Oh, Canada!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Environmental, kits July 21, 2012

Sure they fell trees, but their ponds are essential

TRUE NORTHERNER. There was a time when tree-loving cottagers did everything they could to get rid of beavers. The rodents can bring about an impressive amount of change in a forest, but there are ways of living alongside them. Photo by DC John

MUSKOKA SUN – The beaver may be the national animal of Canada but the rodent isn’t always a welcome sight at properties in the region. Beavers are known to destroy vegetation and reroute waterways, and some cottagers work to capture or kill any beaver that attempts to make a home near their property. However, eliminating a beaver is not the best course of action.

“There is a way of living in some symbiosis with beavers,” said Todd Cairns, fish and wildlife technician with the Parry Sound District of the Ministry of Natural Resources. “There’s a way of being able to appreciate the basic needs of beaver being food, water and shelter and being able to live within those basic needs so they’re not being as intrusive to property owners and property owner rights

As part of a lecture titled “Living with Beavers” at the spring Muskoka Stewardship Conference, Cairns explained that there are several benefits to having a beaver on, or near, a property.

Did I read that right? Does Todd actually work for the Ministry of Natural Resources? Whoa! They are usually every bit as forward thinking and protective of beavers as USDA is here…I need to sit down…If there are a few places where the wisdom of beavers in the ecosystem is starting to permeate, I will be a very happy camper indeed!

Due to the popularity of beaver ponds with wildlife, dams also create excellent opportunities for fishing, hunting or just nature appreciation. Everything from fish to moose to reptiles thrive in the habitat created by beaver ponds.

Well, I would probably swap the word ‘popularity’ for the word ‘dependence’, and I’d offer a few more solutions other than ‘plant evergreens’ and ‘cut down your own trees first’, but still, it’s the Ministry of Natural Resources and we are grading on a curve! Great work, Todd. Write me back and we’ll have wonderful beaver conversations!

Sadly I have no new beaver footage for you today because my eyelids stubbornly insisted on remaining closed at 5:3o this morning. When Jon went down before work he saw Jr. following an adult beaver to the dam, and watched the adult mudding. For a moment he thought Jr. was about to embark on his first damming efforts, then he reached up to the willow the other beaver had placed there and snatched it away so he could munch it.

Ahh, youth!

A midnight snack…

heidi08 Beavers July 20, 2012

When we stood on the bridge Wednesday night it was windy and mysterious – the kind of stormy weather brewing that made everything feel suspenseful. It was so windy that after we went home a branch from the cottonwood fell down into the park. If the tree falls and no beaver chewed it, does it make a noise?

Apparently!

I guess if you’re a beaver a high branch cracking sounds a lot like a dinnerbell, even if you have to scramble 6 steep feet to get there! Wish I could have seen beavers in the park eating this. They obviously had such full tummies that Jr. made narry an appearance last night. Sheesh!

There was some interesting followup to the officer who picked up a beaver by the tail in Illinois after he had been hiding under some office stairs for a few days. I wrote the reporter and the officer about the dangers of tail-picking. The unceremonious photo ended up on Canadian news as a national slight. And the reporter wrote:

First came the email Heidi Perryman, president and founder of Worth A Dam, who was concerned that Underwood had lifted Beaver by his tail.

“… Beavers should never be picked up by the tail, which have fragile vertebrae and are easily fractured,” Heidi wrote. “A better solution would be to secure the beaver with the pole and direct it to the open crate, since he will likely be happy to move into an enclosed space away from humans.”

Just to make one thing clear, Underwood didn’t mean to pick up the beaver by his tail. If you watch the video, Underwood was trying to slip the catch pole’s loop around the beaver’s torso, but when Beaver made a run for it, the loop tightened short of his tail.

Anyway, I responded to Heidi, and I figured that would likely be the end of Beaver’s tale (har har).

I suppose you are offering some explanation as to ‘motive’ and clarifying that this was NOT premeditated tail-picking, but in fact a second degree pluck? Obviously whether he meant to do it or accidentally did it, it’s still hurtful to the beaver and deserves a revisit of Jack Prelusky’s memorable poem:

Here’s a grainy video of the mom (?) beaver bringing home some cottonwood treats. Apparently heidi’s new camera can shoot in slowmotion if she can remember to point the lens in the right direction. Really not enough light for the beaver, but watch to the end because the water drops are lovely!

AFANCOD!

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, In the News July 19, 2012

Listen: Cymru.ogg

All week Peter Smith (of Wildwood in Kent) has been bursting with news he couldn’t talk about on the Save the Free Beavers of the River Tay forum. Now he can finally come clean.

Wonderful news -a proper release probably in a river system, excellent backing from key stakeholders and being led by all the Welsh Wildlife Trusts. Well done to Adrian and all those involved. Lots of stuff on the website including reports etc. We will be helping with importation and the initial release which I am enormously excited about.

See Wales had a ‘JR beaver release’ of sorts last year, with two females added to private fenced land and the usual freaking out from farmers and fishermen reported on the BBC. They would ruin the land! Eat all trees! Destroy the countryside! Rape the women and children! (Well, maybe not that last one.) But they were slow, and steady and patient like only someone who’s waited 500 years for something can be. Since then they’ve been working and collaborating and educating and soothing feathers, and now they get to release an actual mating pair in an actual stream!

Hooray for CYMRU!!!

(And if you knew how hard I worked to find this particular scene on Youtube, you would play it!)

Last night our OWN beavers did NOT disappoint. It seemed to be a ‘coming out party’ for JR who actually crossed the secondary dam and stuck around long enough to photograph for once. Make sure to check out last night’s post, and here’s an additional wonder:

Kit Adventure Tonight

heidi08 Beavers July 19, 2012

Stung by my acerbic blog post implying the new Martinez Beaver Kit was as inaccessible as Princess Diana, Jr made a languid appearance before his fans and two huge families with small children on the bridge tonight. When he smelled something delicious on the dam he actually crossed it, paddled downstream and then burrowed IN the dam to find it, causing Heidi so much distress that he was going to get stuck that she could no longer film. For the soft of heart, rest assured that he was fine and he FOUND the fennel. Amazingly good night to be a beaver watcher. Enjoy!

Beavers go ‘postal’ in Maine

heidi08 Beaver News, Beavers elsewhere, New Species July 18, 2012

This update from our friend Lega Medcalf popped up yesterday. What an amazing example of beaver advocacy!

NW-29-beaver-saga-2-300x168[1] — A CAGEY WAY — to prevent the beavers from plugging up the upstream end of the culvert was to erect this wire dome over it, held in place by rebar sunk deep into the stream bed.

Bridgton beavers’ saga continues

By Gail Geraghty

A CAGEY WAY — to prevent the beavers from plugging up the upstream end of the culvert was to erect this wire dome over it, held in place by rebar sunk deep into the stream bed.

A grand experiment in coexistence with beavers began last weekend when a few passionate folks waded knee-deep in muck to modify the dam the beavers created behind the Bridgton Post Office on Elm Street.

The dam was causing flooding in the post office’s parking lot, and raised water levels well above what’s typical for a large expanse of downtown wetland bounded by Elm, Park and Nulty Streets and the town’s Wayside Avenue leach field.

Regional Wildlife Biologist Scott Lindsay of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife believes it’s one or two young beavers at work, possibly the same ones that built the lodge and dam just a short distance away at Shorey Park, where Highland Lake meets Stevens Brook. Resident Lega Medcalf, who’s been championing the beavers’ cause, called Lindsay for advice about the problem, and he put her in contact with Richard Hesslein of Brownfield, who has worked on beaver modification efforts for years. Together, they walked the perimeter of the wetland around Corn Shop Brook late last week.

Go read the entire fantastic article and remember what a powerful difference a passionate individual can make! Last night we had a very brief viewing of HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS the new kit at our own beaver dam. He dives faster than a camera can focus…sheesh! We did meet a fantastic family from Ireland (now Hercules) who stopped to become deeply entranced by the beavers and their story. I made sure to plug the festival lots of times.

Finally there’s a nice article about muskrats this morning from the St. Albert Gazette in Canada you might want to check out. Since we always enjoy their visits while we’re waiting for beavers, its good to get a little background.

Muskrats are the most commonly seen mammal on waterways in St. Albert, according to local naturalist Dan Stoker. You can find them anywhere along the Sturgeon River at this time of year, as well as at Grandin Pond.

“For every one observation that might be made of a beaver,” he says, “you are likely to make 10 to 20 or more sightings of muskrats locally.”

You’re telling us! The fun article made me think of these, which happen to span about 5 years as nearly the most complicated movie I ever made and the very third movie I ever made! How’ that for a learning curve?