With ecology and beavers for all!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver News, Beavers, History, In the News, kits October 16, 2012

Last night’s evening at Madrone Audubon in Santa Rosa was a dynamic reminder that people who take their birds seriously are ready to talk about beavers. We were warmly welcomed and Brock started with a perfect overview of the beaverdom in California situation. My very favorite part was where he was talking about a friend’s plan on the Klamath to install a dam in one stretch of land to make some wetlands and fish habitat, but the friend’s intention was daunted by permitting and funding.

Never mind. Some unfunded unpermitted hard working beavers moved in, made the dam in that exact spot (plus 19 others) made a luscious slow wetland out of the area that turned into pools and pools of coho salmon – the only salmonids on the river!

Then it was time for Heidi’s beaver story and footage. Goodness they were just the right crowd for a beaver tale! I started with Art’s fantastic footage of the woodpecker in the beaver chew because I thought it anchored the whole presentation for Audubon and then launched into the always compelling story of the Martinez beavers and the effect they have had on our creek here in town.

Afterwards there was a lot of energy and enthusiasm, a couple of folk asked for directions so they could come see the beavers themselves, and a man who asked me if I’d be willing to present to his city council so that they’d be ready when beavers came to their town. Of course I said yes! Why just look how popular Worth A Dam is with our city council?

This just came from Brock

That was so much fun! So many people commented that the combo of both our presentations was great!

I loved all of your stories and the video of the beavers is so deeply heartwarming and connecting. Love watching mom on her hind legs carrying material! Susan said he thought it was the best evening set of presentations for Audubon ever!

Saturday I just did a TEDx talk in the mission in SF. I think that you should be invited to do a TEDx talk with your show – although it is a tight 18 minutes – it would be so great to have you telling that story on the TED format! Just a thought…

Go Beavers Go Brock

Not quite sure TED is ready for beavers, but when they are they know how to find me! Now some broader beaver news to get you started on your Tuesday. First this fine report of manmade wetlands installed to cover up some monster pollution in Toronto.

Hamilton builds man-made wetland

“It’s not every day that someone builds Great Lake coastal wetland,” engineer and project manager John Helka told the amassed crowd. “It should be a beautiful area in the next five to ten years.”

He says this with some optimism, as the area hasn’t been beautiful in decades. It had been abused by chemicals, sewage overflows, landfill leaks and eroded sediment for years. The harbour became so busy in the ’50s that the basin was converted into a sediment trap to protect it. It was all downhill from there. “It has taken decades to screw up the harbour as bad as it is,” said Bay Area Restoration Council Executive Director Chris McLaughlin. “Steel Mills didn’t happen overnight.” He’s not kidding. Hamilton Harbour is also home to the turgid Randle Reef, the worst coal tar contaminated site in Canada.

So folks have polluted the watershed for years and now they’re spending a ton of money to cover it up. Pile dirt on poison and pour water over it and that’s a lake right? “As one would expect, this isn’t a cheap project. Costs run in the $20 million range, with $13.8 million of that coming from the federal and provincial government. The city is kicking in the rest.” The mind reels. The jaw drops. They’re keeping those pesky migratory birds away so that its easier to work, but this is the part that made me chuckle:

Then there are the beaver fences. Seems that once beavers end up in the wetland, they’ll try to dam up the water spouts for the pumps — so fences had to be constructed to keep the little buggers out.

Yes, you better keep those hardworking buggers out, because otherwise they’ll sneak in and build all those wetlands for free! Then you’d be stuck with that 20 million dollars burning holes in your pocket! You wouldn’t want that to happen would you?

Not when its turning out so nice!

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Need to rinse that bad taste out of your mouth? How about taking a sip of this lovely article on fly-fishing beaver ponds from author and journalist Steve Raymond.

Those wary, demanding trout are one reason I still enjoy fishing beaver ponds. But there are plenty of other reasons. In my backyard, on the wet side of the Pacific Northwest, beaver ponds have their own peculiar haunting beauty. Under dark, rain-swollen skies, they glisten like obsidian; during rare moments of sunlight, their acid-stained waters light up with the color of strong, bitter ale. They exude a scent of mustiness and decay that’s perfectly in character with their gloomy aspect.

Nice writing Steve! What a lovely description of the beaver pond that is practically a portal to another world where nature thrives and changes, and fish have choices so they might not be as desperate as one is used to!

Of course the Pacific Northwest has no monopoly on beaver ponds. They can be found wherever there is cold, running water, lots of trees, and a population of eager beaver. I imagine they all offer similar fishing. But beaver ponds have not fared well in the face of metastasizing suburbs; many have been drained, bulldozed, filled in, or artificially landscaped to provide centerpieces for tasteless “developments.” Others, yet beyond the reach of subdivisions, have been spoiled by logging. So there aren’t as many beaver ponds as there used to be.

But there still are some good ones left—dark little jewels of water hidden back in the woods, filled with dark little jewels of trout. If you make the effort to find them and fish them, I promise you won’t be disappointed. Well, not all the time, anyway.

You know what would be a really effective way to get more beaver ponds? Go ahead, I’ll give you a minute.

Wildlife Fail

heidi08 Beavers, City Reports, Educational, Environmental October 15, 2012

Did you watch PBS Nature program on Skunks last night? It had some great information and introduced some quirky folk who passed their time studying or rescuing the fragrant animal. I sympathized with how life could thrust you with no warning at all into a single species that became your fate but my jaw dropped when they talked about Marysville CA.

Marysville has a lot of skunks. Using the crosswalk, meandering through town, everywhere you look skunks. And it also has many miles of Levy protecting it. So when the skunks need a cozy burrow for the night they dig a hole in it and Marysville gets very, very nervous. They showed workers filling the burrows with cement and then setting the entire levy on fire to discourage skunks.

(God knows what they do to beavers.)

And then, well almost as an afterthought, the narrator mentioned that there were a lot of feral cats too in Marysville. And that, wait for it, folk who fed feral cats in Marysville. And- wait for it– SKUNKS SEEMED TO BE EATING CATFOOD and maybe that was affecting population.

Really? Ya’ think?

They all got letters this morning. Sheeshsheeshsheesh. It’s PBS not Animal Planet or Billybob’s webcam!! I was expecting some dynamic explanation like the 15 year reproductive life cycle of the cicada. Nope. Cat food. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that as a GENERAL RULE whenever you have a wildlife problem with bears, or foxes, or skunks, or coyotes. The very FIRST thing you should do is assess the pet food situation. Can we all just agree on that?

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Jr last night, looking beaver-ish. He came out of the bank by the footbridge at 6:15 and brought his branch back there to dine. Things are looking very Autumnal at the dam, and it gets dark so early photography is nearly a thing of the past:

Audubon tonight! Wish me luck!

Beavers and Birds

heidi08 Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers October 14, 2012

Thought I’d share some new slides for Monday’s talk at the Madrone Audubon Society:

And, because man does not live by beavers and birds alone….

New Champions in the Beaver Field?

heidi08 Beavers October 13, 2012

Meet Rachel Malison. She’s a doctoral candidate at the University of Montana and finishing her research and dissertation on, lo and behold, the relationship between juvenile salmon and beavers.

“For my PhD I am studying the influence of beavers on juvenile salmon ecology in a large river floodplain in western Alaska,” she wrote. “A typical day in my PhD really depends on the time of year. In the winter (I’m generally) working on my computer, analyzing data and writing, identifying insect samples, or working on presentations, but occasionally we sample in the winter months as well. In the spring-fall while I was collecting data, a typical day included living in a wall tent five hours by jet boat from the nearest town in the Alaskan bush, jet boating up a remote river, sampling beaver ponds and spring brooks for juvenile salmon using minnow traps, collecting insect samples or habitat data and then returning to our camp for the evening.”

Rachel! Glad to make your acquaintance! Here at beaver central we are very, very interested in the relationship between beavers and salmon. Can’t believe we didn’t cross paths before! Here’s her CV for anyone who’s pining for a new professor. And her website for folks who are interested in her research. Rachel apparently hails from Idaho which, as you know, we’re ranking fourth on the fifty state scale of beaver wisdom (Washington being first, Oregon second, Utah third and California being some where around 15th. Well it could be worse. We could be Georgia. Sigh) (No offense BK)

Not sure how this relates to Pollock’s work, and how it adds to his research? Maybe a bigger scale? A wider flood plain? A different species? Maybe Montana just can’t take the word of a crazy researcher from the Pacific States, even if he works for NOAA? I know Montana isn’t exactly beaver-wisdom capital of the world.

One of the most critical life stages of salmon populations is the juvenile stage. In Alaska, some of the most important rearing habitat can be found in spring brooks within large river floodplains, but in many of these systems large landscape level changes to habitat result from the activities of beaver (Castor canadensis). I am conducting my field research in western Alaska, on the Kwethluk River, a tributary of the Kuskokwim. This is an ideal place to study the impacts of beaver on salmon as it is an unregulated river, with a plethora of beaver, that is largely unmodified by humans due to its inclusion within the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge.

Wouldn’t it be great if she was invited to present her findings at the State of the beaver conference in January? It’s freezing and dark in Alaska then, it’s not like she’d miss anything important. And she could meet Michael Pollock and Mary O’brien and Glynnis Hood….you know all the folks who might hire her eventually…seems like a good idea to me.

Oh and in case you never listened to the story of Michael Pollock’s doctoral research, Alaska travails, interships,and salmon findings: here it is again.

Gestalt

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Friends of Martinez Beavers October 12, 2012

Obviously the phrase “seeing the forest for the trees” was first written by a beaver lover, speaking to a group of castor phobes, and trying to reassure that their beloved pond wasn’t going to be ruined. No need for any of that language at the Stanley Park Ecology Society in Vancouver. They already know.

Birds in Stanley Park got the first of five quiet places on the water in Lost Lagoon Wednesday, as part of an initiative to help protect the wildlife in the park.

The Stanley Park Ecology Society is making the resting spots out of logs salvaged from local beaches. Anchored at both ends, the logs are meant to create more habitat for birds on the water away from people and other disturbances on the shore, said Robyn Worcester, conservation program manager for the society.

Shh, this is my favorite part…

Dealing with resident beavers is also one of the challenges for the park, she said. “We will be wrapping some of the trees to protect them so they don’t all end up as meals for beavers,” she added.

Wow. Not only do they know there’s a humane way to solve the problem and plan to employ it, they’re only going to wrap SOME of the trees and leave the rest for beaver snacks. Of course those beaver-nibbled trees will coppice and become dense bushy regrowth that makes perfect nesting cover for all those birds, but they probably know all that too.

Let’s all send fan letters! This is the kind of natural pragmatic wisdom I admire most. Don’t they have Killer whales in Vancouver? Maybe furry little beavers aren’t that big a problem by comparison.