Click on the photo to go to the radio program and download the podcast to hear several familiar beaver advocate voices, including yours truly. Kevin Hile is an adorably enthusiastic but gentle host, and does his best to guide Lansing listeners towards new thinking about beavers and beaver management.
Lory kindly took photographs of our beaver habitat yesterday, and I thought you’d be interested. Looks like the filter has been knocked off its roots again and our beavers will have a MESS of work to do. No rest for the weary!
Isn’t this a photo for the ages? I like the thought of the grubby photographer crouching his way through the culvert to get this shot. As you can see it was taken in 2009 in chicago, but its such a beautiful bit of beaver proganda (SEE WHAT BAD PROBLEMS THEY CAUSE! THEY CAN”T BE STOPPED!) that other papers buy it for display.
Take for example Cate Gable’s stunning article in the Chinook Observer tuesday. It offers an upclose profile of a rugged beaver trapper, Glenn McCully and his corresponding good works. It vividly describes the damage beavers do to trees and roads, and promotes Glenn’s valuable services as the only real solution for this hardworking menace Under Washington law Glenn is a live-trapper, but don’t be fooled by the term. He uses the same big suitcase trap as Sherri does, then comes back in the morning and shoots them nearly through the head. At the end of the article Glenn even points out how some useless PETA-type homeowners tried to wrap their trees with chikenwire to protect them without killing and even THAT failed.
(No one anywhere bothers to mention that this measure would be successful only if beavers were the same size as chickens.)
This industrious but controversial rodent has played a key role in the historical development of the mouth of the Columbia fur trade. Despite heavy trapping during the 1800s and early 1900s, beavers continue to confound landowners and county officials. Glenn McCully, who works for Pacific County in facilities maintenance but also has has his own “nuisance wildlife contracts,” has been trapping beavers for more than 20 years.
McCully live-traps the beavers and attempts to relocate them if he can. “Beavers are very territorial and they have about a 20-mile range. So when I relocate a beaver, I have to make sure I don’t place it inside another colony’s territory or they will fight.”His own “nuisance wildlife contracts,” has been trapping beavers for more than 20 years.
Thank goodness we have the benefit of Glenn’s extensive biological knowledge. You don’t get to be a nuisance wildife hitman for nothing you know. Is this the fourth trapper-worshipping article I’ve reviewed here about beavers? They’re all starting to blur together. Tell me again why reporters get all starry-eyed when talking to men who kill things for a living?
DAMIAN MULINIX/Chinook Observer Glenn McCully, who live-traps beavers in and around the Peninsula on nuisance wildlife contracts, has been trapping beavers for more than 20 years.
“And it’s not just a matter of putting in a larger culvert to accommodate beavers. They will just fill it up,” he said. “Beavers also create scent mounds all around their territories so that other beavers will stay away. They even kick their kids out every two years — so they’ve got to find their own territory.”
Beavers as white trash? Good thing you didn’t mention trapezoidal fencing to protect culverts. Never mind that some of the top knowledge about culvert protection is 100 miles away with Kings County public works. It’s much better to make the problem sound hopeless, and justify your pitiful and temporarily ‘live’ trapping. The merciful nuisance-remover gets the better part of the article, and then its time for some brief ecology.
Most environmentalists do not count beavers as pests. From the point of view of waterway health, beavers are helpers, according to Liane Davis, forest ecologist with The Nature Conservancy. Davis affirms that beavers create the kind of stream and effluent diversity that provides specific salmon habitat.
“Beavers create habitat that favors particular fish but it depends on the species and their requirements. Beavers are good for juvenile chum when the smolts are trying to out-migrate [to the sea]. What they do is also good for juvenile coho.”
The article pauses briefly to mention Coho salmon and Melinda Daniels Kansas research about river restoration. Then its back to beaver bashing, without hesitation.
Patten continued, “Beavers are not a black and white issue. Because they do backup the water, it allows the [salmon] smolts that stay around for a longer time to have a great place to feed. Fish can go under and around and through a beaver back-water, so there is a value to them.” “But I hear grumblings and rumblings about beavers, along Tarlatt Slough [on the south end of Willapa Bay], even along Pioneer Road. If Long Beach floods or a cranberry bed won’t drain, then it’s a significant issue. It’s just a matter of balance.”
Not a black and white issue? (Umm…no they’re a brown issue.) The article ends with a truly breath taking discussion of the hidden benefits of beavers being good to eat, and not one but TWO recipes about how to prepare the delicacy of beaver tail. That wins a letter. I have a zero beaver-recipe tolerance policy. Here’s the letter I sent and some addresses in case you want to add your own.
I was very disappointed to read your ambivalent article about beavers in Pacific County. At no point do you discuss successful tools for managing problematic beaver behavior – such as the use of flow devices and culvert fences which have been proven effective in research and practice. You mention the failed attempt to wrap trees with chicken wire without pointing out this would only be successful if beavers were the same size as chickens. Trees can be successfully wrapped. Culverts can be protected and flooding can be prevented all without trapping. Mr. McCully should follow the model set by other successful trappers who have broadened their skills to include the use of properly designed flow devices. Here are two places to start learning.
Beavers are a keystone species that make essential wetlands that benefit fish, birds and wildlife. They recharge the water table, improve water quality, augment biodiversity and restore soil richness. They do this work entirely for free and the engineers are onsite 24/7 to make repairs. Here in Martinez, CA we allowed a local beaver colony to remain by installing a successful flow device that has worked well for four years. In turn the beaver dam has improved the watershed, increased fish and wildlife, and enriched the community. I recently returned from presenting at the State of the beaver Conference in Oregon and was thrilled to hear the good restorative work being done as beavers are reintroduced around the country.
It might surprise you to learn that as unimpressed as I was with this article, your state has the most advanced and progressive beaver policy in the country. The Lands Council in eastern Washington would be a good resource for future articles.
Any city smarter than a beaver can keep a beaver and any city interested in water, fish or wildlife should know why to do so.
Heidi Perryman, Ph.D.President & FounderWorth A Damwww.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress
For me, the most powerful part of the state of the beaver conference, was hearing Sherri Tippie talk about stumbling into her role as the top beaver relocator in the united states. For nearly a quarter of a century, Sherri has been the go-to voice on beaver relocation. In the past few years she is more interested in beaver management than relocation, and when consulted she first talks about flow devices, wrapping trees and installing beaver deceivers. Her pragmatic affection for these animals – and willingness to have her life completely transformed by them – both thrilled me and made me feel deeply relaxed. When I wasn’t shedding tears or covered with goosebumps at her talk, I felt strangely like a child falling asleep in the back of the car — completely assured of security and knowing the adult in the front seat would get me home safe.
Beavers and their advocacy are in good hands with Sherri. I thought the best way to share the experience was to give you your own. Accept my apologies for the audio but you don’t want to miss this.
Sherri still considers herself a hairdresser by trade, and doesn’t charge for relocation. She works closely with state parks and fish and wildlife and has generally earned a reputation as both compassionate and competent. She has a literal bastion of friends and supporters that she teaches to operate hancock traps and monitor flow devices. Her book on ‘Working with beaver’ was recently published by the Grand Canyon Trust and is an inspiring, practical read and a major achievement.
Several times during her talk she spoke about being personally affected by the beavers in her temporary care – an injured animal that had stood up to say goodbye upon release – a badly treated beaver that a zoo had rejected as ‘vicious’ that came to love and trust her almost immediately. Sherri said firmly that she always tells beavers what she’s going to do before she does it, and they almost always calmly cooperate. She emphasizes that each beaver is an individual, with unique habits and preferences.
Sherri uses both experience and intuition in her work with beavers. She said when you’re trapping beavers you can’t do anything else, because you have to be there the next morning without fail. She remarked that she used to use apples to lure beavers into the hancock traps, but found the drive in her small car with a gaggle of gassy beavers a little uncomfortable. Now she covers the traps with leaves, so that the beaver can calmly enjoy a meal while he’s waiting for her arrival. She described having a ‘feeling’ about how many beavers were in a colony, and when the last member of the family was trapped. Interestingly she said the father was often the first, and often found with kits in the cage.
Mom was usually the last.
if you need more proof of her startling attention and compassion for these remarkable animals, I just received a note from her about the ‘beaver valentine’ saying:
Just opened this. Thank you so much!! What a perfect beaver. Hey, is it just the beaver I’ve seen or have you noticed how they sort of hold their little finger up when they’re holding or eating something? 🙂
My goodness, I hadn’t noticed that before. but you’re absolutely right! Thank you for your courage, compassion and common sense. The world is a much better place with you in it – and not just for beavers.
Once upon a time, not long ago, there were some beavers swimming and chewing happily in the Owens Valley River in southern california. Hardly anyone noticed that their dams created habitat for numerous waterfowl – the felled trees made homes for obligate nesters, and chewing produced coppicing with dense bushy regrowth that migratory and song birds preferred. One tireless audubon advocate noticed that their ponds flooded some cottonwoods which were the homes of these remarkable birds.
It is important that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the California Department of Fish and Game address this critical issue sooner and not later. Audubon members are urged to contact the Inyo County Board of Supervisors, the California Department of Fish and Game in Bishop and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in Bishop to urge them to begin controlling beaver numbers along the lower Owens River in the Lone Pine area (and elsewhere in the southern valley?). The threat to the Great Blue Herons due to girdling or drowning of nesting trees is real and will worsen.
It seems Michael Prather’s warning was the ‘shot heard round LA’ – or at least provided an excellent excuse for the reflexive decision to kill beavers. Los Angeles Water & Power was only too happy to dress up their beaver killin’ in a feathered Audubon suit, and decide without debate that the beavers in an entire range should be killed to protect the birds. Never mind that this was all done 10 years ago with disastrous and well documented results.
‘‘Beavers Will Die So Birds Can Survive.’’ This headline ran in the local Riverside, California, newspaper in January 1999 (Farwell 1999a). It marked the beginning of an effort by the management of the Southwestern Riverside County Multi-Species Reserve to eliminate beavers with the purpose of protecting songbird habitat.
concluding
Observations at Lake Skinner produced insufficient data to demonstrate that beavers harmed habitat for either least Bell’s vireo or southwestern willow flycatcher. In general, vegetation ‘‘managed’’ by beavers favors songbirds, both by providing nesting opportunities and boosting insect populations as a food base, some examples of which are summarized by Mu ller-Schwarze and Sun (2003).
Alright, maybe beavers are good for little tiny birds, but Mr. Prather was worried about majestic blue herons. What about them? Funny thing, here’s an interesting paper put forward by Fish & Game in New Hampshire. Click on the link to read the highlighted sections which demonstrate the herons often nest in flooded dead trees of beaver ponds, and are in fact dependent on them.
Well, maybe those New England herons are different? How do we know that beavers are good for this specific habitat in this specific waterway? It’s not like there’s an technical study done on this exact location to assess the impact of beavers in Owens valley.
Oh.
Beaver ponds generally provide unique and valuable habitat for many species of wildlife. Increased structural complexity and high interspersion of unique plant communities and habitat features are important factors influencing wildlife species presence and abundance. High breeding bird density, bird species richness and diversity, and total breeding bird biomass are typically associated with beaver ponds.
Well sure, there may be some incidental good that beavers do for an area, but its the conclusion of the report that really matters. I’m sure that the department of water and power wouldn’t have made the decision to kill all the beavers if the report they commissioned had recommended something else.
Although beaver activity has resulted in the removal of much willow and other shrub and woody vegetation and the dams create favorable tule conditions and reduce fish spawning habitat, they also provide important fish rearing habitat, mesic meadows, and promote the growth of other riparian species. It is most likely that the physical removal of beaver dams will result in more adverse environmental impacts than environmental benefits.
It is our conclusion that beaver dams should be left as they are, allow the natural forces associated with future out-of-channel and base flows to remove or incorporate them into the riverine ecosystem, but focus on controlling the number of beaver by reach through trapping as the management strategy.
Wow.
So a commissioned report advised keeping a healthy population of beavers, beaver dams have been proven to benefit birds including the great blue heron, and Mr. Prather is still able to say “eek beaver!” and provide environmental cover for a species genocide campaign that not a single reporter can be bothered to question.
Are we surprised?
(Many thanks to RL for finding the articles that made ashes of the Owens valley beaver killing argument.)
Great Blue Heron (and beaver dependence) Kelly JR New Hampshire Fish and Game
