Beavers have built dams in the Roy Swamp Wildlife Management Area on West Cornwall Road in Sharon causing water to spill out onto the roadway during heavy storms. The selectmen plan to invoke the statute that allows the town to order landowners to keep their waterways free of debris. Ruth Epstein Republican-American
Me either, but Sharon, CT clearly has their own definition of ‘havoc’.
SHARON — Officials refuse to leave it to the beavers to wreak havoc, so they’re seeking ways to combat the effects of those industrious, highly energized creatures.
During the last meeting of the Board of Selectmen, First Selectman Robert Loucks said two large dams had broken, one on West Cornwall Road and the other on West Woods Road 2. The breakthroughs caused water to inundate the adjacent roadways, leading to severe damage.
You know what works real good at keeping the dam stable and preventing the pond from getting too high? A flow device! Lucky for you your in Connecticut the state with its own Beaver Expert (Skip Hiliker) or if you wanna shop around, Skip Lisle is 3 hours away in VT and Mike Callahan is 75 miles away in MA. You can think of better solutions than trapping, right?
Our beaver friend Malcolm Kenton sent this recording this am from his beaver watching adventure last night at Huntley Meadow. He writes
Here’s an audio recording I took of the 3-year-old beaver underneath the boardwalk by the bench lodge, uttering some whines as she nibbled on some of her food cache. The voices you hear are the four other people who were at that spot also watching and listening to wildlife.
To which I would say after listening several times, there are at least two beavers in that audio and you have kits!
And as sun sets on our beaver heroes on the West Coast, a third salmon friendly beaver-device is left in their path, this one a Flexible leveler with a special salmon swirl in the center. It’s been a job well done!
From Mike Callahan
Third WA Salmon-Beaver Site –
Here are pictures of the modified intake fence for Flexible Pond Levelers. We installed this fish-friendly flow device yesterday also. When the salmon exit the intake end of the pipe the chain-link fence cylinder guides them directly to a One-Way door on the side of the exclusion fence. See pics. We did not extend the pipe to the side wall of the intake fence because we need the water to enter the pipe near the center of the cylinder to prevent detection by beavers. The chain-link tube prevents the fish from needing to search for the exit and prevents them from bumping into or getting stuck in the fence. The surfaces are all smooth with no sharp edges. The One-Way door PVC pipes are weighted to keep them in a closed position but can be easily nudged open by fish when underwater. Again many thanks are due to the other team members Mike Rustay, Ben Dittbrenner, Dale, and Jake Jacobson. None of this would have been possible without them. If only we didn’t have to wait a couple of months for the salmon to return!
New Coho Salmon Fishway Installed – Here is the new box fishway we installed today that should make it much easier for adult to move upstream through the Flexible Pond Leveler pipe. It has just one chamber because we only needed to raise the water level in the pipe by 7 inches. High pipe velocities can be a barrier to fish migration. So we did water velocity measurements before and after the installation of the box fishway and the velocity in the pipe following installation of the fishway was decreased by 50%! This will make it much easier for adult salmon to travel through the pipe. We are all very excited about today’s results. Can’t wait for late fall when the adult coho salmon return to see if it works as well as we expect!
Salmon Cam – Here is a video of the fish eye view of the box fishway and discharging Pond Leveler pipe we installed today in WA. Kudos to the beaver-salmon team which included Jake Jacobson, Mike Rustay, and Ben Dittbrenner (who I first met at the OR State of the Beaver SURCP Conference in Feb. this year!)
Gosh I love that salmon-eye view! Can we get one for the beavers? Imagine how cool it would look to follow along underwater as their damming or swimming! Great work team beaver!
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Here’s some rare canadian beaver pride. (even though it’s not exactly true)! From Ontario’s Orangeville Citizen
Driving a foreign visitor through the Ontario countryside, we passed a body of water held back by a natural dam. A ‘house’ of woven sticks in the middle of the lake was an introduction to beavers, quite unusual for someone from abroad. Native animals are a drawing card in any country, but one living in and under water with unique creative ability is entirely a Canadian feature. The beaver is an animal which changes the ecology of its habitat to form its own living conditions.
Well I suppose it depends on your definition of the word “entirely”. If you mean its ubiquitously part of Canada, yes I agree. But if you mean its uniquely Canadian then I know seven beavers in Martinez that might take issue with that sentence.
This morning I have too much news to tell you about. Some days I am scraping the barrel of beaver stories and some days I don’t know where on earth to start. Lets start with this update from Mike Callahan working on his ‘salmon adapted flow devices’ with our friends in Sonomish County Washington. Here’s what he sent last night.
So far so good here in Snohomish County, WA on our Salmonid-Beaver Dam passage project. Today Mike Rustay and I installed the first of three fish-friendly flow devices.
See attached picture.
Today’s site was a large culvert that already had baffles in it to help adult coho salmon migrate upstream to spawn. However, beavers decided the baffles inside the culvert would make great places to dam. they dammed it this spring and it was very difficult for the Snohomish crew to clean it out. Also during the fall and winter high stream flows a lot of woody debris floats into the culvert and gets caught which also creates barriers to fish movement.
So we needed to keep the culvert unobstructed by beavers, floated debris, and protect the culvert fence to keep from collapsing in the heavy flows. This is a very confined area for a culvert protective fence. So we decided to try to encourage the beavers to dam immediately upstream so they would not dam on the small culvert fence and block fish movement.
Mike Rustay and I installed a reinforced culvert fence with a salmonid passage. At the same site we also created two diversion dam sites on the two streams that flow into the 8 foot wide culvert. There is minimal water flow this time of year, but with the rains in late fall there are heavy stream flows and a lot of adult coho come up this culvert.
The reinforced culvert protective fence will keep any debris and all beaver damming outside of the culvert allowing unobstructed adult salmonid movement. We also installed two “diversion dam fences” 10 feet upstream of the culvert fence. These are 6 ft high fence posts with 12″ high fences. They are designed to provide easier, more attractive sites for the beavers to dam than the fence. They will also serve as log and other floating debris debris catchers during high water flows to keep the fence and salmonid passage open. Upstream of these two narrow stream channels are large impoundments which are very productive spawning and rearing areas for coho.
The culvert fence was outfitted with a One-Way door to allow adult salmon easy passage through the fence on their upstream migration. The One-Way door is made from white PVC pipes. See picture.
Late this fall when the adult coho come swimming out of the baffled culvert they will be “corralled” by a short fence (not shown in the pic). This corralling fence will funnel them directly towards the fish/wildlife one-way door in the culvert fence. This corralling fence prevents the fish from needing to search for the one-way door. They will swim upstream directly to it and get out into the open water with minimal work. There are also several debris catching fence posts outside the one-way door to help prevent woody or other floated debris from blocking it.
it was extremely exciting today to see dozens of juvenile coho swimming around the culvert fence! They were 2″-3″ long, eagerly feeding on anything in the water. Hopefully someday these same fish and many others will pass through the one-way door on the culvert protective fence on their way to spawn! Until then, keep feeding and growing! Fingers crossed.
One down, two more install sites to go over the next two days. Each site will be a different issue with a different device. I’ll keep you posted
Good work Mike and team! I love how thoughtfully these challenges are getting tackled. Personally I want a study saying flow devices actually interfere with salmon passage (instead of just reinforcing the people who assume that they do) before we get to excited about a cure – but I’m happy you are working on this. On a personal note, it is weirdly satisfying to think about Mike and Jake collaborating, since they were the two voices I relied on most heavily for our beaver battle in Martinez.
Now that we’re thinking about full circles, lets enjoy this
Other than humans, no animal has the ability to control or alter their environment like beavers do. Except when they are living in large natural bodies of water like ponds or lakes, beaver will dam streams to create a pond, or series of ponds. They use this large area of deeper water for protection from predators such as bears or coyotes. It is also used for easy access to their food supply and to transport food and building materials.
Beaver create a dam by inserting large sticks or limbs vertically in the stream bed then putting smaller ones crosswise. They fill in the gaps with mud, vines and other small sticks or plant material. As water levels rise or the water flows elsewhere, they will raise the level of their main dam or build coffer dams.
They often dig a network of canals to reach food or to easily transport it back to the main pond. Often a series of dams will create several ponds to give the colony access to more food supply. When the available preferred foods are exhausted, the beaver will abandon their lodge and move on in search of new homes and food.
Some trout fishermen are fond of beavers because the ponds they create provide the cover and food supply for trout to multiply and grow larger. Usually when hunters, trappers or hikers find a new beaver dam or colony they will make a note to return next spring with their fishing rods in hand. The ponds also create good habitat for ducks, especially wood ducks, and other birds and mammals.
This is a good start from a state that can be fairly schizophrenic in its beaver policies. The piece doesn’t mention flow devices and goes on to say that beavers damage valuable timber, but its a fairly decent beaver 101. You can read the whole thing here.
If New York is schizophrenic in its beaver management, this state is usually SOCIOPATHIC. But whatever else they may do, times do change. Even in Alabama. Yes you read that right.
While the rest of the world is preparing for evening repose, the inhabitants of the pond and preparing to take advantage of the cover of darkness.
The article makes the point that beaver ponds are good places to look for wildlife like alligators and turtles and egrets. Of course it doesn’t actually go so far as to say that they are VALUABLE but its Alabama and we have learned to take what we can get. Great job!
And just in case you think the entire world has transformed into a hazy fog of beaver adoration, lets round out the fair with a little dose of beaver stupid. Sarah Koenisberg of the documentary is in Medford Oregon and sent me an article from the local paper bemoaning some “beaver vandals” that ate up the trees that were carefully planted along the creek bank there. She asked me to find out who to talk to, which I did. Then this larger article emerged and I can see the target list of minds that need changing is longer than I thought.
MEDFORD, Oregon — A downtown Medford vandal is systematically taking down a riparian project along Bear Creek that high school kids spent four years turning from a mass of blackberries into perhaps the stream’s healthiest stretch.
Project leader Jim Hutchins says the vandal and perhaps a partner are sneaking into the 200-yard project area at Hawthorne Park and making off with a tree or bush almost nightly, much to Hutchins’ chagrin.
“This is what I woke to this morning,” Hutchins says, pointing to a sawed-off stem of an unidentifiable tree. “First they went after the cottonwood, then the alder and now the dogwood. Now I guess anything goes. It’s crazy.”
“Beaver vandalism,” he sighs.
Wow. How can folks live in Oregon, so near the beaver conference and Leonard and Lois Houston, in the beaver state and still be so misinformed? I of course wrote Jim right away about wrapping the trees and painting with sand. The article expresses dismay that wrapping trees with chicken wire didn’t work. Beavers are bigger than chickens? Who knew?
Now he wants them relocated.
“It’s not a straight forward thing, but we do have beaver handling procedures,” says Mark Vargas, the ODFW’s Rogue District wildlife biologist.
“Beavers are a nuisance problem and they cause grief with people wherever they go,” Vargas says.
Ow. It hurts when I slap my forehead that hard. Maybe I should be slapping someone else’s. Well Jim wrote me back yesterday that he might try my crazy ideas, and I introduced him to Leonard and Lois Houston. Hopefully Medford will get a little smarter, but I’m not holding my breath.
We need some good news after that much fuss. Last night we went beaver watching and were rewarded with out first on-camera look of the three kits foraging together. Usually they are too far apart for catching in the same frame. It was very high tide, so the dam was a soup, but they took advantage of the disarray to do a bit of a deep clean for lost treasures. It is like playing three games of Where’s Waldo at once, trying to keep your eye on all of them, but you should be able to do it.
Lots of whining, and a bit of sibling rivalry! Here’s last years kit (now a yearling) telling this year’s kit he isn’t going to share. I guess being an only child does make you a little selfish!
Was the kit traumatized by this harrowing scrape with his own mortality? Well about 3 minutes later the kit found something good and charged JR when he tried to investigate! I wasn’t lucky enough to get that on film, but I guess Not!
Sterling Massachusetts has a problem. Well a few of them apparently, but one problem in particular is worrying them at the moment. It starts with a B and ends with an EAVERS.
Sterling Conservation Agent Matthew Marro has begun a process to determine who owns the land where drainages have been backed up by beaver dams and causing severe flooding at Kyle Equipment Company at 14 Legate Hill Road.
Marro noted there have been welldocumented situations involving beavers and dams in the area and that he and other conservation commissioners have personally observed the creatures throughout the season.
Kyle said investigations they personally conducted in the area revealed that the drain basin serviced by a 24-inch diameter pipe located near the far corner of his property is “totally clogged by beavers.” He also noted that the wetland areas near the back of his property also contain two beaver dams which have resulted in a clogged culvert under Route 12.
Apparently Sterling is so certain of its facts that they have declared the phrase welldocumented to be a single word. Not only is that certain. That’s damcertain. All that flooding is obviously the fault of the beavers. Of course they need killing. We just need to find out who pays for it. This isn’t a complex moral dilemma that upsets us. We’re not worried about who gets killed, but the thorny problem of who gets billed.
The Kyles insist, however, that the DPW has done all it can to increase the drainage to alleviate the situation. However, something further must be done with the beavers, they said. “It is only going to take anotherth raini stormt bbeforef I hhave watert coming through my shop,” said Sean Kyle. He also pointed out that the paved area behind their shop has been destroyed and floats when the area gets flooded.flooded
The Kyles are apparently SO UPSET that they’re stuttering. I have not changed this copy a fingertip. The paper is accurately quoted in being inaccurate. (I heard a This American Life program report about local newspapers outsourcing their writing to the Philippines. Very very chilling and you should listen someday. As it is, we should probably not be critical of the writing in this article because its clearly not their native language.)
I’d rather be critical of the Selectmen and Public works director who have lived in this town and should know better. They are located 70 miles from Beaver Solutions and Mike Callahan. In less time that it would take him to listen to that TAL episode on his truck radio describing foreign fingers writing our local papers because we’re too cheap to bother with it ourselves, he could come to Sterling with his truck ready to build a culvert fence on those drains and the Kyles need never, ever flood again.
And no beavers would need to be killed. (Although several infinitives will likely continue to be split.)
Excellent photos this morning from Cheryl’s visit last night. Here are two happily munching willow near the secondary dam.
Satisfied Siblings: by Cheryl Reynolds
And this photo of a kit ponderously chewing. I love the water colors in this. Cheryl says it was a super high tide so mom must have been busy again this morning. There aren’t beavers in the Bahamas I guess, but this sure looks tropical.
Voices of what appears to be reason other than mine are always a delight on this website. Enjoy this excellent piece from Dick Sherman writing on the Danvers situation. Remember this is an area in Massachusetts very near Salem which had some beavers in its pond that were flooding their backyards, so they hired a trapper. And he killed several and then they complained the water was too stagnant. Oh and the trapper said he was prohibited from removing a dead beaver by regulations so they buried it but the turtles dug it up. Sound familiar? Maybe this will ring a bell.
Well,apparently if you have a lot of sense in Danvers, you move to New Hampshire.
My name is Dick Sherman, I grew up in Danvers as did my wife, (now in our 70s and live in N.H.). For 15 years, we lived directly on College Pond in the St. John’s Prep area on Spring Street. I can tell you about the beavers, Beaver Brook and College Pond.
In my opinion, the town is making a mistake by killing beavers and trying to control that watershed area as suggested by the residents. The area in question by Glendale Road and behind Glen Magna is a natural (God put it there a long time ago) watershed area. It feeds to Beaver Brook, which on the surface goes under Maple Street and then into College Pond.
The water table (aquifer) itself is under Maple Street. College Pond was and is a magnificent treasure, which as you know, is recognized now by the town as a conservation overlook area.
I sense from your article that the nearby residents, which once again pollute the Beaver Brook and College Pond as opposed to letting nature help out. Now you have now beavers, algae, and high water in the area. Did you not know that when you purchased, that you were in a “flood zone” and watershed area? Certainly, you did not know how beneficial it is to the ecology and to Danvers residents now and then.
Ahh thanks for writing this, Dick, but let me be honest. You must have driven your neighbors insane back on Maple Street. These people want lawns and potted plants, not actual nature. Come to think of it, you might still be driving them insane now. Maybe that’s why they ran your response in its entirety. It’s too long for a letter to the editor and too short for an op-ed. But they put in every gloriously impractical word. Maybe they wanted to watch the “fireworks”.
I especially liked this part of your letter.
This area incidentally (Spring and Summer streets) was the same and exact area that the “witches” were found as the result of eating bad rye and perhaps drinking from College Pond.
Could it be genetic?
Anyway, the residents of Danvers, in my opinion, do not “value” and protect their resources. I am not just talking about the beavers here. You should be fishing in College Pond now, or enjoying it’s former beauty, but it has been hidden away for many hundreds of years. So you develop the lands and give away this asset as opposed to protecting it for subsequent generations.
Well now isn’t that refreshing! Thanks for an excellent letter Mr. Sherman and I hope it makes a few people think differently about their watershed. And thanks for the excuse to rerun my graphic. Which has made me very happy.
Some additional news this morning. I’m late in sharing this with you which is definitely worth the listen. It’s a lovely interview with Jenny Papka of Native Bird Connections about avian vocalizations. You will remember that Native Birds joined us for the last 6 beaver festivals even our very first when we barely had 5 exhibits to rub together. It is no secret to say we are very, very fond of them. Here’s just one reason why:
Click to Listen
6 amazing minutes of radio. Great job Jenny. We are so proud of you. And why isn’t Big Picture Science looking into beaver vocalizations? That would be REALLY interesting!
Final grim read from our friend Beth of the National Wildlife Federation. She lives very near the Yosemite Fire and has some amazing observations about the massive blaze engulfing it. Read this and you might want to share.
Known as the Rim Fire, to date it has burned almost 160,000 acres (roughly the size of Chicago) with about 22,000 of those acres in Yosemite. Not surprisingly, given its immense size and threats to a cherished national park, the fire has prompted a media blitz, headlining everywhere from CNN to the BBC to Al Jazeera.
Yet almost universally missing from the media coverage, as usual? That climate change is making wildfires more frequent and more intense. As they have in past years, reporters won’t connect the dots in their main stories, treating the science that’s staring us in the face as a side story.
NPS fire crew enters the Tuolumne Grove of Giant Sequoias to establish defensible space protecting the big trees if the Rim fire advances. (Photo USFS)
Apparently Sterling is so certain of its facts that they have declared the phrase welldocumented to be a single word. Not only is that certain. That’s damcertain. All that flooding is obviously the fault of the beavers. Of course they need killing. We just need to find out who pays for it. This isn’t a complex moral dilemma that upsets us. We’re not worried about who gets killed, but the thorny problem of who gets billed.
