Jon saw three kits working on the secondary dam by the footbridge this morning around 5:15 am. Hopefully they’ll get an adult helper because its a big job! It’s what beavers do, so lets have faith that they are up for the task. In the meantime Lory sends this adorable photo she scanned from a greeting card.
I was pretty pleased with my ‘death and the beavers’ so I sent it around to the usual places, including to the chief executive of the Scottish National Heritage who’s authorizing the exciting beaver-capture on the Tay. Believe it or not I hesitated. I figured this kind of poking the dragon could result in some serious scalding, (or at least scolding). In the end, I was too proud of the evocative image to avoid sharing.
I added the message, “Still waiting for Scotland to do the right thing. This is an opportunity for study, not stealth. Any country smarter than a beaver can keep beavers in the wild. I believe at some point you will decide this is easier to do well than allow to be done badly. We’d be happy to connect you with real solutions if you need them.”
I’m glad I did. The same morning this article was the front page of the BBC I received this.
Dear Dr Perryman
I absolutely agree it is important to do reintroductions well rather than badly. Indeed that is precisely my point. I think you maybe need to know what is actually happening in Scotland before making your mind up. In Scotland there is a legal, licensed, monitored experimental reintroduction of beavers going on in Argyll. The licensees are the Scottish Wildlife Trust and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland – people who I think are both smart and know a bit about zoology. I would have hoped the whole Scottish conservation movement would have got behind them, but apparently there are some who won’t. Wonder why? The Argyll project complies with Scottish law, European law and IUCN guidelines. I hope it will be successful. To my mind that is what ‘doing it properly’ involves. Why not come across and see, or speak to SWT and RZSS and find out? Compared to this I can’t see that illegally allowing a few captive beavers of uncertain origin to escape is anyone’s idea of the right thing!
Dr Ian Jardine
Hmmm. No scolding. An attitude of reason. Obviously, he wants to appeal to a ‘colleague’. He clearly thinks he’s doing the right thing, and is going to need help finding the tools for redefining ‘right’. Of course I would change the words “uncertain origin to escape’ to “uncertain origin to exist” but that’s not worth writing back yet. I wrote
Dr. Jardine, thanks so much for taking the time to write back. I appreciate your efforts to protect the trial and its value and I respect your thoughtfulness regarding your role. My primary concern is the razor-thin footbridge of public trust you have secured for this effort – threatened on all sides by anglers who don’t believe the research proving that beavers help salmon, and farmers who are suspicious about beavers raising the water table and can’t ‘see the forest for their missing trees’….
The question I would ask myself is whether trapping ‘feral’ beavers broadens or narrows that footbridge. Without faith in SNH, the official beaver trial is functionally useless – even if it produces good data no one will respect it and ultimately no one will believe it. You have the science and data squarely behind you but the truth is that public good will is the only real tool you have for learning about reintroducing beavers in Scotland, and I would ask yourself seriously whether trapping ‘the wrong beavers’ hurts or helps that.
You can probably guess what I think already.
Heidi
Footbridge of public trust. I like that image. Maybe, just maybe I could nudge him towards the realization that the The Scottish beaver Trial isn’t trying out how beavers will do in scotland – we have the Crannogs of history to tell us they’ll do just fine (thank you very much). It’s to see how beavers will do in the attitudes of the Scottish people. How will people do sharing their land and waterways with beavers? Wouldn’t some citizen science be helpful in that? Maybe a watchdog group that runs parallel to the formal beaver trial? Say a group recording progress of the untagged free Tay beavers?
Dear Heidi
Thanks for this. As you say it’s a tricky one and it comes down to judgements about science, politics and public perception and mood.
My judgment is that public opinion is behind the beavers at the moment. What I don’t want is a section of society getting a toe hold to say ‘you said you would do this properly but you’ve broken your promises’. On balance I see that as a bigger political risk – remember our last Government refused a trial introduction so this one gave promises to justify changing that decision. We may not agree on this one, but I think we’re on the same side in the long run!
Ian
On the side of beavers. (Excellent book title.) Not exactly accurate here though. We might both be on the side of ‘beaver-kind’ being a benefit to the watershed, and I’m really grateful for that, but Its hard for me to see how being on the side of beavers means trapping and separating family members and sending them to live in zoos. I think we’re on different sides for as long as these beavers lives run, lets say the next ten years under ideal conditions.
I’m glad for the contact. He sounds fairly set in his thinking that getting rid of the extraneous beavers will protect the good name of the study, which, btw, was pretty much my point in the graphic. I’m fairly certain that this is going to look like a necessary evil to Ian until it becomes an impossibly bad idea in the public eye, and that’s unfortunate. In protecting the ‘good study’ by getting rid of the ‘bad beavers’ SNH will ultimately tarnish the reputation of the good ones as well, and beavers will pay the price for it.
Sigh.
If you need a little good cheer after that exchange, I’m posting a photo of a nighttime visitor from my friend in England. Is that the cutest non-beaver face you ever saw?
Yesterday I received this paper from Mary O’Brien, reporting the final figures on the fiscal impact of beaver wetlands in the Escalante River Basin of Utah. It was prepared by ECONorthwest at the request of the Grand Canyon Trust with support from the Walton Family Foundation. If money talks, the beavers are great communicators. When you think of the value of water storage, wildlife habitat and erosion prevention, it adds up to some pretty remarkable numbers.
“Restoring healthy populations of dam-building beaver can potentially impact ecological structures and processes in the basin of high and growing economic importance (Figure ES1). In particular, beaver activity can potentially substantially increase the area of aquatic and wetland habitat, increase base streamflow, and recharge aquifers. Improved baseflows and habitat structure would contribute to improving the temperature conditions the Utah Department of Water Quality identifies as constraining fish populations in the basin. Limited surface water supplies and storage options lead to high economic values for improved accessible streamflow.”
Go read the entire thing over a cup of coffee, and drop a copy off to your local city manager.
“Restoring beaver populations in the Escalante Basin has the potential to generate benefits to residents and visitors across a wide range of ecosystem services. If beaver populations reached their regional potential, the annual value of benefits could reach well into the tens, even hundreds of millions“
UPDATE: Baby otter seen at 9:30 above the primary dam this morning! Same size as the 8 Jon saw yesterday! Mom is getting breakfast and he’s fending for himself! Keep your eye out for visitors.
Sometimes a glimpse of the past is shocking in its ignorance. I have a book from the 1700’s on how to raise a good wife, for example, that says girls shouldn’t be praised for being clever or competent. (Just had to buy that one.) Other times we can only wonder why yesterday’s wisdom took so long to catch on. This is an issue of Life Magazine from Nov 1943 extolling the contribution beaver make to our soil by preventing erosion and raising the watertable.. 68 years ago the major publications in the country were talking about the value of beaver to the watershed and discussing their reintroduction to arid western regions. Why do attitudes about beavers have such a slow learning curve? It’s important to note that Donald Tappe had just finished his seminal paper on historic prevalence of beaver in California. I’m sure he would have followed up with a second that corrected some of his mistakes about beavers-only-living-above-1000-feet but he was drafted that year and never got around to it.
Well, don’t feel bad. Martinez is way ahead of the curve on this one. I received an email this morning from a downtown merchant who had just read about the Placer County Beavers being killed in the Tahoe Wildlife Care Newsletter and wanted to let us know that we should help! Mind you this is a merchant who at one time had been so afraid of beavers flooding the city they were committed to avoiding that eventuality through any means necessary. Now Skip’s battered Castor Master, (and our cooperative beavers0 have eliminated those fears and we find friends in unexpected places. It’s been quite a ride, but I thought you want to see what America was thinking about beavers in 1943.
