Month: February 2012

Would Vivaldi Trap Beavers?

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now? March 1, 2012

So the Four Seasons Active Senior living community of El Dorado Hills Ca. last week got an anxious email from a resident there that the board of directors had made the decision to hire a trapper to kill the resident beaver(s) in their creek. When I saw where El Dorado Hills is located (right next to Elk Grove) I wasn’t exactly hopeful. But I gave her arm loads of information and told her to come back if she needed more.

Two days later I received a second email from a second person who didn’t even KNOW the first person cared about the beavers. I put them in contact with each other, gave him additional armloads of information after spending some time looking up media contacts in the area.

Beaver lovers Dick Parsons and Jerry Baldo, left and center, jokingly square off with fellow Four Seasons resident Ross Johnson, right, who feels that the so-called Grassy Creek beaver is destroying young Oaks and Sycamore trees growing behind his home in the popular El Dorado Hills active adult community. Village Life photo by Mike Roberts

This morning it’s beginning to pay off. I’ve been told two news stations are coming out to film the big meeting tonight.

A homeowners association decision to remove and destroy the beaver that’s set up shop in the Four Seasons Active Adult Community in El Dorado Hills has residents collecting signatures to save the creature while an intransigent HOA general manager insists the beaver’s fate is sealed.

The beaver lives in Grassy Creek, a headwaters tributary of Deer Creek that winds through the Four Seasons, serving as both flood control and a scenic wetlands corridor for the planned development.

The Grassy Creek beaver, as residents have taken to calling it, has turned the formerly well-defined, narrow creek into a shallow marsh between Covered Bridge Way and Monte Mar Drive.

Hmm. It’s almost March so I suppose it’s theoretically possible that this wayward beaver is a disperser and on his own, but given that they’ve been watching him a while it’s much more likely that he has a family or at least some help. Both emails described the creek as ‘ephemeral’ and I assured them that if the beaver stayed it probably wouldn’t be any more! Apparently there’s a big meeting tonight

Four Seasons Owners Association General Manager Scott Jefferson notified Parsons by e-mail on Friday that the eradication of the beaver was “in the best interest of the community” and was moving forward despite his petition.

“The membership lacks the necessary authority to overturn or postpone the implementation of an operational/maintenance decision of the board of directors,” he said, “regardless of the number of completed petitions that may be submitted.”

On Saturday a frustrated Parsons conceded that barring a miracle, his efforts to save the beaver had failed. “People here in our little community find this marsh and its inhabitants life affirming,” he said. “We want to live and let live.”

He lamented that his HOA board acted hastily and “entered into this with their minds made up.”

The next board meeting is 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 29 at the Four Seasons Lodge.

I love the idea that they have the authority to MAKE the decision but not to CHANGE it. That’s rich. Well I guess the managers want active adults but NOT active wildlife. I told my beaver-protecting buddies to bring some grandchildren to the meeting and try to get them on camera maybe holding a picture they drew of a beaver, so we’ll see if anything slows this killing campaign. Apparently there’s a retired forester in the area who wants the beaver eliminated because some oaks are getting flooded.

Apparently the reporter took this whole story seriously enough to do his homework. He called Fish & Game who had this to say.

State Fish and Game Warden Patrick Foy, reached by phone, reported that beaver problems in semi-rural subdivisions are common. “We can’t really take a problem beaver in one area and move it to another,” he said.

Beavers are routinely removed and destroyed, trapped underwater to drown or simply shot, he said, often over the loud objections of animal lovers.

He said the species is not endangered or protected, and is well-established along waterways in western El Dorado County, with known beaver communities along Deer Creek and Carson Creek.

Urban beaver dams can be breached with combinations of pipe and screening that lower water levels and might save some of the trees along Grassy Creek, he added.

Now it may not seem like much but that last sentence is the VERY FIRST TIME in the history of beaver watching that I have heard a quote from Fish and Game recommending a flow device. Think about that, and think about their constant refrain to interested parties that ‘those NEVER work’. I would argue that that sentence can be directly attributed to the success of Skip’s Flow device and the televised drama of the Martinez Beavers.

Of course, no gift comes without tarnish…

The so-called “beaver relievers” prevent flooding but create frustrated beaver who often go to great lengths to clog the breach and restore their habitat, or simply move on.

Beaver Relievers? I can only assume this is a direct quote from the warden and not a misunderstanding by the reporter. Beaver Relievers! Its sounds like some kind of pain killer for rodents referring to the Salicin properties in willow! Maybe fish and game hasn’t evolved at all. He’s basically saying “I don’t know its name and I know they don’t work anyway.” Sigh.

Well good luck tonight in stopping your HOA from making the beavers DOA. Of course they will say they have no choice. It’s people who don’t want to be blamed for their choices always do. Tell them about options and benefits and otter and fish and heron.Tell them about solutions and say that Worth A Dam will help with information, referrals and a possible scholarship. Remind them that if they put up with

←this they might just end up with thi s→

Half a eulogy…

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Friends of Martinez Beavers, In the News February 28, 2012

Beaver-Nature’s Engineer

OUTDOORS Dave Sartwell

There is no doubt that the beaver (castor canadensis, for you Latin fans) is the master mechanical engineer of the animal kingdom. He is a nonstop builder that can create some of the most elaborate and strong dams that are able to hold back vast quantities of water. I have seen in Canada dams that are a quarter of a mile wide that have created back-ups a mile long.

Oh! Settling down to read this article was like sitting down with a nice letter from a friend and a cup of tea on a rainy Sunday afternoon. I was deliciously excited. He describes the importance of the fur trade, the softness of the pelt, the dispersal of youngsters, the building of habitat, the care of families, the defending of territories. It was all so exciting to read from beaver-war-torn Massachusetts of all places that I couldn’t wait to turn to page two and read about all the benefits that their engineering does for the entire ecosystem.

Page two….

Page two?

There is no Page Two.

No discussion of birds or fish or water tables or climate change. No reference to otter or mink or Atlantic salmon. No mention of sediment or meadows or coppicing or riparian extension. Sigh. This is clearly HALF a beaver article. Maybe the other half was cut by a space-seeking editor. But maybe it was never written.

I wrote Mr Sartwell to encourage him to work on the more important part next. You know I would provide all the ideas and references he could possibly need. Let’s hope the paper is at least curious about what all these benefits do? Does Massachusetts care about genuine trickle down benefits?

Don’t worry. A better article is on the way. I just got a phone call from a “fact checker” for the Atlantic Monthly. (Are there still such things?) Remember when the reporter came for a tour of the beaver habitat and a talk about the importance of beaver in our Urban Creek? (Um, maybe I was being discrete and didn’t post about that. I sometimes manage it. Well, it happened in early December and as it happens there were unbelievable amounts of beaver activity that night.) So the fact checker is going through the article and says dubiously, “It says he came to a town that’s a suburb of San Francisco is that right? And beavers moved right into the middle of your creek in town is that right? And he saw two yearlings from a street bridge is that right? Reallllllllllly???”

Ahh that was a fun conversation!

Well its getting ready to go to press. Including the prominent name of OUR CITY where this remarkable sighting was made possible. I asked for copies to give the city council.

Fingers crossed.

dad with tree — Dad with Tree, Photo Cheryl Reynolds

Too Much of a Good Thing…

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental February 27, 2012

“Can be wonderful”, Mae West said and I have to believe her this morning in particular. We are apparently in an ‘eddy’ of good beaver news, so I thought I’d let you wade in the riches today. The first is from our own backyard. The very smartest River watchers in the Golden state.

$3.6 billion plan could help coho salmon; meeting on proposal set for Thursday

A federal fisheries agency has plans to spend $3.6 billion over the next 25 years to save coho salmon from extinction in northwest California and southwest Oregon.

The plan lists dozens of proposed projects to improve coho habitat in 39 rivers and creeks from near Ukiah in the south to north of Grants Pass in Oregon. The coho face a high risk of extinction in 19 of the 39 rivers, according to the plan, called the Draft Recovery Plan for Southern Oregon/Northern California.

Cash for Coho! But wait – it gets better. It also includes Bucks for Beavers!

“Some of the Upper Trinity projects include helping beavers flourish”

Helping beavers flourish! Helping beavers flourish! Is that the best sentence you ever read, or what? This comes from our beaver folks up North, including Eli Asarian who was personally involved in making sure the language included beavers. This is about as good a way as any to convince the powers that be that taking care of beavers is good for coho. And the corollary which is nearer to my own heart: NOT taking care of beavers is BAD for Coho.

Brock Dolman sent this map of the area this morning so you can see what’s involved. As you can see it’s a pretty big area.

Go read the whole article and think about a similar project in our area. It will happen.

Now this news from the good folks up north is fairly predictable. When anything good happens for salmon or beavers it will happen first in the Klamath and the knowledge will seep downwards till it gets through the very tip of Southern California. No one is surprised when good news comes from where you expect.

But everyone is surprised when good news comes from where you NEVER would have guessed.

Cuyahoga Valley volunteers as busy as beavers

The return of the beaver to the Cuyahoga Valley has created more wetlands, in turn creating habitat that is highly desirable for other wildlife.

The park’s beaver census began in December and will be completed in March, Plona said. The park’s last beaver counts were in 1991 with a total of 200 and in 2006 with a total of 115.

The drop was probably triggered by the beavers “eating themselves out of house and home,” Plona said. They probably moved elsewhere along waterways out of the park, she said. Plona said she is expecting a slight increase this year, perhaps 115 to 125 beavers.

The count is being conducted by six volunteers who will survey 100 spots in the 33,000-acre park where beavers have been active before.

A National Park in Ohio counting beavers because they are good for wetlands? Be still my heart. I think I might swoon. I don’t want to be like that mean Aunt who could never compliment your successes without listing the reasons people had always thought you would fail – so I won’t mention the fawn or Josh or the tigers – BUT this is a great article and definitely deserves your full attention.

For the volunteers, counting beavers in the middle of winter is fun. “Just being outside is great,” said McQueen, who is assigned to check for beavers in isolated pockets of the park. “Doing this is a fun thing to do.”

He also helps out on park surveys of birds and butterflies and has logged 2,000 hours as a park volunteer. “If there’s running water, you are going to find beaver,” he said with a smile.

Biscan, a retired high school English and art teacher, helps check on the nesting bald eagles in the Pinery Narrows in the northern part of the Cuyahoga Valley park. She also tracks river otters and counts butterflies. She has logged 1,000 hours.

“It’s fun to be out in the park and hiking everywhere,” she said. “There’s a sense of discovery involved.” The beavers are fun to watch because they’re “so enterprising,” she said.

The volunteers rarely see the animals. “We’re just too noisy and they hear us coming,” she said.Bobel said she is fascinated by the beaver and its dam-building activities. She attributed her interest to the fact that her husband, Rob, is an engineer in the Cuyahoga Valley park.

She said the beavers are “so resilient, so adaptable, so fun to watch. They can alter their environment and create habitat for other species. I just enjoy them.

Beaver friends in Ohio! Not just the fantastic volunteers of the Cuyahoga Conservancy but the Rangers who set this in motion and the thoughtful reporter, Bob Downing of the Beacon, who put it on paper. This is a remarkably inspiring effort and I’m sure you know that I’ve already written everyone involved.

Beaver Festival in Ohio? It could happen.

The last bit of goodish news is that I’m off this am for a group interview with the Contra Costa County Fish and Wildlife Commission which reviews issues relating to funding and regulation enforcement for wildlife. I am not exactly hopeful a I have no wildlife background, am not associated with the most popular animal in the watershed, and not exactly beloved by city officials, but it’s as good a time as any to try and make them hear nice things about beavers and think where they fit in the broader watershed. It shouldn’t take long. Wish me good cheer.

UPDATE: okay not surprisingly the commission decided to reappoint all its old members and take on one new one who is not me. Well it was worth a shot!