Month: May 2013

Couldn’t wait for Mother’s day!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, kits May 6, 2013

Last night we took a visit to the beaver dams to see how things were going. The secondary dam is looking air tight and even backing up water over the primary! when we see building that experienced we always breathe a sigh of relief because we know dad’s still around and hard at work.

First we saw Jr. making the rounds at 6:30. He’s definitely bigger than he was, but still much smaller than the others. He’s actually mudding the dam now so dad’s herculean hard work must have been VERY inspiring!

A little later we saw the adult from 2010 come sniff the dam for possible treats and saunter off without doing a stitch of labor. Then things got exciting. A BIG beaver came harrowing down from the primary and climbed up on the bank by the marina vista bridge. Then zoomed at top speeds right to the door of the new bank hole, where Jr rushed up and another larger beaver appeared with something VERY surprising on her back.

In fact I was so surprised I couldn’t point my camera right away. And then we saw this:

Yes that is a TINY kit. And doesn’t he look like a peanut? This sighting is a month earlier than we have ever seen them and I’d say he was smaller than we have ever seen them. Kits have been seen June 9th and even June 6th, but never in May. Last year we first saw the new kit July 1st! But this year we have a lovely arrival in May and I couldn’t be happier. If you can’t believe your eyes, here’s a still to take it all in. Look at that tail in the air! It’s smaller a dollar bill.

It usually takes a week before we are sure of the numbers, so you can bet Worth A Dam will be out there counting and cooing. For those of you following along at home, this would be the SIXTH year I’ve been there to see new kits born in Alhambra Creek. We ended the night with a nice view of mom. Look at the red highlights on her coat! She is one lovely beaver, and Jr. thought so and wanted to swim with her when she left the dam.

Congratulations Martinez! It’s a beaver!

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On any other day I would have focused on the VERY good news out of Montana where they just installed a flow device. But we have a baby and that obviously eclipses everything.

Caution: Cuteness Epidemic!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Rehabilitation, Beavers elsewhere, kits May 5, 2013

This is from Wild Heart Ranch in Oklahoma, good friends of the Skunk Whisperer and all around remarkable humans. They have a hardy number of volunteers and young people working with them, and I’m always surprised to see what an amazing number of folks do right by wildlife in a state I don’t exactly associate with ecological stewardship. When I was a child we used to say that looking at adorable things gave you “teeth grits”, meaning I assume that you bit down that hard trying to stifle your involuntary ‘awwwww’. Pace yourself then, because these images they might make you crack a molar.

Not sure if I can make this work even if you’re not on facebook, but you should DEFINITELY click on the image below, and make sure you stay for the tail-curling finish.

Capture — Bottle feeding a kit: Wild Heart Ranch - Oklahoma

Did you see it? I love, love, love how the tail curls up at the end. It really gives you a sense of how important the unique appendage is to the beaver! One more thing, yesterday Worth A Dam was at a wildlife display at Wild Birds Unlimited in Pleasant Hill. We talked beavers and birds to lots of folks, but the most interesting was a man from Oregon who said that he loved to bring his scout troop to watch beavers. One day during a hard flood he saw a big log washing downstream – with two beavers riding on it!

What do you think, possible? Or impossible? I scoured the internet for such a thing but could find nothing, so I had to take matters into my own hands.

Call me if beavers stop chewing, okay?

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere May 4, 2013

Lake Saimaa at Ristiina is the largest lake in Finland and the fourth largest lake in all of Europe. It was formed by a giant glaciar melting at the end of the last ice age. It is the only known home of the rare fresh water ‘ringed seal’. And the Saimaa salmon. And weirdly enough once harvested for its easily accessible asbestos.

And it apparently has invented BRAND NEW BEAVERS!

Beavers losing damming instinct

Observers say that beavers in eastern parts of Finland country are losing their natural instinct to build dams. Because of population pressures some beavers have moved into waterways where they have had to adapt to fluctuating water levels.

Canadian beavers were introduced to Finland in the 1930s after the indigenous European beaver population had been hunted to extinction in the 19th century. There are now an estimated 10-thousand beavers in the country, up to half of them in the South Savo region.

Population pressures, competition for living space and food, have brought more into large waterways such as Lake Saimaa. With a surface area of 4,400 square kilometres, Lake Saimaa provides plenty of room to spread out.

Get out! Beavers living in the largest lake in Finland! Where there’s deep enough water that they don’t need to build dams to feel safe? Are you kidding me? That never always happens!

Beavers usually build damns in rivers and streams, to create ponds where they build their lodges. Those who have moved into Lake Saimaa, have had to adapt to a lifestyle of fluctuating water levels, rather than damming and regulating the waters themselves. In the process, they seem to have lost the desire to do so.

These beavers now create burrows or dens for themselves along the shores of the lake.

Shocking! These beavers have tossed tradition aside and now build burrows for themselves along the shores of the lake! Like squatters in a subway station! What about the ‘lodges’ of their fathers? Have they no respect for the fabric of their society? Is nothing sacred?

“They have had to adapt so that if the water level of Lake Saimaa falls, they change dens and diets. They change locations, and then if the waters rise too high for their dens, then they abandon them and build new dens higher up the shore,” explains Risto Hirvonen, a member of a local hunting club.

A member of the local hunting club? The source for this ground-breaking genetics research that is showing beaver instinct in an unprecedented state of devolution? No offense, Risto. But shouldn’t the reporter have talked to some biologist or geneticist at the University? Someone’s obviously publishing papers on this brand new behavior, right? I mean it belongs in a journal somewhere!

Just for clarification. In large bodies of water like Great Lakes or the Colorado River or the Sacramento Delta, beavers have enough water that they do not require dams and they subsequently do not build dams. That has been true since dawn rose on the first beaver on the first day. Beavers sometimes live in holes in the bank. In Finland. In Martinez and in Canada. That has also been true since time immemorial.

One more thing that has been true since the dawn of time? Reports writing unchallenged, blatantly false things about beavers.

Thank goodness we were here!

heidi08 Beavers May 3, 2013

big_hole_brown_fs[1] — Big Hole Brown Giclee Print by Bern Sundell

Thank goodness for the Department of Natural resources in Minnesota who was on hand to raise fish in captivity and release them after some thoughtless beaver dams raised the water temperatures and made it impossible for trout to live. Thank goodness they’re always on hand to issue permits to kill those beavers. Thank goodness they were able to sprinkle fish food and the spotted browns wouldn’t be dependent on the toxic, barely life-suporting streams to sustain them. Thank goodness we killed all the bears that would have eaten them and have plenty of fishermen on the bank to remove them after a short stay in the dead stream. Thank goodness we can drive in our cars to fish by the waters edge for a few hours and enjoy unnatural nature.

DNR Fisheries Specialist Jim Levitt said the agency releases brown trout in Brown’s Creek every spring to boost the creek’s fish population… Another natural impact on Brown’s Creek trout is the beaver, according to Levitt. Beaver dams on the creek slows the flow and warms up the creek’s water.

There are beaver myths that I can argue again and again without losing my temper. There are misunderstandings where I can genuinely see that the right information will make things clearer. There are chuckle-worthy half-hearted attempts to confuse the masses that will unhappily crumble in the face of data. But the determined, malicious, and federally funded scatology arguing that beaver dams kill fish by raising pond temperatures I have NO patience for. Among other things, it is a transparent attempt to exonerate our damn pollutions by blaming the dam beaver instead!

Let’s pretend, for the moment, that the scatology was accurate. Lets say that beaver dams DID raise temperatures all through the pond, and the fish got all hot and sweaty. How much worse a problem that must have been when we had 60,000,000 or more beavers! You know, back before the fur trade when beavers were once in “every river, brook and rill” (Samuel de Champlain). They must have turned all our streams into hotubs. I bet our trout numbers must have been abysmal back then!

Except they weren’t. You know they weren’t. I know they weren’t. Every man, woman and child, scientist and historian, knows they weren’t. Fish were once crazy plentiful and sustained a population who survived on them, including the bears. There was no Department of Natural Resources, but there were plenty of natural resources to go around . How is this possible?

Beaver dams temperature — Michael Pollock-NOAA Chris Jordan-NOAA Carol Volk-NOAA Nick Bouwes-USU Ian Tattam-OSU

HYPORHEIC exchange. Say it with me now. The water you see in a stream is just part of the story. Water is underground too. That’s why we put wells in the ground. The water in the ground is much, much colder than the water in the stream because the sun’s not shining on it. That cold water seeps through the banks of the beaver pond and it mixes with the water that’s already there. Water from the stream seeps back through the bank and gets stored underground too. That’s how beaver dams raise the water table.

Check out this slide from the talk we did with Michael Pollock in Yosemite. The headwaters of the stream are cooler, and the water gets warmer as it flows down hill because its been in the sun longer. The big exception to this is the site of the beaver dam, where pooled waters are getting infused by huporheic exchange. Think of the beaver pond like a way station, a rest stop along the marathon route. While the water pauses in its journey it, it is refreshed with cooler water. And since the pond retains more water than the stream that continues on, water from the pond is forced into the banks, travels underground and re-emerges down stream, on the other side of the dam.

dams temp.03.16.11 — Michael Pollock-NOAA Chris Jordan-NOAA Carol Volk-NOAA Nick Bouwes-USU Ian Tattam-OSU

Which means if you want cooler temperatures, and more trout, you need MORE beaver dams – not fewer.

Three Threads

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Massachusetts Trapping Law, Who's Killing Beavers Now? May 2, 2013

It’s not easy being small. Bigger guys pick on you and you never get asked your preferences when decisions are made. But the advantage of being little and unimportant, is that the big predators and raptors go tearing off after the larger game and never notice you. Ask any mouse or compy, it’s hard being little but sometimes it leaves you safely ignored when the big bads come looking for dinner.

This used to be the fate of the State of the Beaver Conference, which existed in a rarely visited other universe where folks actually cared about the work beavers can do. For the most part politicians ignored it, and we could get on with the business at hand without much debate. No more. Ask Senator Coburn who recently wrote the new Secretary of the Interior kindly pointing out how to stop wasting money and keep its doors open.

Coburn also called on the department to do away with certain conferences, including those which are also sponsored by other departments. One peculiar example? A gathering held at a casino in Oregon called the State of the Beaver Conference.

“The State of the Beaver 2013 Conference, held at the Seven Feathers Hotel and Casino Resort Convention Center in Oregon several months ago, was sponsored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as well as the USDA Forest Service, the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and the Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,” Coburn said.

That’s not exactly true, Tom. The beaver advocacy committee made the decision to list an organization as a sponsor if presenters paid to get themselves there. Worth A Dam was listed as a sponsor. Not because we gave money to the conference, but because we self-transported. Technically we gave money to chevron, or American Airlines, or Amtrak. Fueling the economy. Chalk this up to similar outrage upon learning that the US spent money to study volcanoes. Or Climate Change. Well, you get the idea.

If you’d like to write Secretary Jewell your own thoughts on why the State of the Beaver conference is worth having, it would be nice of you to send them here. For now, we can just waive a fond goodbye to our ‘compy’ status, and get ready for the bigger leagues.

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Congratulations to the other half of Beaver Solutions ‘other half’.

Integrated Wildlife Control partner Don LaFountain has been awarded the 'Wildlife Professional of the Year' award by the National Wildlife Control Operators Association. Elise Linscott photo

NORTHAMPTON – Integrated Wildlife Control partner Don LaFountain loves the outdoors – and after receiving the Wildlife Professional of the Year award from the National Wildlife Control Operators Association, his love and accomplishments have been recognized nationally.

LaFountain has been working to help people and animals co-exist since establishing Integrated Wildlife Control in Florence. The non-profit organization specializes in helping people share habitat, specifically with beavers.

I’ll explain. Don is the business partner of Ruth Callahan who is Mike Callahan’s wife. Small Beaver World.

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My aunt from Oregon sent this clipping recently about San Jose. Not sure which paper it ran in but it’s nice to know we’re not forgotten. Oh and more beavers in towels because you know you need it. I think we should make a calendar.