Month: April 2012

Too Many Beavers in Beaver Creek!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's Killing Beavers Now? April 10, 2012

A beaver gathers branchs in a lake near Kremlin. Residents and officials in Hill County are now debating how to best manage beavers in Beaver Creek County Park. COURTESY HAVRE DAILY NEWS/NIKKI CARLSON

When the name of the recreation area is Beaver Creek Park, exactly how many beavers are too many? According to Steve Mariani, Hill County Park Board chairman, the answer to that question depends on who you talk to.

“There’s a segment of people who think there’s way too many beavers in the park, and then there are people who don’t like trapping at all,” Mariani noted. “Certainly there are beaver in the park, there always have been and there always will be. You certainly want to get them before they do become a big problem, but they’ve been there forever. Sometimes you just can’t make everybody happy. There’s always going to be opposing opinions

Too many beavers at beaver creek? Are you kidding me? (Is Montana being ironic or obtuse? Sometimes the difference is too subtle to detect.) Apparently the creek stretches for 17 miles where people can enjoy fishing and camping. I guess a few charmers would like to add trapping to the list.

“My main concern is to stop the damage before it gets into these campgrounds,” trapping proponent Shawn Keely was reported as saying. “My solution is; we need more people trapping.”

Raise your hand if you think Mr. Keely might be a trapper or the brother of a trapper? Beaver Creek is in the far north reaches of Montana, less than an hour drive from the Canadian border. They also are about 500 miles from the Lands Council in Washington, so we can assume there are at least some people in the state who know better.

However, Mariani said he is unconvinced that beavers are the main source of damage to Beaver Creek Park. Mariani noted that an incredible amount of destruction in the area was caused by flooding.

“I think way more of our problem is from floods then from the natural order of the beaver,” he said. “We had two terrible flood years that just blew everything out along the creek. I think what we’ve got now is a lot of displaced beavers. People might not have noticed them as much in the past because they had their own little areas they kept to. Now they’re trying to replace everything that was destroyed by the floods, and every time people see a big tree that’s been downed by beavers, their first response is — ‘oh my gosh.’ But when you really take a hard look, I don’t think we have more beavers than we’ve had in the past, I just think they’re trying to set up camp again.”

Hmm, Mr. Mariani sounds like a potential friend. I think we’d better make sure he visits this website. Remember my theory that beaver wisdom on the west coast seeps out from Washington state so Montana must be soaking up a little. Check this out:

Mariani added that some of the beaver controversy is probably related to a desire on the part of local trappers to access trapping opportunities in the park. For several years a single area trapper, John Holmes, has been the only individual authorized to take beavers in Beaver Creek Park.

Got that? The park has a single contract and Shawn, Bob and Eddie want access so they get to kill beavers too! Why should Mr. Holmes get all the fun? The fellas can all pretend that there is a beaver population explosion so we can trap our piece of the pie!

Well, if the park follows the creek for 17 miles and beaver territory usually extends about two miles in each direction we can assume you have about four or 5 colonies at most. Lets say each colony has 2 adults, 2 yearlings and 2 kits so that leaves you with somewhere between 24 and 30 beavers in the entire park. Because its spring we have to assume that yearlings are dispersing and finding their own territory and this could cause quite a shuffle. Still, I’d be very surprised if you had more than 35 beavers in the area.

Which an open trapping season could quickly dispatch.

Just remember that if you allow Shawn and his friends to trap out your 30 beavers you will end up with broken dams that support fewer fish, less ducks and less otter and mink too. I’m not sure how your park goers will feel about that?

Beaver Reality Bytes

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental April 9, 2012

web_mon_facts_j_1393068cl-8 — Jill Mcqueston: The Globe & Mail

I was held hostage by a beaver

It was the moment of the big release! And then nothing happened. I opened the cage door expecting a frantic flurry and all I got was the feeling that I just acquired a new pet. While the three of us sat side by side on a knoll overlooking rolling farmland and a winding river, I felt a rare serenity.

This is a fun article. I like almost everything about it. She explains that at the time she was living on a 60 acre fish hatchery in Quebec. (That made me think of the Methow Project.) (Of course the irony is that if more people tolerated beavers Quebec wouldn’t need a fish hatchery in the first place.) The good-hearted writer was bothered by a beaver whose dams threatened to flood her home, so after months of painstakingly removing them by hand (only to have them instantly rebuilt) she decided to call in a trapper. The trapper promised to live trap the beaver and take it to someplace wonderful, but the night before he came she realized that might be the afterlife.

She woke up early and emptied the trap herself.

We paid big bucks for the assurance that the little guy would be safely trapped and transported in a cage to a “beaver heaven.” But that morning I had the sinking feeling that the “heaven” in question would be the biblical kind. Disguising myself with a baseball cap and a man’s jacket (I knew the neighbours would not approve of my impending actions), I hauled out the wheelbarrow. I summoned a strength I didn’t know that my skinny arms had in order to lift the heavy cage, complete with the captured critter, onto the wheelbarrow. After covering the cage with a blanket, Gypsy and I set off with our charge along a dirt road to find a release spot.

I had always thought that there were two kinds of people in the world. The kind who were sensitive and caring about all that was vulnerable, and the kind who were not.

She uses the incident to comment on moral relativity in human responses to animals, and show how compassion is always a little expensive. True, but I can’t help but wish that rather than spend time musing on the moral lessons of her past she had used the Google to find information about beaver management. Relocating one beaver is not likely to solve her problem, but a properly installed flow device would.

The irony of course is that even though she is working so hard to take care of this beaver, relocating him with no family members in a strange land is likely terminal anyway. Not to mention she probably has a family of beavers on her property, so she won’t have solved her problem OR saved his life.

I dispatched this to the Globe and Mail, let’s hope if they don’t print it they at least send it to her for next time!

Almost the Right Answer

Ms. McQueston’s lovely article communicated a thoughtful regard for wildlife and I wish I was lucky enough to be her neighbor. I would have told her about the use of proven, inexpensive flow devices that can safely control pond height and prevent her home from flooding. Maybe I would have explained over coffee that beavers are a keystone species and create habitat for birds, fish and wildlife that she can enjoy for years to come. Over the back fence I could have told her how the dams raise the water table, prevent drought and improve water quality. Later when we were alone I could explain how very unlikely it is that all her problems were caused by a single beaver, and that the remaining family is likely expecting new kits in the summer. I would pat her hand and say this was a noble effort but since beavers are highly social animals (and very territorial!) relocating a single family member is usually a prolonged death sentence.

Since we’re sadly not neighbors I can only hope that she reads this and continues to look for better solutions next time.

Ian Timothy: Agents of Change

heidi08 Beavers April 8, 2012

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Capture — Sunday's Martinez News Gazette

76 New Beaver Researchers!

heidi08 Beaver Art, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers April 7, 2012

Yesterday’s fieldtrip was the kind of absorbing delightful fun such that it is only after you have had it you realize how truly exhausted you are. Both of Alhambra Creeks protectors were there as Igor ditched the salmon conference for the morning and came to assist. We took everyone out for a gratitude lunch at Lemon Grass Bistro afterwards and there was lots to be grateful! There were bright shiny faces, enchanting questions, delightful observations and new discoveries. I talked to small groups at a time about the Martinez beaver story and how the ‘special pipe’ we installed allowed the beavers to stay and ‘make a neighborhood’.

But the best part was when I asked the children to help us by becoming ‘junior beaver scientists’ and helping research an important beaver question. Each child drew a question out of the basket – such as ‘how do beavers help fish?’ or ‘how do beavers help frogs?’ and their job was to find the two OTHER children with the same question and figure out the answer. Then we asked all our research teams to share results so everyone else could learn from them. Sitting back and hearing 76 8-year-olds explain to me how beavers make habitat for fish or birds or turtles was the very best part of the day and I highly recommend it!

Rumor is that Leonard and Lois Houston of the Beaver Advocacy Committee might come to town today to see the dams, so we’ll keep an eye out!

Meanwhile I thought I’d let you know that next week the International Bird Rescue group in Cordelia is having their volunteer training and needs good people like YOU to wash ducks coated in oil or raise baby chicks. Our own VP Cheryl Reynolds is volunteer coordinator and would love to have you aboard. Here’s the information:

International Bird Rescue Volunteer Orientation

Do you love helping wildlife? Then come be a part of our dedicated team and learn how you can help. International Bird Rescue is a non-profit wildlife hospital for injured and orphaned aquatic birds. Volunteers are needed to help in our wildlife hospital, transportation of wildlife and facilities support.

International Bird Rescue has been saving seabirds and other aquatic birds around the world since 1971. Bird Rescue cares for over 5,000 birds every year at its two bird rescue centers.

Our upcoming orientation is: Sat Apr 14, 2012, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM

For more information please visit our website at or email us. Registration appreciated

One final note is that tomorrow’s very special Easter Sunday Podcast will feature a certain beloved young stop-motion filmmaker from Kentucky. This year it seems like everyone wants to talk to Ian, but only on Martinezbeavers.org will you learn the startling truth about how this

started out as this:

I knew I forgot something! Today is International Beaver Day! How will you celebrate?

Another Dam Field Trip!

heidi08 Beavers April 6, 2012

This morning we’re meeting 76 third graders at the beaver dam to teach them how beaver help the environment and how Martinez helped them! This will be our second such effort so I thought I’d pull up the old post so you can imagine our fate! This year Jon will be helped on the tour by Friends of Alhambra Creek Founder Shirley Skaredoff and my teaching-activity piece will be gamely assisted by Marlene Haws and Lory Bruno. I’m told we can expect a photographer from the Pleasant Hill Record so I’ll tell the children all to smile and say “TREES”!

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Back in December Worth A Dam hosted a fieldtrip for 60 Las Juntas third graders. Jon and Lory took them on a tour of the dam. I gave a lecture on beavers. And Fro taught them the beaver chant and helped them draw chalk beavers on the sidewalk. They were bright, enthusiastic, and very excited about beavers. We all felt very happy that day.

Then we all went home and took naps.

Yesterday I received this delightful collection of thank yous. Look closely at the dark beaver bodies because some smart teacher came up with the idea of using finger prints! There were 30 of these.

And thirty of these…

Here’s a sample:

I’ve been called a lot of names since I started fussing about our beavers. “Martinez Beaver Protector” is by FAR the nicest. Look closely at the tail in the drawing by Gianna. It’s mom.