Month: August 2013

Warren County and the Stupid Pie

Once upon a time there was a county in the Adirondacks in New York that had the misfortune of a road washout which they thought was caused by a collapsed beaver dam. It cost the county a great deal of money and no one wanted that to happen again. All the officials sat down and tried to think of how to solve the problem. Finally one bright man from the soil and water department suggested the idea of paying trappers an extra bounty for every beaver they killed! Especially when those beavers lived by county roads! Sure more dead beavers would mean safer roads right?

What Warren County didn’t realize was that while a trapper can be required to lop off a tail to prove he has killed a beaver to collect his bounty, he cannot show a log from each dam he dismantled to prove he took it apart. So the beavers might be dead, but the dams might still be there.

More dead beavers=More untended dams=More washed out roads.

Warren County has just made themselves into a big ole pie of stupid.

Warren County officials consider ways to prevent beaver dam problems

That term may be a bit crass, but Warren County officials are exploring giving stipends to trappers to remove beavers whose dams and ponds threaten roads or public infrastructure.

The idea of paying trappers was one of a number of suggestions that county officials kicked around this week to try to deal with a growing problem of impoundments created by beavers that threaten municipal property.

Several beaver dam collapses in recent years have washed out roads in the region, a number of them in Warren County. That has led to county officials looking for ways to deal with a burgeoning beaver population that has grown as the number of trappers has declined.

Jim Lieberum, the Soil & Water Conservation District’s district manager, said one remedy was to try to foster more trapping, by paying licensed trappers for each beaver they take in addition to whatever they can sell pelts for. A $10 payment per beaver could be a starting point, he said.

Since our friends at Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife are IN New York State, I can only assume they will try their beaver best to shine some light on this intenstinal darkness. Something tells me they will have their work cut out for them. Good luck team beaver!

I hope you don’t scare easy because here’s something else we need to talk about. This is the stats by county of the numbers of beavers killed by Wildlife Services in California in 2010. This doesn’t even count beavers killed by permit from CDFW.

These numbers were obtained from the FOIA request by Sacramento Bee reporter Tom Knudson. 1082 total. I’ve been thinking they needed to be a graphic to get the whole picture but I never got around to it until yesterday. What I’d like is a chart of counties colored by the numbers of beavers they killed with WS. If I ever figure out how to do that, you’ll see one of our grimmest offenders is Northeast of Mendocino – this big swath of Colusa, Butte, Plumas and Lassen counties. which is responsible for more than a quarter of all WS beaver deaths in the state. Our friends on the Klamath have their work cut out for them.

If you’re like me you need some good news after that beaver mortuary. Here’s some good cheer I received this morning from Karen Werner of San Jose. She works in Education at the Happy Hollow Zoo in San Jose.

Awesome! After four failed attempts to see wild beavers (Antelope Lake in the Sierra, San Luis Reserve by Los Banos, Guadaloupe River downtown and Lexington Reservoir in Los Gatos) we visited Martinez last night and were rewarded with three beavers, munching away, swimming about and interacting with us. After reading your recent blog entries, I’m quite confident that we saw this year’s kit, last year’s kit, and a mature adult. I took some photos (I need a longer lens!) which I’m happy to send if you’re interested.

Thanks for being a voice for the beavers! We’re not much for crowds, so we avoided the festival last weekend, but all reports say it was a triumph – congrats!

Thanks Karen! And I’m so glad you enjoyed the show. We certainly do!

The Crucible of Beavers

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Massachusetts Trapping Law, Who's Killing Beavers Now? August 10, 2013

In the days immediately following a successful beaver festival I am suffused in a warm glow of fuzzy good feeling. Things are changing little by little for beavers, and we are helping in our little way. Martinez got smarter and other cities can too. Gradually the nation’s beaver IQ will go up and then we’ll all benefit.

Even with this heady insulation, a few shockingly disturbing articles manage to float to my in box (like the woman who made baby beaver dolls out of ACTUAL baby beavers) and I think, NO. I won’t write about that. I won’t pollute this good feeling I worked so hard to have with that artless sadism. The arc of environmentalism is long, but it does bend towards beavers. We are moving in the right direction.

And then something like this happens.

Beavers, dams stir concern in Danvers neighborhood

Over the years, beavers have built dams on the stream that runs between that neighborhood and Endicott Park. The stream runs down under Maple Street and eventually to College Pond.

“The wetland is behind our property,” wrote David Saunders of 12 Brentwood Circle. Saunders was unable to attend the meeting, and neighbor Mary Jalbert read his letter to the selectmen. “We have never seen flooding as bad as it has been this year in June and July. In the past we have had many temporary flooding events in the springtime — but they receded very soon after the rain fall subsided. This year they did not recede.”

Jalbert explained to the selectmen that the health inspector had visited the area twice this summer and on the second visit ordered a licensed trapper to remove the main dam. While the water level dropped some after the dam was removed, the water has now become stagnant.

Did you get that? This is a classy neighborhood just 5 miles from Salem, and the home-owners complained the beaver dams were backing up too much water. So the city removed the dams (and the beavers) and now they’re complaining that the water is too stagnant.

“Unless something is done to get this water moving, we are going to have more water back up to property,” said Ryan. “That’s going to seep into property. Mold will develop. And we will have a health issue in that regard as well. Not to mention damage to personal property.”

He added that the stagnant water is also a prime breeding ground for mosquitoes.

“When the dam was there, water was actually flowing,” said Soles. “Since they have removed the dam, I can agree the water doesn’t move.”

Let me get this straight. When the beavers were alive there was too much water. And now that the beavers are dead there’s not enough flow? And you’re in Massachusettes? Where solutions from both Mike Callahan and Skip Lisle are about 2 hours away from you?

“The wetland is behind our property,” wrote David Saunders of 12 Brentwood Circle. Saunders was unable to attend the meeting, and neighbor Mary Jalbert read his letter to the selectmen. “We have never seen flooding as bad as it has been this year in June and July. In the past we have had many temporary flooding events in the springtime — but they receded very soon after the rain fall subsided. This year they did not recede.”

Gosh, worse flooding than ever before. Those dam beavers! Moving in and ruining everything with the furry ways. Oh wait,

Rainfall was the big story in June’s weather

Rainfall was the headliner this year. June gave us copious amounts. We had 17 days with rain, much of it from tropical downpours that flooded streets and homes locally. From the 6th to the 8th, we had over 3 inches of rain here in Salem. Thunderstorms were no strangers. We had six days that produced these storms, some with an abundance of thunder, lightning and damaging winds.

So you had more rain than usual and even though the beavers built up their dams to keep the water, some flowed over while the dams were there. But you didn’t like all that water and hired a trapper and lo and behold in August the water isn’t flowing anymore! And now you’re worried about mosquitoes and mold. Oh and something worse.

He said algae was covering the wetlands now, and worse yet, a dead beaver was causing an awful stink. He said the trapper had told him dead beavers are not allowed to be removed but they can be buried, which was done.

“They buried it and supposedly turtles brought it back up,” said Soles. “And it’s rotting and we can’t open up our windows.”

I think I am more fond of this graphic than any I ever made. I suppose a healthy turtle would eat carrion. But even with my vivid imagination it is hard for me that they would unbury a beaver corpse and chow down. It was even harder for me to imagine that dead beaver bodies couldn’t be removed in MA. The entire state would be drowning in them if that were so! I asked our resident MA expert who happens to be married to a trapper. “Not true and completely ridiculous” was his answer. Apparently the reporter of this story didn’t bother with the cumbersome burden of verification.

Grave-robbing turtles, mold and mosquitoes, you would think this story couldn’t get any better. But gentle reader, you’d be wrong.

Jalbert raised another concern. A “floating” sewer was installed in that neighborhood and she wondered if the rising water levels would affect its performance

Floating sewer? A sewer that floats? Now how could that possibly go wrong? This entire town seems woefully unready for the demands of civilization. Honestly this whole story is rumor after heresay after gossip after imagination. I seem to remember this area was famous once for believing impossibly crazy things that their neighbors uttered and taking it for fact. You would think that in 321 years the region would have learned at least to look for a smidgeon of evidence before taking irreversible action.

History Lesson

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions August 9, 2013

Unsettled waters Fitzgerald Lake stewards say vandalism mars shared use of water body

NORTHAMPTON — A small number of visitors to Fitzgerald Lake in Northampton are causing big problems, including interfering with beaver habitat, ripping down posted warnings and inadvertently causing the lake level to rise, swamping its dock.

The most apparent and consequential damage is to a metal fence surrounding a drain near the dam on the lake’s east side designed to keep the water level in check.

The fence was designed to keep beavers, which are drawn to the sound of rushing water, away from the drain and to prevent them from packing it with branches, saplings and other debris in an attempt to dam it, said the coalition’s president, Bob Zimmermann.

Once a section of fence was cut away, Zimmermann said, beavers began trying to dam the drain, causing water to back up, raising the water level in the lake by about 15 inches.

Other spots around the lake have been damaged or interfered with in apparent attempts to land prime fishing spots, said Zimmermann, who met a reporter at the lake Friday along with coalition vice president David Herships and board member David Ruderman.

Oh drat! Beavers are fairly easy to control but fishermen are notorious! Sounds like Northampton could use a beaver festival stat! Some education and good cheer to keep all those restless fishermen in check. Maybe a display about how beaver activity changes the invertebrate community which make for more and fatter fish. Don’t worry about the ripped fence, I heard the cavalry is on its way soon.

Once the new fence is in by the city’s contractor I’ll be installing a Flexible Pond Leveler through their fence. Interestingly, the second flow device I ever installed was on this lake, back in 1998.

Mike Callahan Beaver Solutions

Alright then, good luck revisiting history! 1998, wow that was 8 years before the beavers came to Martinez. I wonder what I was doing with my life then?

Oh and I loved this photo of Greg’s wife which ran yesterday in the CC Times Record. Greg is the man who’s been photographing the beavers in San Jose and helped with mom’s rescue. His wife was a star!

Baby steps

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Rehabilitation, Environmental, pictures August 8, 2013

Baby beaver off to make friends in Ontario

An orphaned baby beaver who was found on a walking trail in rural Manitoba was being flown to its new home in Ontario on Wednesday. An air charter service was flying the beaver pup from Winnipeg to Peterborough, Ont., so the animal could be rehabilitated.The Aspen Valley Rehabilitation Sanctuary, which already houses seven beaver cubs, said its current residents would provide much-needed companionship for the new arrival.

Baby beaver on an airplane? Good luck little guy! I hope that when AVRS is all done taking care of him they sit that reporter down and explain that we don’t call baby beavers CUBS. Sheesh!

More killer beavers were brought to my attention by Mike Callahan. Pretty soon beaver movies are going to be their own genre.

Our own baby beavers are doing well as you can see. It is much better when they’re not orphaned to begin with. They need family members to learn how to be a beaver, and even how to groom themselves, And if you don’t think kits are spoiled check out this photo Ron got of our little tyrant hoarding treats for himself and reminding Junior very politely to piss off.

It looks like we don’t have a single beaver kit with conjunctivitis this year which is excellent. Although guess who came down with it after the festival? Must have been all those kids! Thank goodness I had the week off to recover. Throwing a party for 2000 people takes something out of your immune system apparently. I was comforted to find this accurate representation of my current functioning this morning.

Looks like we made the big leagues!

heidi08 Beavers, Educational, Environmental, featured, Festival August 7, 2013

Celebrating one of Nature’s Greatest Engineers: The Martinez Beaver Festival

As someone who works to get kids connected to nature and the outdoors, it was heartening to watch this group rush from one side of the bridge to the other to follow the swimming beaver, and shout in an enthusiastic voice usually reserved for a Justin Bieber sighting, “There he is!” And we adults were shouting right along with them.

Most of the “eager beaver” (sorry-I could not resist) watchers had attended the sixth annual Beaver Festival that afternoon in the area next to the creek affectionately known to locals as “Beaver Park.” Worth A Dam, the non-profit that hosts the event, assembled over forty area wildlife groups to help celebrate one of nature’s best engineers. A documentary film company, Tensegrity Productions, even filmed the festival for inclusion in their series, “The Beaver Believers.”

“We were amazed by the turnout, and heartened to see so many people interested in our resident beavers. Lots of people learned yesterday how beavers are good for creeks and wildlife,” said Heidi Perryman, President & Founder of Worth A Dam.

That’s right. The Martinez Beavers are National Wildlife Federation material now. Beth Pratt the author of one of the Wildlife Promise blogs came to the festival and stayed for the evening beaver viewing, where she was delighted by the behavior of both the beavers and the humans. You really should go read the whole thing. That’s the National Wildlife Federation. Wow! Wait until we make the calendar! I can’t think of a bigger compliment for all our hard work, but give me time. I’m sure I can up with something. She even made a movie of what she saw that night.

If you want another view of the day, check out the excellent photos from Ron Bruno who was helping his wife Lory with the silent auction. Enjoy!