Month: May 2013

The Great Canadian EcoFest!

heidi08 Beaver Rehabilitation, Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers May 31, 2013

Congratulations to our hardworking friends in Kamoka where they are organizing their first-ever Great Canadian Eco-fest. Getting folks to pay attention, try something new, and put it in the paper is hard to do, so I couldn’t be happier for them.

“We wanted a large community event in Komoka, and tossed around a few ideas, but it was my wife who came up with the idea if an EcoFest,” said Steve Galinas. “She has been involved with animal rehabilitation groups and thought about organizing an event for those groups, but that is a very small niche so it evolved into eco-friendly”

The great Komoka eco-fest will be held at the community center (soccer fields) on sunday June 23 from 10-5. “We definitely hope this will be an annual event” Galinas said.

I tracked down Margaret last year when I first got wind of this. She told me that the inspiration came to her when she was listening to Adrian Nelson at Fur-Bearer Defenders talk about our Beaver Festival! We’ve been swapping ideas about whom to invite and how to make it kid friendly. Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary will be there to educate folks about living with beavers and why they’re good for the ecosystem. (You may remember that sanctuary was started by Audrey Tournay who was the first woman who showed that rehabbed beavers could be released in the wild. This video just brought tears to my eyes so I’m guessing you’ll enjoy it)

Say it with me now: small, small beaver world! Good luck Steve and Margaret! I wish we could be there, but you can bet we will in spirit! Send us photos.

And because I never get tired of arguing about Jim Sterba’s ‘kill ’em all’ manifesto…

Earth Island gets a letter

Shortsighted Solutions

In his book Nature Wars (reviewed by Jason Mark in your Spring 2013 issue), Jim Sterba fails to recognize that, often, nonlethal solutions to wild animal encroachments are both less expensive and more permanent than trapping. He never acknowledges that beaver flooding can be effectively controlled with flow devices, allowing the beavers to remain. Or that new colonies can be naturally discouraged using the beavers’ own territorial behaviors. He never admits that beaver-created wetlands promote fish, birds, and wildlife while raising the water table. I am saddened to see Earth Island Journal promote his book.

Heidi Perryman, Martinez, CA

P.S. I sent this as a special gift to Margaret’s frazzled email earlier this week, hoping it would buoy her spirit as it always does mine.

Mobius strip of Belarus Beaver attack!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere May 30, 2013

I guess the Komisar of Belarus didn’t get the happy beaver cull he wanted because yesterday he released again the story of the fisherman who was bitten while trying to take a photograph and subsequently bled to death. The exact same report with the exact same details came out last month. (Hence Bill Murray) I saw two reports of it yesterday and watched the blind media lemmings all run obediently off the cliff to report this story again this morning so there are literally thousands littering the Google etherwaves now. All emphasizing that the case happened because the population of beavers is growing and causing them to be more aggressive. And guess how many mention that this story was already reported and was in fact 6 weeks old? That’s right: Zero. Because I think if they space the rebroadcast well enough it will make people think that these attacks are happening over and over again inflicted by multiple beavers on multiple unsuspecting victims.

Anyanka get your gun?

At least one news report did contain two new details, assuming they’re not fabricated. One was a photo of the “horrifically mangled leg” in question and the other was this little gem:

As he tried to grab the animal, it bit him several times.

As he tried to GRAB it! Gosh, how could so many reports leave out that one little fact? He wasn’t trying to snap a photo. He was trying to have his picture taken WITH the animal. And we’re surprised?

Oh and one website offered this helpful GIF which, if nothing else, should round out the groundhog day video, because it IS one!

We wanted it natural…but not that much nature!

heidi08 Beaver Anatomy, Beaver Rehabilitation, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Dispersal May 29, 2013

West Linn police trap beaver that moved into a front-yard water feature

West Linn police thought they were going to deal with a sick animal Saturday at a home along River Street. But when they found a feisty beaver had taken up residence in a front-yard water feature, it was a whole different ballgame.

“The animal wasn’t sick at all,” said Officer Mike Francis, West Linn police spokesman. “He was just being territorial, staking his claim to the water feature.”

Thank goodness this happened in Oregon and nothing TOO bad happened to this beaver but after reading these grim details I want to cross examine these witnesses.

. “Mr. Harper,” I’d like to say in a Perry Mason voice, “Could you describe for the court your intention in putting in this water feature?”

“We wanted the yard to look natural” he’d say casually, and I’d lean closer, knowing I had the judge’s full attention.

“So natural that a beaver might move in?” I’d invite, enjoying the murmur of the jury.

“No” he’d stammer. “We didn’t want beavers. We just wanted birds, well not the kind that eat the koi. No raccoons, no beavers no turtles, we just wanted it to look natural, but not that much nature!”

And in my mind this home-owner courtroom would gasp and nod knowingly, and that’s when I’d show the video, to make sure the jury saw things my way. A scared little beaver stuffed in a hole. A crazy home-owner without an eye-dropper’s worth of compassion. And a snotty, squealing boy named ‘Maverick’ of all things.

They’d be shaking their heads by the end, and even the officer I called as witness would blush a little. Now I’d show a nice video of the little woman Sherri Tippie live trapping a beaver, soothing it and gently releasing it into a broad stream.

“You deliberately built a feature that looked natural because you wanted your yard to appear natural. Should we blame this young beaver for taking you at your word? In all likelihood the beaver would have moved on anyway, but if he didn’t you could clearly afford to hire Ms Tippie to relocate him appropriately. Instead you monopolized the afternoon of two peace officers and who might have otherwise been busy saving lives or property.’

“The beaver in question was an adolescent leaving home for the first time. Doesn’t he deserve a gentler response to his independence than this? What kind of response should the world take for Maverick when he leaves home for college and winds up staying overnight in the wrong place?”

‘Mr. Harper, would you please take a look at the back of the flag and tell me what you see.”

“A beaver” he’d whisper.

” I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you. Could you say that again for the jury.”

“A beaver” he’d snap.”But if I lived in California I wouldn’t let a grizzly bear live in my yard either!”

I’d smile with the jury to show how un-intimidated I was by his argument. “No doubt!” I’d agree. “You’ve made it clear that you don’t want nature of any kind in your natural looking yard. No birds. No beavers. No raccoons. In fact, the only kind of nature you can tolerate at all apparently is human nature. And the lowest kind of that. Fear, ignorance, curiosity, disgust. That seems to be the only nature you can bear.” I’d turn my head and leave the witness stand.

“Your honor, I rest my case”.

In my fantasy home-owner courtroom beaver justice would be served. Mr. Harper would have to pay salary for the time he monopolized the police as his personal animal control unit, and the water feature would be donated to the state, which better understands how to live with nature. 5 girl scouts would sew fabric into that snare so that it didn’t cause internal bleeding the next time the police used it and staff from PAWS would come check on that little beaver just to make sure he’s okay.

Thank goodness! I’ve been waiting to use this graphic forever!

Getting a beaver clue…

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Creek Seekers Poetry Contest, Environmental May 28, 2013

Excellent beaver news this morning, and I’m wondering if I should stop counting positive articles for the year. Maybe we’ve crossed some kind of ‘beaver rubicon’ where it is suddenly no big deal to say beavers help rivers.

Beavers: Nature’s first river restoration engineers

Sometimes the fact that beavers dam up water, cut down trees, and flood riverbanks is seen as a problem. Not everyone wants busy beavers in their backyard! But these same activities that beavers do so well are exactly what river restoration professionals have been trying to emulate for decades to improve habitat for Pacific salmon species, which co-evolved with beavers over millenia. Adding wood to streams, creating backwatered areas, and reconnecting a stream with its floodplain are frequently the very same objectives of river restoration projects. For this reason, beaver reintroduction is identified as a priority action in the multi-agency Upper Columbia Spring Chinook Salmon and Steelhead Recovery Plan. The Methow Beaver Project is relocating beavers from places where they are seen as a problem, and moving them to places where they can be part of the solution to salmon recovery.

My, my, my. It’s nice to see the beaver get the recognition he deserves, and the Methow project is a great showcase of his accomplishments. Of course beavers don’t need a massive re-introduction with fish hatcheries and federal grants to do their job, they just need humans to get out of the way and let them do it. Take Martinez for instance, where urban beavers famously proposed some additions to Alhambra Creek and the zoning committee objected and decided to kill them instead. Remember that?

Yesterday I was driving home listening to KQED and stunned to hear the work of beavers discussed on Marketplace – well not discussed so much as obviously left out of the conversation where they clearly belonged. Listen and tell me if you don’t think it’s an error to ignore their contribution:

Of course I took the liberty of writing Dr. Glennon about this oversight. Maybe it can spark a dialog?

And as if all that wasn’t exciting enough, this morning Rick sent me hot off the presses the paper we are submitting regarding historic range of beaver in coastal california. It tracks physical and indirect evidence of beaver in 5 regions from northern to southern california in what I can only describe as a series of successful 1-2 punches that knock the wind out of every silly objector. But shhh, his head might explode if he were to find out I shared this but I can’t help passing along this delightful paragraph from the discussion section.

Studies conducted and reviewed by Pollock et al. (2003; 2007) in semi-arid Western habitats, have found that re-introduction of beaver can rapidly aggrade stream sediments, elevating incised channels and reconnecting them to their floodplains, ultimately converting formerly incised xeric valleys into gently sloping ones with more abundant riparian vegetation. As ecosystem engineers (Johnson et al. 1994), beaver increase bird, fish, invertebrate, amphibian and mammalian abundance and diversity (Naiman et al. 1988, Rosell et al. 2005). There has been a tendency to underestimate the influence of beaver on ecosystems (Pollock et al. 1994), and the impact of this aquatic mammal on threatened species in California may be more important than previously realized.

To which I can only reply, (laughing and wiping my eyes) it’s about frickin’ time.

The very good, the pretty good, the slightly good, and the ugly

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Who's Killing Beavers Now? May 27, 2013

First we should give MORE kudos to our beaver friends at Fur-bearer Defenders who have strewn a path of beaver deception around the municipality of Mission in British Columbia just outside of Vancouver, installing 9 beaver deceivers to control flooding in culverts.

Beaver deceiver prevents dams from being built

A beaver deceiver being installed in Mission. Each unit saves the municipality thousands of dollars annually. Submitted phot

Gosh, I’m so old I can remember when Adrian Nelson had just gotten married and nervously installed his very first one after chatting a lot to Mike Callahan and scouring his DVD. And now these installs are practically a piece of cake! Delicious, effective cake that they actually talk an entire city into paying for!

The non-profit group approached the district with a simple, non-lethal alternative for managing flooding concerns associated with beaver activity: build a wire fence around the culvert intake, interrupting the beavers’ natural instinct to build where there’s current and the sound of flowing water. “They work awesome,” said Dale Vinnish, public works operations supervisor. “We don’t have to trap beavers. They moved elsewhere. They’re not causing a problem.”

The nine “beaver deceivers,” at $400-$600 apiece and built in one day, save the district thousands of dollars, because workers no longer have to pull apart dams. Previously, the municipality would break down two to three dams daily, several days a week, in addition to paying for the capturing and killing of about a dozen beavers annually.

“If we weren’t trapping, we were going in continuously to break apart the dams,” said Vinnish.

Great work Fur-bearer Defenders! We are entirely impressed that you are easily giving Washington State a run for it’s money as the beaver-management champion of the northern hemisphere. Go Mission!

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New footage from our famous San Jose beaver friends. Love the ‘urban safari’ feel of this video. Sadly if this is momma beaver, I’m not seeing any teats, and that means no silicon valley kits this year!

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Next, a nice column on ‘Extinction Events’ from Minnesota. His point is climate change, but my point (as always) is beavers!

For instance the pond created behind a beaver dam becomes the habitat for a wide variety of plant and animal species. Remove the beaver engineers and the entire ecosystem collapses.

It’s about time we start to realize the number of species that are displaced or wiped out when beavers are removed. Trickle-down economies work both ways. I wasn’t happy with this later sentence “Without the stream, there could be no beaver dam” because that’s not exactly true. I’ve heard of beaver creating ponds from tiny springs, so that the big beautiful pond becomes the only water in a desert. Certain ephemeral streams (like we have here in California that dry up in the summer) wouldn’t dry up if we had enough beavers. I kindly sent him this Chumash legend:

Author Jan Timbrook who is a curator for the Santa Barbara museum of natural history described this in her book ‘Chumash Ethnobotany” has some very interesting things to say about beavers:

“A willow stick that had been cut by a beaver was thought to have the power to bring water. The Chumash would treat the stick with ‘ayip ( a ritually powerful sbustance made from alum) and then plant it in the ground to create a permanent spring of water.”

Jan Timbrook, Chumash Ethobotany p. 180

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And on to the ugly. I’ve been sitting with this story a couple of days, but its fairly unavoidable and we better deal with it. This is the kind of negative advertising I hate, even more than I hate the Belarus story. Ultimately Americans value roads much more even than we value human life. Now every city will be more tempted to tell property owners they’re liable for beaver dams. Call me crazy, but it seems like if you’re worried about the stability of a dam, the smart thing to do is to reinforce it!

Flooding damages road in West Warren MA