First there’s this very fun “Cromwell Critter Cam” entry describing beaver activity in Cromwell Park Maryland.
I checked the beaver today, and discovered that the tree is still standing.
Courtesy of North Carolina State University, I leave you with a list of Beaver Pond Benefits
Active Ponds
Improve downstream water quality
Provide watering holes for agricultural and wildlife needs
Supply important breeding areas for amphibians and fish
Provide diverse wetland habitats
Furnish feeding, brood rearing and resting areas for waterfowl
Encourage many reptile, bat amphibian, fish and bird species
Nice! You really should look at the WORTH A DAM website for more beaver benefits, but now I’ve established first contact, so maybe they’ll be back!
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And then there’s this lovely lodge photo from Huntley Meadows Park in Virginia. I introduced our friend (and the photographer) Malcolm Kenton from D.C. to Ann Siegal the Washington Post photographer/reporter whose been keeping an eye on those beavers, and he went out the other night to see them and just happened to meet Ann in person who was doing the same thing! Small world and beaver connections everywhere! Enjoy:
Photo by Malcolm Kenton
Just imagine what that bench is going to sound like next month!
Beaver champion and Worth A Dam good friend, Adrien Nelson of Fur-bearer defenders, picked up the gauntlet to help the smart crew from LUSH cosmetics install a beaver deceiver and pond leveler combination in Mission Canada (not far from Vancouver). There is a lovely blog piece written about their effort here.
In order to install the beaver deceiver, we first had to dismantle the existing beaver dam. We donned hip waders, braved near-freezing water and wielded rakes to pull debris from the dam. This was a surprisingly difficult task- the dam was incredibly solid! It wasn’t just constructed of logs and branches, but was packed tightly with loads of dirt, leaves and rocks too. Beavers are industrious and use whatever materials are available to build their dams. Interesting examples are partial pallets and road signs!
You don’t need to convince us! Once we found golf clubs and a false leg in our beaver dam. Great to see people learning about solutions, and spreading the beaver gospel around the north. It’s always surprising how ‘surprised’ folks are by the density of a beaver dam. How would a loosley packed collection of mud and sticks hold back water?
While we were getting dirty dismantling the beaver dam, the other half of our team built the flow device on dry land. We all worked together in order to maneuver the device into the water when it was completed. The pond water was too deep to venture in with our hip waders, but Adrian bravely slipped into his wetsuit and went for a frigid swim to place the pipe and its mesh guard several meters into the pond. Once we had put the deceiver and pond leveler into place (and Adrian had regained feeling in his limbs!), we placed the displaced dam material against the deceiver. The beavers would likely return that evening to find their dam looking a little different than they’d left it, but they wouldn’t waste any time getting to work and rebuilding their dam against the deceiver.
Great work by some great folks! If you want to support their efforts you can donate to Fur-bearer Defenders here or check out Lush Cosmetics here. They’re animal-testing free, green packaged, and very popular! Plus they help beavers, which is all we really need to know.
At the end of the day, we had accomplished quite a feat: we’d provided a long-term, effective solution so that resident beavers and the property owner can happily coexist, and we’d removed the need for the beavers to be trapped and killed. Hopefully this solution will serve as a testament that municipal beaver trapping is not necessary, and that with a little compassion it’s possible to harmonize with these fantastic animals.
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Now a little gossip and some blurry photos of our own beloved beavers! Three seen this morning crossing a beautifully tight secondary dam that was topped with fresh cut beaver-chewed willow. Some mudding and work at the bank hole. And then our littlest beaver came back over, Jr was just about in time for his first birthday. He stopped at the dam trying to look officious, moving branches from this way to that, then he saw the tasty new cuts woven into the dam and thought they looked more like dinner than building material. He tugged the 8 foot branch OFF the dam and swam away with it into the bank hole, working hard to get it inside the den. Kids!
Beaver blogging is a strange pastime that often reveals the very odd and irrational underbelly of civic planning, nature awareness, and education. Over the years I’ve been doing this I’ve gotten used to reading about city engineers who think beavers should be trapped or they might flood the town, mayors who think they should be trapped before they eat all the trees, and city planners who think they’re breeding in the sewers. I’ve been through the rabid beaver scares, the beavers eat salmon scares, and the beavers ruin the water for fish scares. Heck, recently I’ve even followed a beaver murder.
But this surprises me.
In case you fainted too, I’ll recap. The beavers are chewing trees along a beautiful nature path. What if the trees falls down and hurts someone? The clip features a city council member that wants the beavers dead, and a city council memberwho thinks that would be wrong. IE somewhere in the world there are city council members who know a little more about nature than Martinez.
To Assist the Ministry of the Environment and the Nature Trust of BC with the development and operation of the Salmon Arm Bay, its walkways, trails and viewing facilities for scientific, educational and environmental purposes and to increase the awareness and involvement with related projects in the community
I was having a hard time thinking about a non-profit developed specifically to “Help” an already existing governmental agency, but then I thought about the ‘friends groups’ in National Parks, (of which the John Muir Associations one.) The difference of course is that the friends group exists solely because of the federal group, and all it does is things that help it. As such we have a member of NPS at every meeting and they have to approve everything that goes to press or gets communicated about them.
Of course SABNES should respond that beavers are a huge asset to the nature area. Their chewing of trees stimulates a natural coppicing that becomes ideal nesting habitat for migratory and songbirds. They should point at this study which showed that beavers increased bird count for an area specifically because of their chewing. In Martinez we have greatly enjoyed the abundance of new bird species that have come since the beavers settled. And they might enjoy this video, which shows one of the many uses birds find for beaver-chewed trees. Rookeries for Great blue heron is another. Or dead trees for wood ducks. Or lodges that make much desired swan and geese nesting locations. You get the idea.
Here’s a thought. Instead of helping the Ministry of the Environment find reasons to kill beavers (they’ve got that covered), and letting councilman Eliason think that killing them is cheaper, why not help them learn about how important beavers are for the very environment they’re charged with protecting? Maybe you can sponsor a local high school science class to do a species count, or boy scouts to sand paint trees, or appoint a few wildlife and tree monitors whose job it is to check for new nesting and dangerous trees that need city staff to remove them?
Better yet, watch this at your next council meeting or board meeting, and then we can talk.
Belarus is the land of more than 10 thousand lakes and 20 thousand rivers. Due to its water expanses Belarus is often called “a blue-eyed country”. A great number of folktales are connected with lakes, springs and rivers.
Sigh. Do you ever get the feeling that the whole of beaver news is controlled by this enormously powerful cartel that will NOT allow a single positive news cycle regarding the animal to exist unchallenged? I’m imagining a ‘wag the dog-type’ war room with multiple video screens where they constantly monitor the tone of beaver news around the world for positive threads that would threaten the supervillan-esq international campaign to eliminate beavers forever. And when a story like San Jose starts soaking the airways with good feeling and benevolence they BANG! SLAM! BLAST! insert one of their own, guaranteed to eclipse it many, many times over.
Well, okay. Maybe its just me. Certainly this happened (is happening, will have happened) with the horrific Belarus story. The fisherman who was bitten twice near Lake Shestakov and died from the blood loss because his companions could not stop the bleeding. One story reported a local Dr. saying that he probably would be alive if they had used a tourniquet (which is kind of stunning because isn’t that the first aid you learn in 4th grade?) Sometimes the story appears with other footage taken earlier in the month in another region of a beaver lunging at the cameraman who falls – a la the blair witch project. Sometimes its said that the video is from the attack itself, which isn’t possible since it was posted weeks before the story broke. It doesn’t matter, the story is a mashed up flaming fireball of fear now, hurtling around the globe. The man’s name isn’t being released so no awkward facts can hamper its freefall course and I can’t find a photo of the lake on the whole enormity of google because if you try to look it up there are literally hundreds and hundreds of pages with mug shots of fanged beavers and mislabeled nutria, groundhogs or muskrats trying to recreate the grisly scene of the crime.
Better kill the next one you see! Every mother with children is thinking. they might be rabid! Never mind that we even don’t know if this beaver was rabid because it ran away after biting him. The friends of the man speculated it was rabid because it was early morning and the beaver was walking and obviously beavers NEVER do that. Sigh. I can’t help it, a fantasy has popped in my mind that this was a young disperser leaving the pond for the first day of life on his own. Of course he was frightened, jumpy, scared. A scene from a James Dean movie where the hero over-reacts with tragic consequences that ruin his life forever, and scar countless others. (Stop that, Heidi!)
Well, the secret underground beaver lobby has more resources, better networks and for some reason it is remarkably easier to believe that beavers are murderers than it is to understand that beavers are good for salmon. I give up. You win this round handily, but all I can say is that our San Jose success must have really, really gotten their attention.
A family of beavers has moved into Silicon Valley, taking up residence along the Guadalupe River in the heart of downtown San Jose.
The discovery of the three semi-aquatic rodents — famous for their flat tails, furry brown coats and huge teeth — a few hundred yards from freeways, tall office buildings and the HP Pavilion represents the most high-profile Bay Area resurgence of beavers since a beaver family settled in Martinez in 2006, sparking national headlines when city leaders at first tried to remove them, then backed down after public outcry.
As word about their new home spreads, the animals also are being held up as a symbol of the slow but steady environmental recovery of San Francisco Bay and its streams after decades of pollution and sprawl — a hopeful sign of the resilience of nature in the nation’s 10th largest city.
“Our female beaver produced 15 live births. They’ve all dispersed,” said Heidi Perryman, president of Worth a Dam, a Martinez nonprofit that advocates for that city’s beavers. “They could be in San Jose. There’s certainly a chance.”
There are still four beavers living in Martinez. Flood control concerns were reduced by putting a pipe in the beaver dam that regulates the flow of water. So if the water gets too high, it drains out downstream.
The swallows may not be flocking back to Capistrano these days, but the beavers have returned to San Jose. Even when they’re not receiving guests, curled wood shavings and girdled willow trees give the critters away. It started when a lone beaver was spotted in the Guadalupe River, just across the street from HP Pavilion in downtown San Jose.
Thrilled, the Guadalupe River Park Conservancy set up a trail camera to monitor its activity.
Then another beaver appeared. “I jumped up out of my chair and high-fived my wife and hugged her when I saw the second beaver,” said Greg Kerekes of the conservancy, after going through the camera footage.
Soon, he discovered that three beavers, a pregnant mother and her two yearlings, were keeping house at the confluence of the Guadalupe River and Los Gatos Creek. A family indicates they will likely settle, said conservancy executive director Leslee Hamilton.
Environmental educators hope the beavers will stay because they benefit wildlife and can help teach children about watersheds.
In 2007, a family of beavers also colonized Alhambra Creek in downtown Martinez. “You could sit at Starbucks, drink your morning coffee and watch kits (young beavers) play,” said Heidi Perryman, president of Worth a Dam, a beaver advocacy organization. Since the beavers have settled in Martinez, the ecosystem has flourished, seeing at least 13 new species.
Don’t tell me you didn’t see this already! I got phone calls from my mother, my business partner and an NPS Ranger from John Muir last night. Another version ran on CBS as well. Since you’ve been following this website you probably know who these players are. Greg Kerekes, who shot the footage that I’ve been showing you. Leslee Hamilton the executive director of the Guadalupe River Park Conservancy, and did you recognize the other guy?
That’s our good friend “Wikipedia Rick” who I published the historic prevalence paper with! Isn’t he a natural on camera? Honestly what a perfect team and collection of quotes! You guys put the AWE in awesome!
Now I’m sure you’ve had enough ‘celebrity beaver news’ and expect some heavier fare! Enough tabloid San Jose and Jennifer Aniston reporting for god’s sakes, you might be thinking. What about some important beaver research?
Apr. 9, 2013 — Study says beavers use scent to detect when trespassers could be a threat.
For territorial animals, such as beavers, “owning” a territory ensures access to food, mates and nest sites. Defending that territory can involve fights which cause injury or death. How does an animal decide whether to take on an opponent or not? A new study by Helga Tinnesand and her colleagues from the Telemark University College in Norway has found that the anal gland secretions of beavers contain information about age and social status which helps other beavers gauge their level of response to the perceived threat.
The study is published online today in Springer’s journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought we already knew that? I thought that was the point of scent marking? I assume that there was something in her study that gave us new information and the press release just didn’t make it clear? Wait this must be it…
The researchers hypothesized that information about social status and age or body size may also be contained in the anal gland secretions of male beavers. This would enable established territory owners to accurately assess the level of threat posed by an intruder.
So, if you have the smell of an encroaching second son, for example, and give off that dissatisfied Richard III air with your ‘lean and hungry look’, you’ll be firmly escorted to the door. I guess that’s new information. Mary Obrien wrote last night to ask whether female beavers are ever seen as a threat? Apparently beaver research mirrors the enormity of all human research, — males are always studied first.
The title of the article might explain this though?
The man was said to be on a fishing trip at Lake Shestakov in Belarus when the animal launched a savage attack, biting his thigh and severing a main artery.
Two friends who were with the individual at the time were reported as saying they were unable to stem the flow of blood and he bled to death.
The story says a fisherman in Belarus was attacked by the beaver who severed an artery in his leg causing the man to bleed to death. I must be the most cynical person in the entire history of the world but I cannot for the slightest hairsbreadth of an instant believe this story is true – or true the way the report makes it sound. Certainly beavers don’t fight ‘to the death’ over anything. They fight ‘to the runaway’. Even the very rare rabid beaver attacks last year weren’t exactly ‘to the death’.
I believe a beaver can give a human a nasty bite. They cut down trees with those teeth, so your femur is hardly an obstacle. Especially a human whose stomping around their lodge at the time new kits are born. I suppose its theoretically possible that the bite could open an artery, and that if your friends were too drunk to make a fist they might not be able to stop the bleeding in time to save your life.
But honestly, all I could think of when I read the article was this:
Apparently, I’ve been living on the edge for 6 years now, photographing beavers as casually as if it were a trip to the botanical gardens instead of a realizing that I was exposing myself to breath-taking danger by marching through the lion’s cave. If you’re going beaver watching today, keep your wits about you and watch out! It’s a jungle out there.
I checked the beaver today, and discovered that the tree is still standing.
Arm Bay Nature Enhancement Society (SABNES)
