Month: September 2010

Great Expectations

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Friends of Martinez Beavers September 25, 2010

Young beaver mother & kit. Photo by Sarah Summerville Unexpected Wildlife Refuge

Our good friend Sarah sends these photos of the newest beavers in the refuge she maintains. Its a young mom who just produced her first ever kit. Sarah is the Director of the Unexpected Wildlife Refuge started by Cavit & Hope Buyukmihci shown here. Their original 85 acres has grown to 737 set aside for wildlife with trails. Visitors and school children are guided through in small groups. In 2001 Hope passed directorship to Sarah who has been lovingly maintaining the refuge since that time.

I’ll let Sarah speak for herself as her website describes what the personal value is of beavers:

Provide Human Beings with Unparalleled Opportunity for Study and Companionship

The beavers have a gift of unique intelligence, are gentle and trusting, and to watch their family life is one of human beings’ most enthralling experiences. I speak not only from personal observation, but from exchanges with others in this country and Canada who have had the privilege of living near beavers and becoming acquainted with them.

While we bemoan the high cost of education, put out money to buy flood and drought insurance, and are sometimes bored with life, the few beavers left in New Jersey are being ousted from their homes by developers or are considered a nuisance if they cut down a tree or create minor flooding. Moving of beavers creates untold hardships. Like human homesteaders, beavers choose a place they find suitable, work hard to make it livable, then resent being force to move.

Although beavers are presently protected from leghold traps in the state of New Jersey, their siblings in other states are not so lucky. Trapping is a crime which should not be allowed to continue for a moment longer in this enlightened age. Beavers mate for life. Beavers love their families, and mourn their dead. Beavers suffer agonies, both mental and physical, if caught in traps to struggle and drown. If they cannot escape by gnawing off a foot, or fail to drown, their fate is to be beaten to death.

Beavers maintain the floodplain, which protects us all. They are as much a part of waterways as the water itself. We humans are created with a sense of thirst because our bodies need water. It’s the same with other animals, but, in addition, beavers are born with a hydrological engineering ability because they need water for safety. The streams, in turn, need their care.

For centuries, beavers stood between the birthplace of the streams in the mountains and the oceans to which the water by its nature flows. Beavers managed the water all along the way, providing for themselves while contributing to the welfare of their total environment and its inhabitants. Was it only by chance that their foods grew right in the water, and along the floodplain, and that poplar, their favorite food, springs eternal from its root system? It springs anew also from beaver-cut stumps.

Over sixty years ago, Enos A. Mills, a pioneer naturalist, wrote:

I hope and half believe that before many years every brook that is born on a great watershed will, as it goes swiftly, merrily singing down the slopes toward the sea, pass through and be steadied in a poetic pond that is made and will be maintained by our patient, persistent, faithful friend the beaver.

Let’s help make Mills’ dream come true.

Kit enjoying treat. Photo by Sarah Summerville Unexpected Wildlife Refuge

Now that’s what I’m talking about!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Environmental, In the News, Uncategorized, Why We Care September 24, 2010

See this pretty fish? Its called the watercress darter, which is a pretty delightful sounding name. It’s endangered in the only state where it occurs: Alabama. There is in fact only one parish where it occurs: Jefferson. Even in Jeffersen Fish & Game lists only four streams where it is known to survive! The largest of these is Roebuck Springs Basin. which is dubiously located between the Youth correctional facility and the municipal golf course.

They are found only at mid-depths in dense accumulations of aquatic vegetation including watercress, in springs and spring runs.

Guess what the city of Birmingham did? I’ll give you a hint. It’s what the City of Martinez tried to do. It’s what many many cities do routinely. Its what the left hand corner of this website outlines on a daily basis.

They killed some beavers! Destroyed some dams and got the creek flowing back to normal.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (CN) – The removal of a beaver dam from the Roebuck Springs Basin killed “thousands of endangered watercress darters and around two million snails,” and destroyed half their habitat, the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources claims in Shelby County Court. The agency says Birmingham employees did not consult state or federal authorities about the “consequences or wisdom of removal of the dam.”

The city “knew or should have known that removing a beaver dam and surrounding natural structures would potentially disrupt the water level of the Basin and its inhabitants,” the agency claims.It says the destruction of the dam caused a “serious dewatering event” that not only killed fish and snails, but also drained 80 to 90 percent of their habitat.

Watercress darters are protected fish that live in only four springs, all in Jefferson County, Ala. About 11,760 darters were killed when workers for the Birmingham Parks and Recreation Department removed the beaver dam on Sept. 19. 2008, according to the lawsuit.

The action charges them with five counts including negligence, wantonness, nuisance and tresspass to chattel. There aren’t very many of these fish left, and what remains of their numbers belong to the state. So doing something that destroys the largest population of them in the state is a big deal. The lawsuite demands that the court award damages equal to the cost of replacing every one of those 11,760 darters for starters. The action itself is a fun read, go here to see the complaint.

I’ll make sure I include this story in my next “it’s unwise to kill beavers because…” letter. Its been a while since we had a good beaver lawsuit. Whatever happens, lets hope the story makes the city of Birmingham a little cautious about removing a beaver dam next time and becomes a cautionary tale that makes every city think twice.

When I went to check out footage of the darters on youtube I found this, which brought me to the reporting of Glynn Wilson. Turns out Fish and Game has been trying to get some satisfaction and answers on this story for a long time before involving the courts. In fact, Fish & Game was so alarmed they asked the city to rebuild the dam out of sandbags!

It’s a fascinating tale that made the evening news many times. There were claims that the tennis courts were being flooded by the dams, and countering observations that the courts were the highest point on the property and never ever flooded. There are photos of the area before the beavers were killed and the area after the dams were taken out and concrete sink holes placed in. The whole story is such a hardy collection of lies and more lies that you can see how it got to the level of a lawsuit.

Remember this is Alabama, people. No offense, but these aren’t crazy liberals from Berkeley protesting damage of mottled newt habitat. These are hunters and fishers and people who know how to kill a beaver or two. That just makes the story much more fun, in my opinion. Sorry about your pretty fish. I hope you scare the wrasse outta the city and lots of cities near by.

If beavers were spiders…

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, New Species September 23, 2010

Last night we discovered this beauty in our garden. She is about the size of a quarter and her web takes up half the vertical plane of my dining patio. Gary Bogue tells me it is a marbled orbweaver, (Araneous Marmoreus) one of the beautiful harmless garden spiders who build spiral webs. I am used to discovering some kind of orb weaver in the garden in the fall, but have never seen anything like this.

When we found the web it was damaged and we wondered if she’d be back. Last night as we watched she crawled into the middle and carefully ate the silk from yesterdays spinning. After resting a little she started on her amazing new web. The Entomology page at Ohio State tells me that she rebuilds her web every night! She cleverly digests the protein rich silk of yesterdays weaving to fuel her next endeavor. Orb weavers have a single signal thread which runs through the middle of their work and tells them if prey has been caught. Unlike other unimaginative spiders who wait in the center, the marbled orbweaver waits in a silken hole at the edge of the signal thread in case something is taken. Adults are so big they use a leaf or two combined with silk to make their holes.

It got me thinking about the industry required to rebuild your entire home and your way to make a living every single night. Beavers and spiders have a lot in common it seems, they both construct their worlds themselves, they consume their building materials, and they do the bulk of their work while we humans are asleep. What if a beaver had to rebuild his dam and lodge night after night? What if, like the spider, the beaver had to work alone?

Often I encounter the argument about instinct versus learning when trying to understand what beavers do. When one looks at those careful weavings and flawless concentric pattern one can only credit remarkable instinct. It’s not like spiders stay with their parents for a year perfecting their techniques. Still, spiders must get better as they work. The web of a first ever orbweaver must not be as skilled or the location as perfectly chosen as an established weaver.

Beavers, on the other hand, get a year or two to learn from their parents, and we can see it happening right before our very eyes. Last night, I witnessed the first EVER placement of a stick on the dam by one of our three kits. Not exactly a stellar placement, and I have certainly seen Dad move things after earlier generations have placed them, but it was a brave debut. Beavers do have instinct, but they have to train it over years of practice to teach them about the terrain, the materials and little tricks of the trade.

All of which the Orbweaver must cope with on her own. Go outside and look in your garden tonight. You might be surprised at what you find.

River Architecht

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, pictures September 22, 2010

2010 Kit Photo: Cheryl Reynolds

Guest Blogger and watershed wizard Brock Dolman writes:

Now as to the question: “Can one logically say that beavers are wetlands engineers?” Not sure logically what part of the phrase & semantics does not work for you? Is it that how the moniker “engineer” would appear to be anthropomorphizing or deterministic in a way held only for Hominids? Hmmm….???

Definitions of engineer as found on google:
-design as an engineer; “He engineered the water supply project”
-a person who uses scientific knowledge to solve practical problems
-mastermind: plan and direct (a complex undertaking); “he masterminded the robbery”

It has been said by a number of authors that after humans no other animal is known on the Planet to modify and manipulate more of its habitat to create conditions conducive to its survival, than beaver. Countless other lifeforms, will also gratefully acknowledge this behavior of the keystone beaver. If you have ever spent time surveying and assessing the strategic modifications that intact beaver colonies perform at scale to create their world – the best word I know of to describe their skills would be engineer – a wetland engineer, a flood control engineer, a groundwater recharge engineer, a erosion control engineer, a riparian habitat expansion engineer, a salmon habitat engineer, a biodiversity keystone engineer and climate change/watershed resiliency engineer, and an inspiring engineer at mitigating nature deficit disorder! (to name a few.) I was thinking that I want to imbue the beaver with a better CV title than simply wetland engineer – maybe Environmental Services Czar? River Architect?

Ahhh! Brock, everything you write about beavers makes me feel like I’m kicking off my shoes, curling up on the couch with a favorite book and sipping something that’s almost too good to share. Thanks a million!

Mongolian Beaver?

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere September 21, 2010

Well yes. It turns out there is a very endangered species of european beaver in the Wulungu River in the Xinjiang province of Mongolia near Russia and Kazakstan. There were fewer than 500 left in 2007 and apparently they are so rare that there is not a single photo of them anywhere on the internet(s).

Distribution and conservation of the Sino-Mongolian beaver Castor fiber birulai in China

Hongjun Chu^a1 and Zhigang Jiang^a2 ^c1

Abstract

The Sino-Mongolian beaver Castor fiber birulai lives in the Ulungur watershed in China and Mongolia, an area little known to the people outside this region. We recorded the number of families, adults, subadults and juveniles at each of three beaver lodges in the Bulgan Beaver Nature Reserve in 2003, 2006 and 2007. Along the whole Ulungur watershed in China in each of the 3 years we conducted surveys for the beaver and estimated the total population based on the area of food caches. We recorded 135, 167 and 145 Sino-Mongolian beaver colonies and estimated a population 472–599, 543–700 and 508–645 beavers in 2003, 2006 and 2007, respectively. From 1989 to 2007 the number of human households in the Bulgan Nature Reserve increased by 112% and the population by 71%. Consequently human activities in the river valley, including collection of wood for fuel, increased. We also surveyed the site of a relocation of C. f. birulai from the Bulgan River to the Ertix River in 1992 but found no sign of living beavers. The population of the Sino-Mongolian beaver in China is small and restricted geographically. Threats, such as habitat modification and deterioration and competition with people for wood, continue. We recommend that the Bulgan Beaver Nature Reserve be expanded by a transfrontier agreement with the appropriate authorities in Mongolia, and that a plan for sustainable wetland management and restoration is required.

Earth’s endangered creatures

Causes of decline include hunting for their pelts and castoreum oil, which was believed to be a cure for disease and a sexual potency drug. Hunting has been banned, but there is also a threat of loss of habitat due to human interference of wetlands and water pollution. The Altay Wildlife Conservation Association is currently working to develop strategic conservation plans for the management of the Wulungu River (the only river that the Mongolian subspecies dwells). Among the objectives of the project is to increase awareness among local people in the area and conservation and protection of remaining wetland habitats in the area.