Month: September 2013

The case of the unfixed problem

heidi08 Beavers September 5, 2013

I have written about Eagle Ranch in Colorado three times in the last year, with ebbing hope that they are ever going to learn to do this right. I have painstakingly looked up email addresses of the folks involved and sent them information on flow devices and beaver benefits and practically drawn for them a map of how to get to Sherri Tippie’s house for help. (She is 90 minutes away.) It has all been to no avail, because they still haven’t fixed the flooding or learned to live with it. After spending money to hire this wildlife wizard they surprisingly still have a problem.

Dam problem in Eagle Ranch

There is still a problem with beaver activity in Eagle Ranch since it became an issue a year ago, and the beaver population throughout the entire region is apparently robust. Last October, a colony of beavers moved into an area along Brush Creek in Eagle. They destroyed many large trees along the bike path, built dams on the creek that threatened to flood homes and clogged storm ponds that are used to filter pollutants out of runoff water before it goes back into Brush Creek.

The town trapped and relocated one beaver before Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers advised that it was too late in the season to relocate the animals. The town was encouraged to euthanize trapped beavers or wait until the spring to relocate them. The town opted for the latter, hoping higher flows in Brush Creek with spring runoff might get the animals to move out.

Euthanize? What happened, are the beavers in pain? I hate when people put lace doilies over shivs to cover up their lethal intent. I guess you better Stacy-Chase the rest of the family down and finish them off because you are clearly incapable of learning.

“There hasn’t been enough activity to say how many are there,” Chase said. “We trapped a young beaver there in the spring but it was hard to say if it had just moved in or if it was maintaining the dam. We’ll continue monitoring this week and we might start trapping again next week.”

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Believe it or not we have better signs of intelligent life from Fairview Canada, which is in Alberta about 5 hours away from Glynnis Hood.

Beavers creating dam problems in M.D. Fairview

Several angered residents have brought forth to the Municipal District of Fairview issues concerning beavers in the Fairview and Clear Hills area, and the problems they are causing. Beavers have built dams along the Leith River and surrounding bodies of water, causing a water backlog along a number of properties in the area, including one 160-acre property with more than 40% of it under water.

“I’ve got 65 acres, that’s half my field. They’re not going to do anything unless it causes damage to other properties. Well, it causes damage on my property. I pay M.D. taxes and I can’t farm my land. There’s got to be something done so I can farm my own land,” said one of many concerned ratepayers.

“That land is supposed to be a free flow river, there aren’t supposed to be beaver dams on it – this is farmland. I may as well plant rice.”

Okay, I expect the angry farmers, huddling together in a pitchfork mob to make a plan to take out the rodents. I’m resigned to the “us versus them” mentality. I’ve covered the beaver beat for a long time, and I’ve seen a lot of things that look better in black and white, but I didn’t expect this:

Beavers often dam streams and rivers in shallow valleys, where the flooded areas become productive wetlands capable of supporting a biodiversity equal to that of a tropical rain forest. The calm waters held behind dammed walls then act as a nursery for fish, ducks, and other species.

The removal of beavers from the area tends to often be a short-term fix, as other beavers tend to migrate into the empty habitat, continuing the cycle. Other options available to control water levels behind beaver dams are to install a pipe and cage system, otherwise known as flexible pond levelers, which allow for dams to be kept in place and beavers unharmed.

A flexible leveler system uses a large diameter corrugated polyethylene pipes, with the inlet protected by a five-foot-diameter cage of sturdy fencing. This cage is then placed low enough into the water ensuring the bottom of the pipe become the new upstream water level, allowing beavers to dam alongside the pre-dam fence while water continues to flow freely.

The article is written subtly so that I can’t tell where this sudden peak of beaver IQ comes from. It doesn’t quote any biologist or engineer as responsible for these beautiful paragraphs. I am left to think they’re crafted by the reporter herself, who learned something on some other story, or is best friends with Glynnis’ aunt or caught the last 15 minutes of the Beaver Whisperers this winter. She is practically one of us. I couldn’t have said it better myself. I would say we should celebrate and pass around the cigars if it weren’t for the very last sentence.

Lowering water levels by one foot greatly increases the chance of beavers leaving the site to dam elsewhere along the stream or river.

Naive beaver-lover that I am, I read this first as a caveat. “Be careful when you install or the beavers might leave”. This is a direct caution from Mike Callahan Beaver Solutions website, which means use caution when you lower the pond by more than a foot or the beavers will be uncomfortable with the new pond and build a dam somewhere else. This would mean that your flow device was for nothing, and you might need another one 20 feet away.

Whenever a pond must be lowered by more than a foot, a single round of trapping may be necessary prior to the flow device installation. When new beavers without the memory of the higher water level relocate to this area they are more likely to tolerate the smaller pond so repeat trapping will not be needed. Most Flexible Pond Leveler TM failures are due to new downstream damming in response to a dramatic lowering of the water level.

As it happens, we have actually argued about this sentence because it is followed by a reminder that if you need the pond lower than that you MIGHT have to trap. (To which I always staunchly remind that in Martinez Skip lowered our dam by three feet before he installed the flow device, and our beavers tolerated it.)

But this morning I realize that this last sentence of the article isn’t a reminder not to lower the dam too much, but rather a tantalizing promise that if you lower the pond by a foot the beavers will simply go away of their own accord. The reporter may have been closely listening when Glynnis described why beavers are good for ponds. But she obviously drifted off and missed the part about the purpose of flow devices.

Sigh. Self-deportation of beavers. Fairview is obviously still in the tail portion of this graph.

They grow up so fast!

heidi08 Friends of Martinez Beavers September 4, 2013

Got an email from Ian Timothy yesterday. If you don’t recognize the name he’s the young man from Kentucky who brought us the Beaver Creek Series. After a highschool of successes, he’s just moved into his dorm at CalArts for the animation education of his dreams. He said they had encouraged him to bring personal items so he sent me a pictures of these.

Just got to CalArts. The paper said to bring ‘personal decor’ and now I am all set up and decorated!

Excellent! Although I’m thinking someone needs a castor canadensis care package. That black beaver looks a lot like a bear! Ian we wish you ALL the luck in the world, and I know for a fact you will need none of it. His face book page has a blow by blow of his parents checking on his flight to California last weekend. With a birthday celebration that must make him 19? Good lord, I can’t imagine. The world can’t wait for what he’s bringing to the ‘design’ table. In fact they’re so eager that his most recent film, Raptor Blues which he did for our friends at Raptors Are the Solution, is heading to Amsterdam for the animated film festival called “KLIK”. His first overseas success! He posted a picture of the creatures he made for that smart film and it turns out he had to make the rats in two scales, large for closeup and tiny for scenes with the birds.

16103_620168524670737_1399817829_n — Ian Timothy showing scale of his film “Raptor Blues”

Well Ian, when you get famous(er) don’t forget the little beavers of the world. I’d hoping to see a Pixar production on our Water saving friends soon! If Mickey Mouse got famous, why not Benny Beaver?

For a fully animated morning, check out this fun article on Andrew Grantham who was the voice behind the ‘talking beaver on the highway’ among other things. Mind you it was a Russian gentleman who shot the footage, and we’ve exchanged emails and he sent me stills about the event. He promised me that he made sure the beaver got across the road safely, and he got bit in the process by one scared disperser. But he lived and it was Andrew who adopted it to his own creative talent.

The name Andrew Grantham might not ring a bell, but you have likely viewed, delighted at, and shared his work online. He is the guy behind the Talking Animals channel on YouTube, home to viral videos like Ultimate Dog Tease (you know, the one with the pup who asks: “covered it with what?”); Re: Cats Talking, Translation, which lets us in on an illuminating conversation between two TV-watching felines; and the self-explanatory Talking Beaver on the Highway.

Oh and one more treat this morning from our friend Greg Kerekes who’s keeping an eye on the beavers in San Jose.

Good Luck Ian! And Mom and Dad, who must be having strange empty places around their house right about now. Maybe we should send you a bottle of beaver wine so you can toast the first leg of a job well done and start to relax into the new normal.

Ian graduated — Ian Timothy, Joel Timothy & Karen Boone celebrating High School graduation this year. CalArts here you come!

Urban legends of beavers

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, Massachusetts Trapping Law, Who's Killing Beavers Now? September 3, 2013

Do you remember that story, back in fourth of fifth grade, you heard at a sleepover with friends? Two of the friends you had known since 2nd grade but one girl was someone else’s friend, or neighbor, or cousin and she was rumored to have slightly more street cred on account of her parents were divorced, or her mother had died, or her brother was in jail. And when the last pizza had been eaten and all the lights were out and you were huddled in sleeping bags on the living room rug or the back yard, she started with that spooky story in that absolutely chilling and unforgettable voice:

“Who stole my golden arm?”

And of course, even at 10, you knew the story was impossible and that ghosts weren’t real and that even if they were people don’t ever make arms out of solid gold, and you might have mumbled so all the way through at intervals but once Elvira leaped from the grave and shouted “YOU GOT IT!” and that terrifying story was over you couldn’t wait to think about who you were going to tell it to next. All the other kids must have too because pretty soon the story was all over school and was starting to get little adjustments, like the woman had been murdered for her golden arm, or it was actually a golden leg. It was a self-reproducing meme that was perpetuating itself like a virus through the primary grades. And even today, just saying the words has a kind of ring to it, and you can remember something of that chill. And it doesn’t matter whether its true, because its not that kind of story.

Which brings us naturally to the topic of beaver dams, water temperature and fish.

Richard Hartley, left, and Mark Brideau, right, both state fisheries biologists, electro-shock and catch fish in Barbers Hollow Brook in Oxford. The state biologists worked with Glenn Krevosky, center, of EBT Environmental Consultants Inc. (T&G Staff/RICK CINCLAIR)

Mr. Krevosky said Barber’s Hollow Brook is but one of several small headwater brooks in town where the positive effect of 46-degree groundwater in a stream has been compromised by beaver dams that dramatically raise stream temperature.

Todd A. Richards, biologist for the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, agrees that beaver impoundments have an impact on cold-water fish resources, but adds it’s only one point that makes an already bad situation worse.

He said beaver may not have as much impact in hilly and mountainous terrain, but their impact on streams with minimal flow and minimal change in grade is considerable.

“Beavers have a place, and historically, beaver populations were kept in check by wolf, cougar and native Americans. Obviously that is no longer the case. We are losing trout fisheries in areas that previously were not impacted by beaver and that has to be taken into consideration in restoring cold-water fish resources,” he said.

I believe Eisenhower was president when Clyde the ranger stuck his thermometer in the top inch of pond water and observed beaver ponds are warmer than flowing streams. He published a paper on it and of course the paper said what everyone wanted to hear, (that beavers, not progress and concrete, were ruining our streams) and so it went into all those biology text books and field guides. Never mind that if you ask an experienced trout fisherman where he loves to frequent after lots of beer and persuasion he will eventually say the beaver dam. Folks are so used dull easy hatcheries with fish dumped out of the truck that they don’t remember their grandpa or believe their friend Billy anymore.

So the meme of beaver ponds raising temperatures and ruining things for fish perpetuates itself. Michael Pollock was very perplexed by this temperature canard because it ran against everything he saw and observed. He tracked down the origins of the temperature meme to the root of its roots and learned the truth about its single thermometer in the top inch of the pond- origins. He ran expensive experiments funded by the federal government with sensors all the way down the depths of the beaver pond and proved it was completely, entirely and in all other ways untrue.

Okay now, follow this closely. The right of the graph is the mouth of the stream, so the water comes out of the ground colder and gets steadily warmer as it passes to the sea. Except for that one patch on the middle where it says AREA OF PERSISTENT BEAVER DAM BUILDING. How can this be? The water you see in the stream is only part of the story. The majority of that water is underground, beneath the soil, where it never gets warmed by the sun. This colder water passes through the bank wall in a process called hyporheic exchange which cools the temperatures. The placement of a dam increases hyporheic flux by increasing the downward hydraulic gradient across the dam.

End result cooler temperatures in ponds and below beaver dams and happy fish.

This data has been published and discussed in scientific forums. It has been quoted and re-quoted in fish journals from Washington to Norway. It doesn’t matter. Biologists like Mr. Krevosky and Mr. Richards would rather stay up late telling each other scary tales of beavers ruining streams for fish like “Whoooo stole my golden arm???” Of course they invited the media who comes to the sleepover and very responsibly write down every bogus thing they say as if it were fact.

“Previously enterred woman seeks valuable false limb. News at 11:00“

I have zero patience with the fact that this story comes from the fisheries of Massachusetts of all places. It is obviously a brick in the consistent argument, ‘The stupid voters ruined our lives when they took away our traps and infested us with icky beavers! Better change the law right away”. This bad-penny persuasion shows up every few months, usually proceeding a new last-ditch effort to overturn the will of the voters some way or other. Mark your calendar because we’ll be talking about this again soon, I guarantee it.

Oh and if the name of Mr. Krevosky sounds familiar, it should. I wrote about him 4 years ago on this website for famously claiming that beaver dams were ruining Massachusetts by promoting Purple Loosestrife. Here’s a taste of that column, which was fun.

Enter Mr. Glenn E. Krevosky of EBT Environmental Consulting. He has a theory, and like all good theories, it blames the rodent. He says that beaver dams cause flooding, destroy native plants and then make space for Loosestrife to take over. If there were fewer dam beavers, (he has persuasively shouted to the media), we could rid ourselves of this purple menace once and for all. Of course I went immediately to research his copius studies proving this brilliant hypothesis, and saw that the sum total of all literature published in peer review journals on this theory is zero. No research whatsoever. Nada. Not that this has troubled the media, mind you. They are perfectly happy to write down what someone from a very environmental sounding company says. (Of course I couldn’t find EBT consulting either, so who knows what E.B.T. stands for? Everybody Blames Them?)

Some things never change. I still couldn’t find anything about EBT on the internet. Obviously the digital age, along with certain beaver-related scientific facts, continues to elude him.

Beaver Reunion

heidi08 Beavers, kits, Video September 2, 2013

Last night there was a fortuitous reunion of Worth A Dam members and beavers aplenty. The dam was looking restored and without right angles, freshly mudded and the tide was nice and low. Some folks had come all the way from Novato to do a little beaver watching and were well-rewarded for their efforts.There was ample time for closeups and lovely glimpses of kit activity.

And if that makes you wish you were there, this might help. Never mind the train noises, I’m betting you will feel peaceful when you watch this:

Cheryl was avidly hoping for her first photo of the three kits together. It has been hard getting them to all be doing the same thing at the same time close enough to fit into a single camera frame. Last night she was not disappointed.

three together — 2013 Kits- Photo Cheryl Reynolds

Pretty soon an older beaver came out to see what they were up to. Junior and Mom made an appearance. Then a beaver we weren’t sure was around any more. This is one of our 2010 kits all grown up. When mom died she left one that was smaller (Reed) and two that were the same size (The Bookends). We unkindly used to call this particular beaver the “Useless Bookend” because he never ever helped with the dam in any way. I had wondered whether she/he was still around, but I’m starting to think this beavers will never disperse. He or she’s obviously tolerated though, and this year I did see him actually work on the dam a couple times.

When he made his unexpected appearance last night there were FOUR beavers on the dam at once.

Call me a traditionalist but when “Uncle U” showed up I couldn’t help thinking of this from the “Loyalist Cemetary” in New Brunswick.

As its centerpiece, the fountain features four bronze beavers building their lodge. The beavers are the work of world-renowned British sculptor Michael Rizzello, O.B.E. (Order of the British Empire).In 1785 a coat of arms was chosen for the new City of Saint John. One of the symbols chosen for the newly created crest was the beaver. The beaver has come to symbolize the spirit of hard work and innovation and has been used as a recurring theme in the renovated Old Burial Ground.

Nice fountain! Think they might have room for an American at this cemetery? Just curious.

Oh and since the Novato people got their wish and Cheryl got her wish and several families with small children got their wish, the beavers decided to give Heidi her wish too. Turn your sound UP to here these two kits greet mom, who’s off camera to the left.

It’s beaver magic in the late summer. Maybe you should stop by tonight and catch some of your own.

pulling kits — Kits in tow: Photo Cheryl Reynolds

Dam Liars

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now? September 1, 2013

There are lies

there are dam lies

And there are statistics.

With one correction in spelling to Mr. Twain’s quotation, this is a fitting introduction to today’s column. Yesterday I received the results of the survey conducted at the four seasons in El Dorado. You’ll remember they were having troubles with beavers a while back and folks contacted us about wanting to keep them. A couple of them even came to Martinez to look around and see our flow device, then visit the beaver festival. They lost the battle with the HOA to save those beavers, but have formed a wildlife group to hopefully change the situation the next time. The HOA kindly responded with the usual survey of attitudes which 104 residents returned.

Ugh. I shudder to think what would have happened if Martinez got their hands on something like this. The questions aren’t exactly UNBIASED although the HOA deserves grim kudos for actually saying eradicate and not “remove” or “euthanize”. (Which Martinez used to cloak its ugly truth.) Okay 64 against keeping beavers and 36 for is significant at the p.005 level but the obstacle’s not insurmountable. They only need to change 19 minds. That’s like 10 couples. I’m thinking BBQ and martini’s, maybe in Martinez beaver glasses?

I especially love the part where the HOA asks residents if they will pay to thin the willow after they pay to kill the animal that would trim the willow naurally. Nice! I would start by saying, “Does the fact that you used our HOA dollars to complete this survey mean that if 51 had voted against eradication you would not have killed them next time?” If it does – we have our work cut out for us but it’s work we can do. Can you give me a map of the residences who responded to the survey? How many of them were on the creek?

If the answer is a mealy-mouthed “We have to protect the property regardless of what public opinion says” or something like that, demand they give a refund to residents for the expense of the survey itself (including the time it took them to add these things up), since its clearly a waste of time and of no value to the residents. Offer to do the survey for them next time so it won’t cost residents anything. It’s not as hard as it sounds. I know a beaver-friendly psychologist who would be happy to volunteer some time to put together new questions.

Is it better to solve a problem for the short term, or adopt a long-term solution”
Would you appreciate more variety of birds and fish in the area?
Do you know what a “keystone species is?”
Do you think the HOA at Four Seasons is as smart as other communities that have successfully employed humane solutions? Or would it be too hard for them?

Give me a call. I’m sure we can whip something together in no time.

And some more dam lies this morning from the Boston Globe, talking about how rebounding forests on the East Coast have made a wildlife boom.

As forest returns in New England, so do inhabitants

Beaver: Wiped out entirely in southern New England by 1900 with only small remnant populations in northern Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire. Now hundreds of thousands live throughout New England, including an estimated 70,000 in Massachusetts.

Mind you, nobody has actually COUNTED the number of beavers on the East Coast or West Coast or Barbary Coast since they noticed there were hardly any left! The 70.000 figure comes from the panicked inflated statistics offered when MA Fisheries and Wildlife responded to the voters decision to eliminate crush and leghold traps. As in “OMG we’ll be overrun with beavers. There will be 70,000 in 10 years!”

Nice of the Globe to write that down for them like its a fact. But I’ve noticed before the Globe is very compliant when it comes to beaver dogma.

For the record, MA has 10,555 miles of land of which 25.7 is water. That works out to about 2712 miles of water total, which would mean that there would be about 2 beavers for every mile of water in the state. Which I suppose is theoretically possible, except for the fact that MA is notorious for not allowing beavers in reservoirs or near drinking water, so that’s got to subtract a lot of real estate. Plus some of that water has got to be under towns and concrete, and beavers can’t live there. Not to mention that plenty of beavers in cities and on private land are getting killed every day. So I’m going to hazard the guess that that statistic is inflated. In 2009 the NYT reported the population estimated at 30,000 beavers in the state. Which means that these remarkable animals that take three years to reach sexual maturity and breed once a year have more than doubled their population in four years.

I said the time:

Today, Ms. Hajduk said, there are at least 30,000 beavers, all over the state.

Wow, that’s a lot. Maybe this whole environmental movement has gone too far. We obviously brought them back too much. How many did their used to be? 29,000? Oh wait, remember those historical trapping records that showed 60 to 80 beaver per mile of stream? I wonder how many miles of stream Massachusetts has. (Gosh the internet is useful. 4320 miles of stream in the commonwealth of Massachusetts.) Lets just multiply that by the low number of 60…how many beavers would we expect if we were back to that baseline? I mean if we had done an even adequate job of “bringing them back” 259,200. Let’s be generous and just round down to 200,000.

Uh oh. By the most conservative possible calculations, Massachusetts is short 170,000 beavers!

Say it with me now:

There are lies

there are dam lies

And there are statistics.