Month: November 2010

Fed up with bad beaver news…

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, History March 5, 2011

It’s the time of year where beavers are in a ‘tailspin’ rushing about to take the last few trees into their underwater larder before the freeze. It’s also the start of trapping season in most areas, historically because their coats get big and fluffy for the snows making the pelts more valuable. There have been, literally, five stories each week describing how trapping is necessary in North Carolina or Manitoba to control the population, and more stories than I can stomach about offering a bounty for tails — even raising the price on the bounty to make it more attractive.

Now the entire country of Scotland has gone beaver-stupid on a national scale and I am stunned to read the ridiculous, fisherman-fueled, robustly unscientific trifle coming out of that country daily. Never mind that countless studies have proven that beaver dams are not only no obstacle for fish but provide essential pools for juvenile salmonid. Don’t bother me with the facts, I have my mind made up. There are even those who ignore the historical writings and skeletal remains and insist that there were probably never beaver in Scotland to begin with!

Scared people get stupid about lots of things, but I have come to believe beaver-stupidity is unique in its contagiously panicked overlook of data.

Well, let’s leave the trenches and admire the view for a morning, shall we? I was listening to a lecture last night called “Effecting Change: Advancing Global Health” with advocates from the Gates foundation talking about applying the tools of marketing to get the world to focus on solvable health problems and solutions. They felt that the real role of the advocate was to tell stories, and to tell them in such a way that other people felt inspired to help. This meant they couldn’t be too depressing or overwhelming, because then people stop listening. They had to introduce a personal view (rather than a large scale view) and show a problem that got solved.

Of course, I couldn’t help but listen with my own experience thinking about our role with the beavers. Obviously we’re talking about a much smaller, local, furry scale, but its still the same basic principal of encouraging people to get involved and to feel like they can do things that matter and effect change. Personal connection, check. Accessible story, check. Real solutions, check. Public opinion can tolerate bad news, such as the first kit’s or mom’s death, but not too much bad news, such as the wholly atrocious half million dollar ponzi scheme to install the second layer of sheetpile. There has to always show a light at the end of the tunnel and a clear path how to get there, even when we aren’t sure of the way ourselves.

There are parts of the argument I don’t like. Morally, I don’t want advocacy to be the same as marketing, and I don’t think that marketing always does such a great job anyway. (Look at the Chevy Nova sales in Mexico, for instance!) I want people to do the right thing because its the right thing, not because its convincing. Still, mostly I’m a pragmatist, and I just want them to do it. Clearly there are parts worth gleaning of this argument, reminding me to keep telling good news, or good stories inside bad news, and to always focus on solutions.

In that vein, I offer this cheerful beaver observation by veterinarian and naturalist Nelson Poirier from New Brunswick, Canada. It appeared in the TimesTranscript this weekend with the auspicious headline: Our symbolic beaver overcome challenges of the past. He took the time to document the historic value of beavers and had some pretty remarkable things to write about their role in the economy.

One may ask why this mammal has become such a significant Canadian icon, right up there with the maple leaf and common loon. All three of these icons find New Brunswick a very pleasant place to call home. Although the beaver is widely distributed throughout North America, it is very much at home here in this province and although its waterway reconstruction and dam building can occasionally create confrontation with man, for the most part it lives in harmony with us and compliments our landscape creating complete wildlife communities with its construction efforts. The beaver was the first land natural resource to be exploited in Canada and that started mainly right here in the Maritimes. The beaver pelt had always been held in high esteem by native Canadians. When Europeans arrived, however, the beaver pelt quickly became the unit of currency in the new land. Native wars and feuds were fought over rights to trapping territories as fortunes were made and lost in the fur trade.

I thought this part was pretty stunning, and it reminded me of our parallel story in California.

“The first mention of the placing of restrictions on trapping is in 1877 when the season for mink, otter, fisher, sable (marten), and beaver was set as Sept. 1 to May 1. A closed season was declared for beaver in 1897 which was continued to the present day (as being written in 1945). Permits were issued for limited trapping for a few years but this being very difficult to control, stopped in 1919. It was also found very difficult to prevent poaching, and the beaver continue to be scarce. In 1933, the game wardens estimated the total population to be 162 animals in 38 colonies. Although there were probably some colonies they had not heard of, this indicates how scarce beaver had become. During the last 12 years it has become increasingly difficult to take and dispose of beaver skins illegally and the steady increase has been reported. In 1944 in 1945, the beaver population being estimated as nearly 20,000, limited trapping was again permitted. It is interesting to note that Denys (1672) and LeClerq (1691) both called the beaver, otter, and muskrat, four-legged fish, and said they can be eaten in Lent. Even Cooney (1832) said that the beaver was considered to be the connecting link between the quadrupeds and the fish.

Of course I wrote Mr. Poirier and sent this article off to our historian friend, who has already added these papers to wikipedia. Nelson wrote back that he likes beavers a lot but they make very uncooperative veterinary patients, and “don’t even think about leg splinting them!” which made me smile. What’s stunning to me is that in 1832 a man noticed that beaver was the connecting link between quadupeds and fish and the entire country of Scotland hasn’t yet got the memo.

It’s a nice beaver article, (and yes we’re grading on a curve). Go read the whole thing and sigh wistfully that we’ll never get to see steam rising out of the vent hole for our snow-bound beaver lodge! (Although I’m sure they don’t mind at all!) Tomorrow Worth A Dam will meet 60 third graders at the dam to spread a little beaver education and gospel. Hopefully we’ll leave clues of our whereabouts so check out the sidewalks later! Wish us luck.

Feral Beavers Part II

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere November 29, 2010

There’s a new “Save the Wild Beavers of Tay” group on facebook, you should go join and show your support. A letter from Derek Gow, the conservationist involved with the Beaver trial, has been sent to the Guardian. I thought you’d enjoy it.

Louise Ramsay 4:47am Nov 29

Here is a letter to the Guardian by Derek Gow, the wildlife specialist who quarantined the beavers for the Argyll trial. As the Guardian may not publish it, since it is rather long, I am putting it up here for group members to see. Please keep spreading the word.

Dear Sir,

Your article on the 26th of November 2010 “Fury at Campaign to catch escaped beavers” brings to the fore an issue which has been known and discussed in nature conservation circles for some time. If Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) decides to move against this population then they will do so for reasons which have nothing to do with welfare and little with legality. Their action will be principally inspired because they are the “wrong beavers” in their reckoning. This will probably be coupled with a desire to quietly assuage individual landowners or land use groups who are implacable and to eliminate a perceived threat to the integrity of their official trial in Knapdale, Kintyre.

In the view of very many nature conservationists this course of action is ill considered and profoundly wrong.

Although little is known about the distribution of the beaver population on the Tay they are known to be breeding – juveniles have been filmed playing outside their lodges – and are probably of mixed European origin – Polish, German and Scandinavian. Beavers do not hibernate and rely instead for over winter survival on their autumn body fat reserves coupled with “feeding caches” of branches which they collect and submerge in the bottom of water courses. While these strategies assist the survival of healthy adults they are less effective for juveniles in their first year of life. These small individuals cannot retain significant fat and are therefore reliant on the large, strong adults retrieving food from the caches. They also depend – as a social species – on the close contact of their parents and older siblings for warmth. Beavers live in families based around a central monogamous pair. The splitting of these bonded units through a regime of random capture will result in significant distress. The random removal of adults by trapping in winter could easily result in the death of 1 year olds from starvation or hypothermia. There is no sentient animal welfare case to be made for this casual action.

I have a beaver family on my farm in Devon and have been involved with the species for many years. I know most of the centres who maintain this species in Britain. A hidden detail in the Tay agenda is the ultimate fate of the captured individuals. If they are not to be sterilised and released then there is currently no zoological facility in Britain or Europe which has the capacity to keep 50 beavers. Even if they could be exported to Europe there is little wild space for them there as a result of either natural re-colonisations or past reintroductions. If there is therefore no space in captivity for captured individuals and no prospect of their release elsewhere then they will have to be killed in significant numbers by rifle shots to their heads or lethal injections. It is inconceivable that SNH, the Scottish Executive and their partner organisations are not perfectly well aware of this.

An official study undertaken by Natural England (NE) suggests that once established in the wild that European beavers would be protected by EU law. This situation is however complex. Normally it would be an offence to “release or allow to escape into the wild any animal” which “is not normally resident…….to Great Britain”. European beavers undoubtedly were a former resident and may have survived as a wild species until the 16th century. No definition of what is ordinary resident has ever been recorded in UK law and if the Tay beavers are established then no licence may be required from any nature conservation body in Britain for further releases.

The Tay beavers in the opinion of SNH are not the “right beavers”. To understand this position it must be considered that by the beginning of the 20th century the beaver population in Western Europe had been reduced by human hunting to less than 400 individuals. These were confined to small populations in France, Germany and Norway. A study undertaken for SNH of the semi-fossil remains of beavers in Britain suggested that those in Scotland were more closely allied to the French population than any other. On the basis however that the English sample were closer in type to modern Scandinavian beavers a decision was made to use these for Knapdale. The genetic difference between these populations is insignificant and physical abnormalities have been widely recorded in Europe where reintroduced populations have been formed from these single source stocks alone. In Eastern Europe a population of perhaps 2000 beavers survived. These are much more genetically variable than those in the west and will readily interbreed. Both subspecies are already mixed throughout their current wild range as a result of natural re-colonisation and past reintroductions. As far as the wider ecology of the beaver is concerned the otters that hunt in the pools they create, the frogs that spawn in their wetlands and the woodpeckers which bore holes in the dead wood they provide will be un-influenced by what type of beaver created the habitat. If the restoration of the beaver in Britain is based on the significant ecological benefit they bring to wetland environments for other species then this dogma makes little sense.

It is to the tremendous credit of SNH and their partner organisations that they persevered with the return of the beaver for so long and were ultimately successful with a licence grant for their Knapdale Trial. Those involved with the project however recognise its limits. It will not answer many of its critic’s queries regarding game fish interaction with beavers or the impact of beavers in intensively developed agricultural environments. At its conclusion in opponents will direct their opposition at these limitations and deride its results as inapplicable. In truth with regard to these factors Knapdale will be. The Tay beavers are living in a landscape which affords these study opportunities in abundance.

Knapdale is an unusual site in respect of its ownership being largely held by the Forestry Commission. Throughout most of mainland Britain the opportunity to replicate projects of this type will be negligible. The single largest consummate challenge for those who wish to restore the beaver will be the development of a process which works in landscapes with multiple landownership. This is a social rather than scientific exercise. European beavers are a very well studied species. We know exactly the benefits they bring to riparian habitats and the problems which arise from their presence in modern countryside. There are effective blue prints in Europe which show that the presence of beavers in developed landscapes is quite possible and that where issues do arise these can be managed. These projects rely absolutely on “whole community” engagement. The fact that beavers have survived on the Tay for some time now with no recorded conflict suggests either a degree of tolerance from private landowners or their pragmatic resolution of any arising issues.

The beaver population on the Tay is therefore of considerable importance. It has no parallel in contemporary Britain and there is little chance of its like arising for many years to come. Although its creation is unconventional its existence offers significant opportunity. All that is required to develop this resource is an informed, unbiased rational appraisal of its worth coupled with a flexible approach to its development.

Yours Sincerely

Derek Gow.

Sometimes We Win…

heidi08 Uncategorized, Who's Killing Beavers Now? November 28, 2010

From the “It serves you right you beer-swilling , beaver-killin’, troglodyte” files, here’s a nice tale of getting what you deserve.

Seems that Yvan Fournier of Iroquois Falls Ontario received a set of fairly hefty fines for illegal beaver trapping. I guess it wasn’t his first time. The article says his shotgun and a ‘tool’ he used to kill beavers was ‘forefeitted to the crown’. Its nice to know these things have consequences. I just wish the money was going straight to a ‘beaver education and humane management’ fund. Well, nothing is perfect.

I’m sure this had to sting a little.

Enjoy

heidi08 Uncategorized November 28, 2010

Just time to say that I observed this once at ‘marine world’. A trainer was vising one of the dolphins in the underwater viewing area. The dolphin was obviously happy to see him and showing off. (Never knew they could see us down there!). He ‘blew’ a water ring and then swam through it. It was amazing.

Feral Beavers?

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Uncategorized November 27, 2010

High upon Highlands, low upon Tay,

Bonnie George Campbell rode out on one day.

All saddled all bridled and booted rode he,

And home came the saddle but never came he.

So this morning’s great escape story comes from Scotland where they’ve decided to round up and trap all the escapee beavers from that have broken loose from private farms over the years and bring them to zoos. They are calling them “feral beavers” to make them seem looming and dangerous and to ward off the inevitable wave of public opinion that’s likely to come their way.

Note that the BBC story says ’20 feral beavers’ have escaped over the years whereas the Guardian reports that there are more than 50 at large! (Why stop at 50? If we’re going to speculate wildly lets say a 100. How about a million?)

Some wildlife experts believe that more than 50 beavers could be roaming free: families of beavers, and evidence of their lodge building, have been regularly seen by villagers and naturalists around Invergowrie on the outskirts of Dundee, Forfar in Angus, Glamis in Perthshire, and Tentsmuir near the mouth of the river Tay.

Would a beaver without a family build a lodge? Yes. A single disperser hoping to attract a mate would build a lodge near a great food source and hope to get lucky. He or she would hope a LONG time. The fact remains that these beavers, all by themselves in a country where there ARE NO BEAVERS, are highly unlikely to find a mate and reproduce. Stop me if I’m going to fast for you. The will very likely wander the countryside, encounter zero beavers for their troubles, be unable to survive on their own, and die.

Ahh, but I can hear the fevered Scottish scientists now saying yes but what if a pregnant beaver escapes! Then introduces her feral brood into the countryside? Just so you know, pregnant beavers are very very very unlikely to roam. They have a family to think of and would rather stay where they are. Your ‘escapees’ are probably yearlings who took great pains to ‘disperse’. They have not bred and don’t have mates and aren’t likely to find one in your country. What if a male-female pair of disperers escape together? the ‘bonnie & clyde’ of beavers? I suppose its possible. Did anyone ever report losing two beavers at once?

Could they mate with something else? hedgehogs? wild dogs? members of the monarchy? No. Just calm down and realize that beavers without other beavers will live out some portion of their lives, eat a few trees, and die.

Sir John Lister-Kaye, a former president of the Scottish Wildlife Trust who keeps beavers at his Aigas wildlife sanctuary near Inverness, said the animals were once native to the UK and should be given protection under European conservation directives if they were breeding successfully.

“I think this is quite simply professional jealousy. Scottish Natural Heritage and the zoo have been quite hostile to those of us who have private collections or who know quite a lot about beavers,” he said. “I think the public needs to be in on this debate; they’ve voted 59% in favour of the beaver.”

Well, good luck trapping these 20 or 50 beavers and transferring them all safely to the zoo. i can’t imagine you have room for that many beavers in your zoo but I’m sure you’re counting on the fact that a) many will not survive and b) that there aren’t really that many to begin with. Ooh look the story gets better!

SNH said the trapping operation, which is being supported by Tayside police, was a matter of urgency because beavers were spreading so rapidly. A spokesman said: “The longer we leave it the greater the task will be. We are also urging all owners of animal collections to take greater care in keeping their animals captive.”

Spreading so rapidly? When the female enters estrus once a YEAR for 12 hours? And there are no males to breed with anyway? Is there a secret beaver fertility clinic in Scotland that we don’t know about? Well good thinking to involve the police. I’m sure that will go over well with the locals.

I wrote the Scottish National Heritage in Tayside and explained the risks of live trapping and put them in touch with Sherri Tippie. I can’t imagine they’re over worried about being careful with the animals, they certainly aren’t worried about bad press.

I’ was still working on the term ‘feral’ when Cheryl sent this lovely video. Wait until the end when the beavers make a decision what to do with the infrared camera in their lodge. I knew it!