Sunday Good News!

heidi08 Beaver News, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions March 13, 2011

I’ve been waiting to talk about this new article from Oregon University Quarterly. It’s moved by itself into my all time top three favorite articles about beavers. Author Bonnie Henderson starts out with the tagline “Beavers can help us save salmon and make life better for ducks and other creatures.“ Wow! You have my full attention Bonnie. The article starts by chronicling the academic adventures of marine sciences graduate Allison Cramer as she’s looking for something new to research for a final project.

So she went to talk with Craig Cornu, stewardship coordinator at neighboring South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve. No problem, Cornu said; he had plenty of salmon-related projects she could do on the reserve. His next question: “Are you interested in beavers?”

Is that the beginnings of a great story or what??? I rushed for the popcorn and the comfy chair to read more.

A few minutes into her conversation with Cornu, however, Cramer began to understand why he had mentioned salmon and beavers in practically the same breath. Many of the streams feeding South Slough had been diked and their naturally meandering courses straightened a century ago by farmers claiming tidelands for pasture, he explained. That process made those streams inhospitable to salmon.

In 2001, the reserve had removed the dikes at Anderson Creek and rerouted it to restore its curves. Ultimately, the goal was to bring back the stream’s complexity, so that it no longer merely flushed water but let it linger, encouraging a rich variety of plant and animal life to take hold. Willows were planted in hopes of luring beavers—nature’s own wetlands engineers—to set up housekeeping, build dams, and finish the job.

By 2002, beavers had come back and, within a few years, had turned the creek’s final quarter-mile into a series of stair-stepped ponds brimming with life. Just how many beavers were working the creek by 2007, Cornu didn’t know; he was hoping Cramer could craft a project to find out.

So Cramer’s job is to count the beaver and identify their role in the creek. And our job is to find Cramer and Cornu and invite them to the beaver festival! The article meanders past some other researchers in the area, including Jeff Rodgers of ODFW who is in charge of the salmon plan monitoring for Corvalis and was thrilled to see the beavers return.

“To reach our conservation recovery goals for coho salmon,” Jeff Rodgers says, “we need a lot of the habitat that beavers provide. And you can’t get there just by putting wood in the streams.” In fact, says Rodgers, it may be impossible for Oregon’s coho runs to recover to desired levels without help from beavers.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the sentence California has been waiting for. It’s the sentence that is going to push salmon interests into forcing the hand of policy and allowing beaver relocation/reintroduction around the state. Let’s repeat it for emphasis. “It may be impossible for coho runs to recover desired levels without help from beavers.” I want this sentence repeated everywhere, at every possible venue. Certainly at the Salmonid Restoration Conference at the end of the month. As far as I’m concerned it can replace ‘in god we trust’ on our money.

The article dutifully discusses the problems beavers cause, and how challenging they can be for property owners. True enough. Then it goes on to say

There are alternatives to lethal control. Wire cages around trees can limit beavers’ damage, as can “beaver deceiver” devices installed to protect culverts. Live-trapping and moving beavers (allowed by permit) is an option, but like killing them, it’s not an ideal—or even permanent—solution. Displaced beavers tend to get hit by cars or killed by cougars. And if the habitat is good, count on another beaver arriving soon to replace the dead or relocated one.

My my my Bonnie. That’s one fine article. Maybe you should come to the beaver festival too!

“It’s an ecosystem thing,” Rodgers says. “There are a lot of things wrong. A lot of things have unraveled that we need to put back together. The question is, if we kick-start it’’—by providing the habitat beavers need, then not killing them when they show up—“can we let beavers do it, so we can go on and do other things”

Saskat-CHEW-ON-that!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now? March 12, 2011

The forward-thinking province of Saskatchewan, (which narrowly rejected a plan to offer ‘beaver bounties for citizens who bravely kill their own beavers), just announced it will come up with half a million dollars to kill beavers at the municipal level. The minister of hyperbole has granted license to claim the beaver population has EXPLODED in recent years and there is certainly nothing else they could do to prevent rodents from blocking culverts and building dams. Never mind those pesky environmentalists who claim that beavers raise the water table and slow water movements by creating ponds. No one’s trapping anymore because the value of fur has declined in recent years and all these beavers won’t kill themselves!

The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, known as SARM, says beavers are damaging rural infrastructure and private property. SARM president David Marit said Wednesday that part of the problem is the exploding beaver population.

Exploding beavers? Now that does sound dangerous! No wonder you found 500,000 to fight it! I guess America has seen shoe bombs and underwear bombs in the last few years, so why NOT an exploding beaver! It’s insidious!

Ohh. I just received a wire from the Ministry of Dangling Participles clarifying that the population of beavers has exploded, not the beavers themselves. Whew. That’s a relief! I was going for my beaver-proof vest. I’m curious though, how do you know the population has exploded? I mean when is the last time you did a regional count and how do you know the numbers have increased?

Funny thing about Beaver trapping. When governments rush in to take out massive groups of beavers, populations have a way of recovering. In fact they often rebound, with more food available for fewer beavers and female caloric intake increasing so that brood size increases. You end up doing the same thing all over again in 1-2 years.

Hopefully you set aside another 500,000 dollars to take care of that problem?

Or you could be proactive. Install culvert fences, flow devices and wrap trees. Allow beavers to manage your water and increase the population of things that are more valuable to trap. Regina is about 9 hours from Dr. Glynnis Hood whose beaver research has made the world take notice. She’s actually very knowledgeable about beaver management. I’m sure she could connect you with some graduate students that would come install flow devices for the cost of a pack of Skittles. You can by an awful lot of Skittles with 500,000 dollars.

But then you’d have all that money left over, every year, and your wildlife population would improve and your province will be known for its humane pragmatism. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?

Neglecting the Obvious Choice…

heidi08 Uncategorized March 11, 2011

Guess what? Bertola’s, the yellow restaurant next to the beaver dam, is closing down. Yesterday’s Martinez Gazette tells us that a new owner will open a pub on site with three levels of dining. Jim Blair is a longtime Martinez attorney, interested in the history and local color of the town. He wants to draw on its strengths and unique flavor. So of course he’s going to name the Brewery after the most famous residents of Alhambra Creek.

No, not those residents, silly. Not the ones on national news that people still come from out of state to see. Not the ones you can reliably watch every evening from the property’s back fence. Not the ones that have a yearly festival in their honor and that thousands of people associate with the name of Martinez. Apparently, Mr. Blair’s looking for a more apocryphal hero to draw customers to his establishment. Go figure. Worth A Dam wishes him well but we cannot recommend highly enough that he considers offering one of these dam fine beers:

Or there’s always this…

Progress

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's Killing Beavers Now? March 10, 2011

Things are looking much better for the Owens Valley Beavers, previously doomed by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power who announced in February that they were putting a contract on their lives. A feisty local advocate, gleaning information from this website, has taken it upon herself to champion their cause. We have been exchanging regular emails, crafting letters to LADWP, and planning her next moves. She has been horrified by conversations with Fish and game and has been judiciously hounding LASPCA, LA Sierra Club, and HSUS about their safety. I know Skip Lisle was contacted by HSUS about the work, and yesterday our LA-liaison finally saw things click into place. Maybe they can turn from a ‘who’s killing beavers now’ story into a ‘happy ending beaver story’. Fingers crossed.

(Two days ago, feeling the beginnings of success, she made a thank you donation to Worth A Dam. I asked her t-shirt size to send off and she demurred, saying all she really wished she could have was a beaver chew, too bad we didn’t have those for sale…)

Let’s just say I think she’ll enjoy her mail today.

Cheryl stopped by this morning and snapped this photo of a beaver near the footbridge. She writes “

Went out this am saw 2 beavers, one going across the break in the primary, got there just a couple minutes too late, basically saw a tail flip up and then he went upstream. 3 Kingfishers,were zooming up and down the creek. One kit (yearling!!) was under the blackberries upstream of the footbridge, I got a not so great early am shot of him.

Not just for Beavers, anymore.

heidi08 Environmental, New Species March 9, 2011

A friend whose home is along Alhambra Creek above Brown Street sends these photos of his backyard visitors.

Hooded Mergansers in Alhambra Creek: William Mechling

Regular readers of this blog will recognize the showy plumage of Hooded mergansers. This remarkable fish-eating duck nests in tree cavities in the east and comes out here to enjoy shallow waters during the winter. The excellent Cornell birding site tells me that sometimes several females will lay eggs in a single nest and adds

The Hooded Merganser finds its prey underwater by sight. The merganser can actually change the refractive properties of its eyes to enhance its underwater vision.

How cool is that? A bird with water-vision goggles? What does it mean that Hooded Mergansers are in upper Alhambra Creek? It means there are little fish for them to eat, which is always a good sign. it has been documented that our watershed, like most, gets less healthy and robust as it flows down to the mouth. Increased runoff from streets and drains introduce more toxins and pollutants. In fact the location of the beaver dams is historically the least healthy section of the entire creek.

I like to think that the beavers are changing that one pond at a time.