Midday Friday afternoon the beaver newsroom started buzzing. Phone lines ringing and reporters hopping into vehicles to catch rapidly emerging stories. Well, in reality it was just me alone with a google alert, but it was still pretty exciting. Three – count them – THREE unrelated articles on the good things beavers do. Seeing a cluster of articles isn’t that unusual since the media loves to copy, but these stories are all about different projects in different areas and only related by the theme – and the commenter. Let’s start with my favorite:
ALEX PAJUNAS — The Daily Astorian A beaver holds up a blackberry branch to chew on near near Stanley Marsh in Seaside’s Thompson Falls Estates subdivision March 22, 2010. The site has most recently been used as pastureland but historically has been the site of a Sitka spruce forest.Call them the ‘beaver believers’
By NANCY McCARTHY The Daily Astorian
SEASIDE — They call themselves the “beaver believers.”
Those who are restoring the Thompson Falls wetland west of Nygaard Road near Stanley Marsh believe beavers are the key to the future that will unlock the past. And, after only a few weeks, the “believers” are being proven right.
“I saw the first sign of beavers two weeks ago,” said Austin Tomlinson, who does soil and water conservation and restoration. “Come spring, I’m hoping they will take off” and colonize the site. Developer Casey Corkrey took on the project to restore four acres of the Thompson Falls wetland to compensate for a project he plans to build on a wetland at the junction of U.S. Highways 101 and 26 between Seaside and Cannon Beach. The project at the junction will include storage units, warehouses and some retail space, Corkrey said.
To obtain a permit to fill in a wetland area for development, the Oregon Department of State Lands requires that developers find ways to avoid or reduce the impact on wetlands. If that isn’t possible, the state will allow restoration of a substitute wetland, stream or other water resource that is comparable to the impacted wetland.
But after three years of seeking permission from the state and from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and receiving advice from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Corkrey finally was able to begin work on what some call the “cutting edge” in sustainable mitigation projects.
Anyone wanna guess what that “cutting edge” project might be? I bet you all have some idea. Raise your hands high so I can see them. You in the front row. “Might it have a flat tail and a habit of buildling dams by any chance?”
Sitka spruce trees depend on water – lots of water – to survive. That’s where the beavers come in. The dams they build create pools and force water to flood the pasture, providing a habitat for the 400 spruce trees that were gathered from land owned by Longview Timber.
So beavers save water and water saves spruce and conservationists save beavers. Makes sense to me!
By using beavers to do most of the work instead of using the usual excavation and restoration techniques for wetlands mitigation, Ray estimated that the project cost was reduced by $60,000 to $80,000.
Without financial support from Corkrey, who is paying for the project, and the help of volunteers from the land conservancy and Tualatin Valley Trout Unlimited who have planted thousands of willow seedlings on the site and cleared invasive reed canary grass, the project would have taken much longer, said Celeste Lebo, stewardship director for the North Coast Land Conservancy.
“Without Casey’s generosity and Doug’s amazing creativity, it might have cost maybe $200,000,” Lebo said. “We would have had to apply for grants, which are very competitive, and it would have taken a lot more time.” The beavers, she added, will do what they normally do: create water places for animals to exist. “We’re all beaver believers, of course,” Lebo said. “They can restore the land a lot better than we do.”
Yes, they can. Fun fact on this article. My comment existed in the world for about 12 minutes before I got an email from “Doug”. Turns out he was at the State of the Beaver conference in 2011 and attended my presentation and thought it was awesome. He was dynamically influenced by all the good information he received there and inspired to try this on his own turf. Pretty small world if you ask me.
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Beaver ponds on Susie Creek during the last, dry summer.
Maggie and Susie Creeks flow south, entering the Humboldt River near Carlin. Much of their lengths are private lands, owned by ranches and mines, along with BLM-administered public lands.
The riparian zones along these streams are looking good these days. A lot of work has been done over the last 20 years to recover the riparian conditions along these streams. Ranchers, agencies, mines, and non-profit groups have partnered to do this work. Much of the improvement has come from changes in grazing techniques and specific projects.
All this work is getting a boost by beavers. As the stream habitat has improved, especially increasing woody material like willows, beavers have moved in and accomplished even more work. A remote sensing project found 107 beaver dams along 20 miles of Maggie Creek in 2006, which rose to 271 dams in 2010.
Elko is in eastern Nevada where they need water a lot. You would think that this wisdom had reached across the state, but I’ve had more than one argument with an old ranger who insists that beavers aren’t native on the west side and don’t belong in the area. This is a nice article though, and I couldn’t be happier that a large government agency like the Bureau of Land Management, is behind it.
Beaver dams slow the water and collect sediment that used to be lost downstream. In five years, ponds have increased the amount of impounded water on Maggie Creek from nine miles of stream to 16 miles. In spots, the ponds are forming marshy meadows.
These ponds mean a wider riparian zone along the creeks, bringing in more water tolerant plants and killing brush. Wider riparian zones create fuel breaks for future wildfires. The impounded water is seeping into the ground and raising the water table. Newmont’s shallow groundwater monitoring wells have shown about a two foot rise over the past 17 years along Maggie Creek.
Carol Evans is a fisheries biologist with the BLM and has worked on these streams for many years. “Beavers are radically changing the landscape. I really don’t know where this is going,” she said.
Ooh I know! I know! Call on me!
Carol brought up an interesting idea. We blame much of today’s stream damage on past grazing practices and higher livestock stocking rates, especially during the late 1800s. But how much stream damage was done during the 1800s as beavers were removed by fur trappers?
It is estimated we lost 90 percent of the beaver population across the west during the 1800s. As untended dams gave out, streams were damaged from increased sediment flows and eroded channels. Riparian zones shrank, water tables dropped, plant species were lost and brush moved in. Cattle then removed willows, slowing the return of beavers.
Beavers definitely proved their worth during this past, dry summer. In spots, beaver ponds held the only water along miles of stream, making it available for wildlife and livestock and protecting populations of native trout.
Carol feels a strong beaver presence may help reduce future damage due to climate change.
Well said! Your discussion of hydrological effects of beavers is spot ON. And the inference to climate change. Heidi feels that Carol is an unmet friend who should be invited to the beaver conference. So Heidi looked up her address and wrote her yesterday. All in all, its pretty great news from a pretty unlikely place.
MidCoast Watersheds Council Executive Director Wayne Hoffman told his member agencies Thursday night that beavers have been getting a bad rap lately and that their dams and ponds have been disappearing from Oregon woods for a long time. Hoffman said it’s time for Oregonians to re-examine the beavers’ contribution to the environment and to the salmon spawning especially.
Hoffman said although beavers are disliked because they sometimes cause road washouts, ruin fruit trees and generally can be a first class nuisance, they none-the-less contribute a great deal to Oregon fisheries and the health of Oregon’s creeks and streams. Hoffman says that beaver ponds and dams help to balance out creek and river flows by holding back water surges during storms while always letting a steady stream of water through their dams. Hoffman says their dams and ponds regulate water flows very efficiently, especially in the summer, when rivers would otherwise be down to a trickle in some areas. In so doing they keep the average groundwater table higher which keeps creek and riverside vegetation healthy, which is good for wildlife and for salmon. And by better regulating stream flows downstream, waters stay cooler which is also good for salmon. Beaver dams also trap and hold nutrients in the water longer for better distribution down stream which also benefits all wildlife.
You’ll understand my confusion yesterday. I was sure I had died and gone to heaven. I have never heard so much beaver gospel in one day and it made me a little weepy. Sometimes you feel like a voice alone, shouting into the wilderness, with barely anyone listening.
And sometimes you realize your part of a growing environmental militia.
And finally, Hoffman strongly endorsed a strong public information campaign aimed at rural property owners who, he said, should appreciate beavers rather than hate them – that living cooperatively with beavers and smartly managing them is in the best interest of the environment and for healthier salmon runs. Hoffman says young salmon that have been raised in and around beaver ponds grow bigger, in greater numbers and are better able to survive as they make their way down stream to the ocean. And because of their larger size and strength they’re better equipped to survive predation at sea.
Hoffman’s presentation in Newport Thursday evening was but one in a number of “beaver status” lectures he’s giving up and down the Oregon Coast to watershed management and environmental protection groups.
What a day! Great, great work comes in threes. Looks likeyou guys got this covered. I wouldn’t change a thing. I’ll just be over working at the day job if you need me.
The past month has conspired against our beavers. Massive storms wiped out much of the dams. Super high tides finished the job. Our beavers have seemed to hunker down and take a low profile in all this. There hasn’t been a Worth A Dam sighting in 15 days, although Jean talked to Moses who had night footage of mom and kit together. Are they gone? Are they washed out? Have they finally thrown in the Martinez towel?
For the past two nights we sat beaver sentry and were rewarded with nothing but raccoons for our efforts, although a very lovely night heron fished from the secondary and waded onto it to show us that it wasn’t ‘really’ gone. We left willow two nights because we figured it would only get taken by beavers (or koala bears!) and it appeared to be inconclusively rifled through each morning.
We decided that desperate times call for desperate measures, and dug out the old night wildlife camera and thought we’d risk it being stolen. Jon did his best to camouflage and we didn’t think anyone would notice anything except the flash. 5 pictures were taken which means something was moving in the willow we left. But they were disappointing and sadly contained no beavers to speak of, although the willow is fairly obvious!
Sigh. Looks like the lens got a little moisture over the years! The best evidence came from the primary dam where there were two new bright shiny teethmarked chewed sticks lain. I suppose they could be the work of beaver vandals who just gave up smoking, but I’m thinking that might be as much evidence as we are going to get for now. We’ll try the camera experiment again soon, and keep an eye on that primary dam!
New chews on primary dam 1-4-13
Of course we’ve endured long spells with no beaver sightings in the past after washouts. And dad left for months before and still came back home. We all know better than to panic. We are just impatient for this
When does a beaver change from our national animal to a damnable building machine? When they hear running water, according to Tom Purdy, a local expert on the chew-happy critter.
“Scientists have actually got beavers to try and start building dams by playing the sound of running water in an empty room,” Purdy told London Community News Monday (Dec. 31).
Purdy will be making the inaugural presentation of the 2013 Nature in the City lecture series, Urban Beavers, on January 15. Scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Wolf Performance Hall at the Central branch of the London Public Library (LPL) on Dundas Street, Purdy said his 45-minute talk will explore the “natural and unnatural history” of the beloved rodent.
Urban beavers? That’s MY riff! Talking for 45 minutes about beavers in cities at a nature center? And you’re not me? This is one of those moments where I’m both affronted and oddly delighted to be replaced! I can share. It’s a big world. It’s going to take all kinds of voices to deliver the message.
Assuming we’re delivering the same message?
Purdy taught environmental science at the high school level for 17 years, and spent over a decade as a resource manager at Pinery Provincial Park, where there is a large beaver population.
“My main emphasis will be on what beavers are really like: how much they actually eat, how much and where they actually dam and whether or not we can control any of that,” he said. “And to explore the biological/ecological benefit to having them around.”
Beavers have been an issue in the north end of the city, where they have destroyed swathes of trees, chewed through golf course irrigation pipes and their dams have caused unwanted flooding on commercial and industrial properties.
Purdy said he wants to give some solid facts for everyone to chew over – whether they think the beavers should be left alone, or wiped off the face of the earth, and everyone in between.
Hmm…I still can’t tell if we’re playing on the same team. Sometimes in order to sound open minded you argue from both sides before stating your actual point, I get that. But I get worried when I hear the words FACTS and BEAVERS in the same sentence. They are so rarely accurately paired. This isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve heard folks pretend to be even-handed right before they explain that beavers ruin habitat for fish and spoil riparian borders. I’ve also heard very beaver-friendly folk go a long ways out of their way not to sound like a ‘hugger’ so that people will take them seriously. What’s the Purdy’s deal?
Purdy said he would focus on the beaver in three ways: first, on its history in North America dating back to pre-European/First Nations contact, our human relationship with the beaver and what features make the critter, which has a natural habitat that stretches from Texas to the Arctic Circle – so unique.
Uh-oh. what about the important 4th way? You know, the way where they are crucial wetlands creators and responsible for enormous biodiversity affecting fish, bird and wildlife populations, filtering pollutions and raising the water table? That way. Aren’t you going to talk about that?
The beaver topic came about as a result of listener reviews from last year’s lecture series. Tripp said when the organizing team was going over feedback cards, the beaver popped up a number of times as a desirable future subject.
“So this is the first time we’ve had to beat the ground so to speak and find someone who can speak about the beaver!
London is just a 2 hour drive from Toronto, where they have had Sherri Tippie speak twice at the fur-bearer defender’s conference and Mike Callahan came last year. I’m having a hard time believing that they couldn’t find anyone who knew about beavers before. Still, I’m glad it’s on the venue. I wrote Mr. Purdy about the benefits of our urban beavers, but haven’t heard back yet. It is almost always better to talk about things than not to talk about things, so I’m very hopeful.
Oh and our good friends at the River Otter Ecology Project are in the chronicle. (again) You should stop by and read about sutro sam and their enthusiastic efforts.
The otter, dubbed Sutro Sam, has been hanging out in a large spring-fed pool along the rocky coast, munching on the many overgrown goldfish dumped into the pond by residents over the years.
“This otter is the first otter recorded in decades and decades in San Francisco, and as far as I know he is the only otter in San Francisco,” said Megan Isadore, the co-founder and director of outreach and education for the River Otter Ecology Project, which is tracking otter sightings around the Bay Area. “He’s a beautiful animal, well fed. He appears to be perfectly happy and not afraid of people”
A River Otter named Sutro Sam by local biologists searches for fish to feed on at the Sutro Baths on December 30, 2012 in San Francisco, Calif. Photo: Sean Havey, The Chronicle / SF
How about an article next about Berrellessa Beaver?
It’s official! CDFG has finally turned the page and traded in the “Game” for “Wildlife”. They’ve been busily assuring hunters that it changes nothing and they will be the same folks they always were, but I think there’s a big difference between “Game Wardens” and “Wildlife Wardens” and I couldn’t be happier about it!
And how to celebrate? Why not listen to this radio broadcast from yesterday’s Redwood public radio station with Stan Petrowski and Leonard Houston on our very favorite subject. Folks even got to call in and ask beaver questions, and someone wanted to know how beavers were treated in California! Follow the adorable link below to hear the whole thing, but you SIMPLY MUST click this little snippet to hear about our paper AND discover that the host actually came to Martinez!
Its Tomsk population is now at about 10,000, contributing to the risk of riverside flooding and seriously depressing fish stocks.
Happy New Year. I thought we’d start the year right with a little piscatorial ennui from the ecology minded “Voice of Russia”. Apparently their environmental department has studied the issue and found that all those dams get in the way of spawning activity.
And just ask Mr. Dostoyevesky: when anything gets in the way of Russian spawning activity, they get very, very depressed. ba-dum-bum.
And random odd fact to start the year off right: google the term “Depressed fish” and see how many images pop up. Not sure why that is, but apparently I’m not the only one whose looked for this before.
