OLD SAYBROOK, Conn. (WTNH) – Several homes and businesses in Old Saybrook are flooded with more than four feet of water after the removal of a beaver dam.
According to the Old Saybrook Fire Department, many homes along the intersection of Route 1 and Route 154 are flooded.The state’s Department of Transportation partially removed the dam because of a clogged culvert.
Yes you heard it here first, REMOVAL of a beaver dam can cause flooding. Who knew? Apparently not the Deparment of Transportation (DOT) folks who ripped debris outta that culvert. They had no idea all those homes would be in four feet of water in a few hours. Now they’re saying that there must have been OTHER culverts blocked too! But who could POSSIBLY have guessed that? since beavers never build more than one dam in an area!
Except that they do. And DOT spends enough time destroying beavers and their dams to have a wing named after it so they should have known better. And call me suspicious but I don’t believe they would have ever done this next to a wealthy neighborhood or a powerplant. Well, the waters gone now anyway. And the beavers too probably. Maybe the folks in CT will connect the DOTs and hold them accountable for incredibly bad planning, but my guess is that the problem will be blamed on beavers and they’ll just promise to kill more next time.
Am I the only one who wonders where this is where the term ‘dotty‘ comes from?
Looks like Benicia State Parkhas beavers again. I’m not hearing any threat in this article, but we know the colony mysteriously diassapeared once so it would be good to keep an eye and ear out this time. The story of beavers at the park preceeds our Martinez beavers, but I’m enjoying the fantasy that at least one of the beavers in this colony is our disperser – all grown up and doing what mom and dad taught him or her!
The author spotted a freshly felled tree on the trail of the State Park. He appears surprised that folks weren’t more upset by the very natural action and writes,
Later I told the story of the tree killed by the beavers to Wolfram Alderson, executive director of the Benicia Tree Foundation. Here, I’m thinking, is someone who appreciates the value of trees, and wonder if he will object? Instead he smiles at me and says “Really, in Benicia?” We’ve all heard of the Martinez beavers, and the controversy they have engendered in our neighboring community. Benicia is not threatened by flooding the way Martinez is, so we can remain unconcerned about it.
Really?
For the record, the ‘proclaimed controversy’ consisted of a few powerful property owners, a handful of flood-fearing businesses and a council who wanted them dead, against EVERYONE ELSE. I guess that’s a ‘controversy’ in the same way that a single drop of food coloring turns a glass of water blue. Anyway it’s a fun article, which you should go read. And the next time Benicia needs beaver photos they should come to US! Sheesh!
Another mention comes from the Watershed Project in Richmond. I connected them years ago and somehow ended up receiving their newsletter. Look what’s in the latest issue.
Ana Weidenfeld’s brief article covers the basics. As beaver articles go it’s fairly luke warm but they do recommend coming to Martinez to see them for yourself, which is nice.
If you are in the mood to watch these fastidious and fun mammals at work, head into Martinez. The beavers are nocturnal, so make sure to bring your flashlight and go out in the early morning or late evening hours.
And a final note from Estes Park in Colorado, where you might remember a brave advocate wrote a letter to the editor about the irony of killing beavers to build a trail in the hometown of Enos Mills. It prompted my response, which apparently was printed.
Words from the past
Bill Melton raised the pointed question about what Enos Mills would say about removing a beaver dam to install a trail. The best way to answer that question is to go to the source. This is from his “In Beaver World,” which was written nearly a hundred years to go from his cabin in Estes Park.
“The dam is the largest and in many respects the most influential beaver work. Across a stream it is an inviting thorough fare for the folk of the wild. As soon as a dam is completed, it becomes a wilderness highway. It is used day and night. Across it go bears and lions. rabbits and wolves, mice and porcupines; chipmonks use it for a bridge, birds alight upon it, trout attempt to leap it and in the evening the deer cast their reflections with the willows in its quiet pond. Across it dash the pursuer and the pursued. Upon it take place battles and courtships. Often it is torn by hoof and claw. many a drama, romantic and picturesque, fierce and wild is staged upon the beaver dam. The Beaver dam gives new character to the landscape. It frequently alters the course of a stream and changes the topography. It introduces water into the scene. It nourishes new plant life. It brings new birds. It provides harbor and a home for fish throughout the changing seasons. It seizes sediment and soil from the rushing waters and it sends waters through subterranean ways to form and feed springs which give bloom to terraces below.”
p.74 Enos Mills In beaver World
Estes Park happens to be the home town of my hero, and I am from the home town of his hero. Enos Mills was the guest of John Muir here in Martinez in 1908. He well understood that an essential part of conservation work was done every night by the beaver. We would be happy to help you manage the pond in a way that takes care of your beavers.
Heidi Perryman, Ph.D. President and founder, Worth A Dam. martinezbeavers.org/wordpressMartinez, Calif.
Special thanks to Tom Gootz and the other members of the Trail and Beaver Pond committee for working with EVRPD and the contractor to attempt to find a solution, suitable to everyone, with regards to the beaver pond and dam on Fish Creek Road. It appears that the beaver will be the losers.
I better understand now that some citizens feel that the beaver cause damage to the community and should be relocated. But construction this fall, which the committee attempted to extend to next spring, is not the answer. The beaver will most likely abandon the site and be left to the plight of the winter for their future. Sad for the beaver and sad for the Estes Valley.
I was most pleased that Dr. Heidi Perryman of Martinez, Calif., read my “letter to the editor” of earlier this summer where I said, “What would Enos Mills do”? Dr. Perryman, who states that her hero is Mr. Mills, quoted from his book, “In Beaver World.” She also offered her company’s assistance (Worth A Dam) to manage the pond and take care of the beavers.
What’s the rush EVRPD? Why not contact Dr. Perryman and let the committee take another shot at helping to save the beaver? Enos Mills was a very wise man when it came to the ways of nature and man. Let’s take a moment to stop and reflect on his long ago comments that today are still very relevant to the future of our beloved Estes Park Valley.
Bill Melton Estes Park
Worth A Dam a company? Well, we do vacuum when we have the gang over to dinner to talk about beavers, that’s like “company” right? Honestly all the answers you need are on the website but if you can’t find the solution Sherri Tippie is about an hour away, so let her come show you how to protect your trails AND your beavers.
But I have that within which passeth show;These but the trappings and the suits of woe.Hamlet: Act I Scene ii
Before the beavers came to Martinez I didn’t much think about trapping or trappers. I never chained myself to a fur store or threw paint on a stole in protest. I probably thought more about the mistreatment of lab rats and rhesus monkeys (and some particularly unlucky Scotty dogs) in grad school, but I never really paid that much attention to the issue.
Of course that changed post-beaver. For years now I have reviewed articles that are both wistful and admiring about the “lowly” trapper. There seems to be an allure of the lost mountain men and a sense that killing beavers or foxes is as much apart of America’s heritage as a re-enactment of a particular battle in the Civil War, which may be true. There are trappers who become beaver experts and start advocating for them, like Grey Owl and Connecticut’s Skip Hilliker, and trappers who just think they’re beaver experts and spend their time spreading lies about them, like the charmer in MA, or the one in PA whosaid he was only killing the ‘soldier beavers‘.
I try not to react from an emotional place, and to stay focused on the fact that trappers are real people who need to earn a living and ultimately they may become the people who install the flow devices as public opinion shifts. Still, every now and then a trapping image or pronouncement is so stunningly horrific to me it catches me totally off guard. Yesterday, for example, a trapper that gets no link contacted me and said he’d invented a new form of live trap and was I interested. His youtube channel showed a battlefield of beavers, and I thought really? I suggested he talk to Sherri Tippie and he wrote back that he had but that she was very unreasonable. This morning she wrote an animated response describing his trapping devotions and putting voice to my private misgivings.
Sometimes seeing these grisly images can be like a black and white photo from the holocaust, which I even hesitate to type because it implies that I think the actions are morally equivalent or their impact is the same – which I don’t. But it can be throat-closingly, indescribably, shocking – especially when I don’t expect it. Somehow I think the very existence of that shock is offensive to some people, so that they deliberately mock it or provoke it like a young boy on the playground chasing his screaming classmate with the a dead lizard. Remember Josh’s aunt? And her remark that PETA members made excellent coats?
For the record, I don’t think we should setfires to fur warehouses or butcher stores and I also don’t think we should rely reflexively on killing to solve problems. I’ve noted before that the way we treat animals has become a kind of “false populism” where we identify which ‘tribe’ we belong to by whether or not we kill the intruder or discourage it. But this kind of tribal identification is essentially false -because we personally know there are all kinds of hunters with compassion and plenty of PETA-types without it. People are more complicated than tribes and our attitudes towards wildlife are a reflection of that complication and evolving all the time based on whether we believe we have realistic options or not.
So this week’s AP article on the pros and cons of trapping is valiant nondiscussion of the issues: you know the type – some say the earth is round, some flat, what do you think? It describes what some trappers say and describes what some members of the animal saving group Born Free says and never discusses once the issue of wildlife management in a realistic way or whether we have other tools than extermination in our arsenal. It prompted some fiery push back from the trappers in PA which prompted one of my favorite outdoor writers to reiterate his support for trapping, which prompted me to write him in frustration saying something about everything looking like nails to men with only hammers…
Which brings us to the review in Fur Taker Magazine Sept 2011, (and no, I’m not kidding). It’s actually a positive recommendation of Mike Callahan’s Beaver solutions DVD by trapper Stephen Vantassel, which only makes sense only if we admit we’re living in a post-tribal world.
I have been a long fan of beaver pipes or beaver flow devices ever since I became convinced of their effectiveness in the late 1990s. Unfortunately a lot of people within the wildlife damage management community, including fur trappers, see these devices as threats to their way of life. I would argue that there is no necessary reason to think this way. I suggest it is better to view the pipes as just another tool in the toolbox for doing wildlife management.
Good for you, Stephen. He of course goes on to mention crazy animal rights people just so readers know he’s STILL ONE OF THE TRIBE but its hard work crossing the aisle these days so I thank you for it. In the meantime, take a lesson from the world of beavers and talk reasonably to someone who’s not in your tribe today.
LOCAL UPDATE:
Remember the big storm back in March that wiped out the lodge and blew away the filter on Skip’s flow device? Well Moses brought it back and its been sitting in the corp yard. We’ve been watching to see when the pipe would be plugged (the filter stops the beavers from feeling the suction and plugging the pipe) and I figured since it didn’t happen all summer with it would probably happen after the first rain. Which it did. I took this photo yesterday morning with no movement coming out of the pipe. So it has to be fixed because the dam will rise and is rising. Dave Scola says that city staff will be replacing the filter themselves any day now. So let me know if you see anything.The good news is that its winter so whatever happens the beavers will get the water back.
