Beaver Magic

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, New Species, Video October 17, 2010

Last night at the beaver dam was a fairly joyous occasion. All three kits and GQ in view, as well as some pretty spectacular fish-jumping. (I’ve already had a couple votes for ‘bass’) It’s been a week of highs and lows, with long nights of very little to see. But last night reassured us that all was right in beaverland.

Jack Laws came back with his mom, sketched some more and marveled at the aquatic display. I encouraged him to think about maybe doing a beaver field-sketching workshop at the festival next year. He thought the idea might be irresistible. He said he had lectured recently in a class room on the Eastern Sierras and noticed that the room was full of all things beaver. He stopped and showed the teacher the hat which we had given him when he came last and saw her face launch into such delight he generously had handed it over. Somewhere on the Eastern Sierras is a unknown teacher with a Worth A Dam hat. How cool is that?

Weirdly good things seem to be happening, and its been hard to catch up. I was thinking yesterday how truly synergistic it will be to present Mike’s award at the JMA night, surrounded by NPS Rangers including one from Yosemite. It would be awesome to help nudge these skills into the National Park Service. I can’t think of a single thing that could make a bigger difference to the well being of beavers from Yellowstone to the Smokey Mountains.

Speaking of education and life-changing events, will there be a “State of the Beaver Conference: 2011”? You bet there will. And I have some pretty exciting news about it. I’ll tell you tomorrow.

Beavers win!

heidi08 Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers October 17, 2010

So I found out last night that Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions LLC won the newly titled “Spotlight Muir” award for Business Conservation for his work on the DVD making beaver management accessible to everyone. How cool is that? I nominated Mike with the hope of drawing more attention to this wetlands-saving tool but even though I’m on the board I have nothing to do with the decision about who wins. I certainly couldn’t be happier!

Other winners include Jay Holcomb of IBRRC for conservationist of the year, a recognition much deserved in this year of gulf-madness. The Lindsay Wildlife Museum for non profit of the year and Nature Bridge for educational contribution.

The formal news will come sometime this week, but in the mean time congratulations to all our many friends on the recognition of your labors of love! This year’s awards ceremony will include mesmerizing speaker Shelton Johnson whom you should remember from Ken Burns documentary on the National Parks. The evening is in the “not to be missed” catogory, and I would buy your tickets now because it is definitely going to sell out!

Stewardship

heidi08 Uncategorized October 14, 2010

Wilton man recognized for his work with Mother Nature

WILTON – Trail clearing and “beaver wrangling” are all in a day’s work for the land stewards with the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.

Land stewards, considered “the eyes and ears of the forest society,” are the volunteers out there in the woods watching over the properties owned by the SPNHF, keeping an eye on who’s out there, noting how they treat the land and maintaining miles of trails.

Bart Hunter has been one of those watchers for 14 years, and was recently recognized by the society as its Volunteer of the Year, in part for his work in restoring the trails in the Heald Tract in southwest Wilton after the 2008 ice storm.

Right now on the tract, he said, “We are beaver wrangling. Beavers have moved into King Brook Reservoir (a flood control dam), and they keep blocking the stand pipe that regulates the water. We were given a choice of trapping out the beaver,” he said of the state Fish and Game Department.

Instead, Hunter visits the site once a week to clear out what the beaver had put in.

“It’s getting cold,” he said. “They’ll stop pretty soon.”

Great stewardship, Hunter. Maybe you might be interested in Mike’s DVD about beaver management, so you can save yourself a little time?

Not enough good news for one morning? This will cheer you immeasurably…

And by the way, what boss have you EVER worked for that would chose to be the last one out of the mine? You know all the CEO’s and CFO’s and VP’s in the US would have needed to get out first “to start the paperwork” or some such excuse…

Adopt-A-Beaver

heidi08 Creative Solutions October 13, 2010

TREVOR SUFFIELD Enlarge Image

(From left): George Valentim, Dallin Pawich, Christopher Kshyk and AWN coordinator Amber Wiegand at one of the trees that Westwood Collegiate students painted last week.

Students paint trees to save beavers

By: Trevor Suffield

More than 100 Westwood Collegiate students were spotted with paint brushes and cans in west Winnipeg last week. The students weren’t tagging the area with graffiti; they were painting trees along Sturgeon Creek near Grant’s Old Mill as part of a pilot project.

What a great way to start the morning! 100 college students saving trees so the cities won’t need to trap beavers! Preserving the Riparian border (gosh reminds me of something…ACE?). They are using the right ingredients: Mason sand and latex paint.

Let me just go check average snowfall for Winnipeg. Hmm 110 cm, which is like three and a half feet. So that means they would need to be painting up to the height of a standing beaver plus 3 feet…7 feet? I hope they took all that snow into account?

Well never mind, its an earnest feel-good article and heaven knows there are few enough of them. It’s teaching humane alternatives and emphasizing the importance of trees and beavers. What’s not to love? Here’s my favorite part of the article.

Wiegand said the mixture is being used in part because of community reaction to the annual trapping and killing of beavers along the creek.

Fantastic! That’s JUST what we like to hear! Thanks to the Assinobone Watershed Network for encouraging more people to adopt their creeks! It’s great work and very, very necessary. As our beaver friend Leonard Houston of SURCP sagely includes on his letterhead “Thousands have lived without love. Nothing lives without water.”

Of course, we here in Martinez have our own “Adopt-your-beavers” program, maybe you’d like to hear about it?

Sammamish gets a clue?

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Friends of Martinez Beavers October 12, 2010

Remember Sammamish in Washington? They were in a dither about rascally beavers collapsing roads and then brought out the big guns to say they had to kill them because their dams would block salmon? I wrote them that this was untrue and suggested they look out their front door and contact the folks at Kings County who had been successfully and humanely solving beaver issues for years? Well guess what?

“The idea is to try to live with them rather than try to fight them,” said Brian Sleight, a supervising engineer with King County’s water and land resources division.It’s a never-ending fight that the city’s Public Works Department has been battling for years – particularly in the wetlands near Ebright Creek Park and the outlet of Beaver Lake. The beavers, attracted to the prime dam real estate, put up a home that they use for breeding and protection from predators.

The abode backs up the water behind it, creating headaches for land owners. The city then pays to have the beavers trapped and released in another location and dismantles the dam.

Invariably though, the beavers tend to find their way back to the original location and start rebuilding and the cycle continues.“You might buy yourself 18 months, maybe 24 if you time it perfect,” Sleight said. “But as long as you have good beaver habitat, you can remove them but they will repopulate an area.”

Yeah Brian! We like Brian!!!! Well good for you for taking the beaver bull by the horns and investing in long term solutions. Once the struggle gets local though things get a little insane. They are budgeting 100,000 for the next two years. Really?

Senior Stormwater Engineer Eric LaFrance said the city has been through this several times with the beavers. A dam on the outlet from Beaver Lake combined with heavy summer rains led to high water levels on the lake this June, submerging some residents’ docks. LaFrance also blames a dam for backing up water in the wetlands that feed Ebright Creek, which has caused flooding on 212th Avenue.LaFrance got the Beaver Deceiver idea from the county, who had used a similar device on Peterson Pond, north of Sammamish.

The deceiver is a pipe that tunnels under an existing beaver dam and up to the normal water level on both sides – essentially creating an extra drainage point for a stream or wetland that will kick in when the water level rises above the top of the pipe. The end of the pipe is fenced off to prevent clogging.

A beaver deceiver of solid gold?

Never mind that what your describing sounds more like a Clemson Pond Leveler than a ‘Beaver Deceiver”. I’m sure Brian knows what he’s doing. Good luck on your real solutions, and congratulations!

Now if you’re looking for a local hero read about Mitch Avalon (of beaver subcommittee fame) and his willingness to take ACE on over the tree/levee issue!

Implementing the clear-cutting policy will cost local jurisdictions millions, they insist. At a news conference Monday in North Richmond, officials pointed to a thick stand of trees and bushes along Wildcat Creek. It would cost $2 million to bring the area in compliance with federal rules, said Mitch Avalon, deputy director of the Contra Costa Public Works Department and spokesman for a group of Bay Area flood protection agencies.

“I stand before you today at the risk of going to jail,” said Avalon.