Many of you will have heard  how beavers change their environment: their dams recharge the aquifer, improve water quality, augment fish diversity, and bring a host of new birds and mammals to their ponds. We expected that. What we didn’t expect was for an entire community to become part of the environment that was changed. Come learn how these uninvited guests are still teaching the city of Martinez that beavers can be “Worth A Dam”.


Ahhhh the form letter! “Thank you for bringing this issue to my attention.” Why is it sent? Who does it serve? Are people ever really soothed by the form letter? I suppose maybe when the trouble is taken to post it and mail it there is some modest value attached. I got one from the white house once with raised lettering on the seal, and that was exciting. 44 cents worth of appreciation for my civic interest. Surely the email form letter is worth less- far less. Just the effort it takes to hit the “reply” button. It communicates that the person has the time to respond to and acknowledge the letter, the energy to cut and paste your name, but lacks the engagement to respond in a meaningful way.

This week I received a fine specimen from the Premier of Prince Edward Island – (“150 nuisance beavers to be culled“). The letter is bold in its simplicity and dramatic in its failure to communicate a single intention or act. I have read a few non-responses in my day and this is remarkable in its negation of all meaning. It is a black hole of responsibility through which all impending decisions are sucked so that no one can ever be blamed, certainly not the author. See for yourself:

Dear Dr. Perryman

Thank you for your e-mail.  I can understand your concerns and I am aware that officials in the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal plan to re-visit this issue from a policy and operational basis with senior officials in the Fish and Wildlife Division of the Department of Environment, Energy and Forestry.
I can assure you that we want to develop sound, ethical practices to address this situation and take a balanced and measured approach.
We appreciate your input.
Sincerely,
Robert Ghiz
Premier

Are dramatic legal cases ever won on the basis of a form letter? Imagine the classic Perry Como (an attentive reader points out I mean Perry Mason moment – which is true but you have to admit a Perry Como moment would be charming!) “Your honor I didn’t know my ship was leaking oil. It was never brought to my attention.” the smooth haired businessman intones. Then from across the courtroom the glinty-eyed lawyer produces a worn piece of paper, “If you didn’t know about it then what’s this? If no one brought it to your attention, how do you explain this!” and then reads

“Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention…”

So you see, its important to notice when you get a form letter and to save it or post it on a website that gets 1000 readers a day. I’m sure when PE notices how steeply their bird population declines, or finds out their salmon run is reduced by half, they might wonder who’s responsible.

The whole thing made me think of this beloved episode of Cheers;


As absurd as this is, the not-a-spill continues to be no laughing matter. While politicians have struggled to compare this to “a light sheen” of chocolate milk, rivers of thick black goo “ten miles long, three miles wide and 300 feet thick” have been observed on the ocean floor. This morning oil is washing up on the Louisiana marshland. Yesterday we learned that their plan for helping wildlife had been so carelessly copied and pasted from other sources that it described “Walrus and sea otter” as living in the gulf of Mexico. Now we learn that BP is encouraging the Coast Guard to prevent news crews from approaching the area ‘on threat of arrest’.

Watch CBS News Videos Online


At long last Mike Callahan’s instructional DVD is available to make the techniques and tools of beaver management accessible to every property owner and township. Having reviewed my own copy last Wednesday I can testify that the instruction is offered in pragmatic, easy-to-understand language, and will contribute substantially to the welfare of beavers and landowners for decades to come. A second clip of testimonials is viewable on his updated website, and purchasing information can be found by clicking here. Attentive beaver watchers will soon recognize our very own Martinez beavers featured in section two, which couldn’t please this particular supporter more!

There are lots of parts of beaver advocacy that are frustrating, disappointing and tiring. This isn’t one of them. I am eager to see this DVD in every public library across the country. I am impatient to see every city manager forced to watch it at breakfast twice a year, and hopeful that it will become regular fare at Fish & Game or the Department of Transportation soon. Do your part to help spread the word that any city smarter than a beaver can manage a beaver and let’s make doing the right thing harder and harder to avoid.

Thanks Mike! And congratulations!


I received this email last night from Leonard Houston of the South Umpqua Rural Community Partnership in Oregon. You might remember that these are the good people who sponsored the “State of the beaver conference” last February. He had some very interesting backstage insights into what happened in Newberg. I thought I’d pass them along to you.

Here is what is really happening, a fellow beaver advocate who is also a ODFW (Oregon Department Fish & Wildlife) biologist informs me that the Newberg beavers have moved upstream and on to property where they are welcome and are currently posing no threat to the culvert so they will be left alone, there will be no lethal management used as the State has adapted a policy allowing translocation of problematic beavers for restoration purposes and founding new colonies in historical habitat.

We are currently working with the ODFW Beaver Workgroup to enact a landowner incentive program to compensate damages or loss of crops to promote beavers being allowed to stay where they are, as we both know the benefits out weigh the liabilities.

The involvement of people such as yourself is the key to educating the public on the importance of the role beavers play in our aquatic ecosystems. Thank You for taking the time to help with beavers everywhere. We have offered our services to the City of Newberg and the local ODFW who was contacted to find a solution. They will be keeping us updated if things change for the worse.

Sincerely
Leonard and Lois

Now isn’t that interesting! Nothing to worry about and a friend at ODFW! A landowner incentive program! Beavers relocating when kits are born! I suggested to Len that I might connect him with the journalist who wrote the nice article in the Graphic, but he declined. He prefers to do his behind the scenes work and leave the visible drama up to crazy beaver defenders like us.

The whole thing reminded me a bit of Michael Frayn‘s romping success “noises off“. Act one shows a very familiar, somewhat tedious farce being produced in the usual way with the usual vanities. Act 2 turned the whole set around and put the audience backstage and privy to the intrigues and foibles that drove and chased the actors. For Act 3 you were back facing the front, but still knowing all the drama of the back, understanding now how the play should go, and sensitive to all the reasons why it might not. Very smart comedy. I can’t find a clip of the cast I saw in London lo those many years and four presidents ago, but this is a nice production and gives you the general idea.

Will there be an Act 3 to the story of the Newberg Beavers? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Oil this morning in the Keys, because contrary to popular belief, the gulf of Mexico isn’t a bathtub and the contents actually go other places too. Now the oil is in the Loop Current and is getting pulled down the coast. Maybe people will take it seriously when it comes around the Atlantic.

BEAVER FESTIVAL XVI

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