Because the beaver isn't just an animal; it's an ecosystem!

Month: November 2013


Cory Cheever of Vermont Fish and Wildlife (left) works with volunteer Tom Prunier to build a beaver exclusion fence in a culvert in Putney. (Kayla Rice/Reformer)

In Putney, the challenge of living with beavers

PUTNEY — The town is trying to strike an appropriate balance with the beavers that live up in the Wilson Wetlands.  Cory Cheever, a biologist with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, was in Putney Tuesday to help members of the Putney Conservation Commission control beaver activity in the wetlands.

I got so excited about this article. A Fish and Wildlife Biologist installing a flow device instead of killing beavers! And in Vermont no less! So obviously they could hop up the road 24 minutes to Grafton and make sure Skip Lisle approves of their work, right? Maybe even get some help from the master on this! But if I was expecting the transfer or sharing of any knowledge I was sorely mistaken.

Cheever installed a series of his own dams — which looked a little like wire fencing placed in the water — in the culverts under Sand Hill Road to keep the beavers out while allowing them to live in the wetlands.

 “This is a dam, from the beaver’s point of view this is a dam, but it is faulty, from a beaver’s point of view,” Kerrey said Tuesday while standing over one of the culverts. “It’s faulty because it has five holes in it, also known as culverts, so they are busy plugging those holes up.”

 The Department of Fish and Wildlife has installed similar baffles all over the state.

That’s right, because BAFFLES are sooo much better than those other things that Skip or Mike install. So we had to start from scratch and re-invent the wheel to make it roll. Last year when we read about Mr. Cheever  I wrote Skip and Mike to see if they had ever met, connected or exchanged a single email. I’m so innocent I was surprised when the answer came back “No.”

Well, maybe Fish and Wildlife is trying to avoid paying royalties to Skip by calling their design a baffle? Or maybe they genuinely just don’t know any better and didn’t open my copious emails the last time. In the vast scheme of things it doesn’t matter if Mr. Cheever makes up a different design or calls it a “beaver faker” as long as it works, right? I can’t get too upset about this article because look at this.

Kerrey says that when the water level dropped the Conservation Commission saw the need to bring the beavers back to dam up the flow.  As challenging as the beavers are to live with, Kerrey said, it was still easier than bringing in a human specialist.

 The beavers were able to bring the water level back up, but now they are damming up the culverts with their sticks.

“We would have had to figure out how to do that ourselves. We would have had to hire some engineer to figure out how to reestablish a wetland,” Kerry said. “Beavers already know how to do that. So we just decided we would wait for them. And we waited a little over year and the habitat for them is good so they showed up and they fixed everything, but they’re going a little overboard now.”

Is Fish and Wildlife paying for this? Or is it strictly something Cory convinces property owners to pay for in their spare time? I will write him again and see if we can’t possibly bring Mohamed to the mountain.

And speaking of experts I heard from Mike Callahan yesterday that he is on his way to Washington to film the salmon passing easily through his new adapted flow devices there. It seems that his auto cameras don’t pick up the passage which mostly happens at night, but Mike’s been assured the design works like a charm so he is going to spend some nights on sight with a camera at the ready!

He needs the footage of course for March when he’s coming to the Salmonid Restoration Federation along with all the OTHER beaver people!

beavers&salmon


Every now and then I am overwhelmed by the wisdom and problem-solving skills folks around the country use when facing beaver challenges. I think of how informed and creative they are and I am dazzled by their beaver-brillance as they struggle to implement long term solutions in their creeks and streams that will benefit the entire habitat. How did they get so amazingly smart, I wonder? With such respect for wildlife and delicate understandings of trophic cascades?

Just kidding. That never happens. Mostly this happens.

Hopkinton board to weigh support for expanded trapping bill

 Residents bugged by beavers in their backyards should share their stories directly with Beacon Hill legislators, selectmen Chairman John Mosher said Monday.

 Selectmen tonight are set to hear from residents in the neighborhood around North Mill and South Mill streets, where beaver dams have caused water to creep onto residents’ property and in some cases threaten outbuildings, pools or septic systems.

 The residents have asked selectmen to write a letter to Rep. Carolyn Dykema, D-Holliston, supporting one of many bills before the legislature that would ease trapping laws, especially those that prohibit lethal traps in most cases.

Never mind that we can use whatever traps we please when one of 9 exceptions are met. Never mind that we are an hour away from Beaver Solutions who could fix this problem permanently. Never mind that these wealthy homeowners  bought a house on the creek so they could enjoy nature. Never mind that hundreds of thousands of voters went to the polls to outlaw kill traps in most situations in 96.

Hopkinton: Where democracy doesn’t matter and neither does nature.

I would love to be at that meeting tonight  to hear what the forlorn homeowners complain to the board about why their exceptional needs this minute matter more than the will of the voters. I would love them to explain why flow devices wouldn’t work and actually be a longer term solution than trapping anyway. But I am stuck here in Martinez where we understand Beaver-stubborn very well. I have sent my advice to the powers that be and can only wish that a bat-squeak of hope and light can eventually pierce the thick abyss of their fear and ignorance.

Good luck with that. On to Texas…

The evidence against BEAVERS is DAMMING!!

Beavers are controversial animals – both admired and despised for their exceptional digging and building abilities. Beaver dams offer protection against coyotes, wolves, bears and other predators.

 “People often disagree about the beaver,” a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokesman said in a post. “Some think this master dam builder is the smartest thing in fur pants, and they use such words as ‘intelligent, energetic,’ and ‘helpful’ when speaking of it. Others claim the paddle-tailed engineer is ‘dumb, stubborn,’ and ‘destructive.'”

 A paper written for the University of Arkansas by Rebecca McPeake characterizes beavers as “our largest North American rodent … nature’s equivalent of a habitat engineer.”

 Some experts contend legal trapping efforts help keep the number of beavers under control, but the Humane Society suggests trapping be abandoned altogether as a practice because beavers play much too important of a role in establishing and maintaining wetlands.

 “Beaver dams enhance their environment by providing habitat for many sensitive plant and animal species, improving water quality, and controlling floods by slowing water movement,” according to the humanesociety.org spokesman.

 I’m scratching my head about why on earth an article from Texas is mentioning the benefits of beavers and an article from Massachusetts is not. Any ideas? Maybe its opposite day. Did the sun come up this morning or go down? Mind you, this is hardly the most valiant defence  of beaver benefits I ever read in my life, but from the Lone Star State it’s a blasted miracle. An emancipation proclamation of sorts.

Beavers build dams to create ponds that give them protection from predators and increase the water level to encourage new growth of the trees they like to eat, reports show.

 Beavers are ultimately important because the wetlands they create become habitat to many other species, according to reports. ((As a species, the structures left behind by beavers modifies the natural environment so well that the rest of the ecosystem incorporates it into a change.))

Hmm, I know that Texas tries to do the opposite of what Massachusetts does as a general rule, so maybe that’s what’s happening here?  Since the state is a LOT bigger, (near 300,000 square miles) with 3700 named streams and 15 major rivers, beavers would be a lot better off if Texas had a change of heart than if Massachusetts did. Come to think of it FEMA would be too. Maybe they realize that beavers are independent thinkers who do their own thing and reject city ideas. Maybe they could be on the new flag?

texas


In the whole of our nation, from bright sea to shining sea, there are two locations where you can reliably see beavers on public land. Martinez and Virginia. The beavers in these locations are surprisingly a ‘feature’ not a ‘bug’. In fact the ones at Huntley Meadows have built a lodge up and over this lovely bench. Our friend Ann Cameron Siegal photographs the beavers there, and Malcolm Kenton visits regularly from his digs in Washington D.C. He blogs for the Greater Greater Washington website, and has a host of rail connections. When he stopped by Martinez recently Cheryl gave him a tour and a shirt and I asked him to send us a photo. He promised to pose for us the next time he went to H.M.

DSC_3683DSC_3663As can see, Malcolm dresses way nicer than us for his day job, but he agreed to slub the shirt over his pinstripes for this photo. Thanks Malcolm! I love that Martinez was there in spirit! If you look closely you will see that Malcolm is also wearing his “Beavers: Wetlands & Wildlife” cap.  Malcolm befriended Sharon and Owen Brown and maintains the Facebook page for BWW. I am very happy to be part of the yarn that knits this vast beaver community together. This photo firmly confirms Malcolm as a friend to the beavers of which there are more than there used to be, but not nearly as many as their ought.

Now, am I mature enough to keep the paraphrase of ‘The Monks’ to myself?

(As in “Nice Shirt, Shame about the Hat”….)

Apparently not.


I love this video which is from the science classroom on PBS. I love the little girl who explains that they have to work “real hard” and the one who notices that the water gets through the cracks, and especially love the kid who says that he’s using mud like glue because that’s “what beavers do”. I read that Massachusetts Audubon lets kids build a beaver dam on their beaver field trips and I wrote their project coordinator for information about how it works. She says they love to use a tiny natural stream, small enough to hop over, but if one isn’t available they will just pour a bucket of water on the experiment and see how it holds up! Unfortunately the video wouldn’t let me embed it so I’m risking the long arm of the law and posting it on youtube to share. Which means you should DEFINITELY watch it before PBS throws me in the pokey for copyright infringement. Let’s puzzle together to think how this might be replicated at the festival okay?

How beavers plug pipes - Cheryl Reynolds
How beavers plug pipes – Cheryl Reynolds

Beaver-MoonYou will be watched over tonight and tomorrow by the “Beaver Full Moon” which should remind you to get ready for the winter that is (theoretically) coming. It was either named so that folk would remember to set their beaver traps before the freeze OR so to honor the hard work the animals are doing getting their food cache’s ready for the long winter. I obviously think the second explanation is superior. Mostly because folks never seem to need to be “reminded” to kill beavers – they think of it ALL by themselves.

Here is another reason to think about beavers, from Connecticut where beavers seeking an education have decided to dam near the State University.

Beavers take to damming up Bass Brook near CCSU

They’re not swimming in the sewers on Main Street or in the pool at the YMCA but they are damming up Bass Brook near Central Connecticut State University. It might not be startling after the recent increase in wild animal sightings in the city, with a black bear spotted around CCSU back in June and a moose killed near busy Route 72 in September. But beavers in particular can pose problems for property owners, who the state Department of Energy & Environmental Protection does issue special trapping permits to if the issues become significant enough.

 “We get over 100 beaver-related complaints every year,” said Chris Vann, DEEP wildlife biologist. “Most of the problems are pretty clearly apparent — if there are high-water levels around a roadway, towns will get involved, and landowners complain if a significant part of their lawn is going underwater because their septic system or well may be threatened.”

You’ll be happy to know that the DEEP stands for the “Department of Energy and Environmental Protection”. Tell me how those two things go together? Apparently they take their job of protecting creeks from beavers seriously! (Remember that protecting creeks from beavers is like protecting banks from money, boy scouts from badges, or police from donuts.) Obviously this reporter has gleaned beaver info from sources beyond DEEP’s pocket. Because she says:

While these landscape dilemmas can be a pain for humans, the ponds that result from beaver craftsmanship serve as new habitats for other wildlife.

 Mr. Vann was prepared for this comment and was armed with what I consider a truly sinister response.

“We certainly recognize the benefit of beaver, but at the same time, we regulate beaver management to try to minimize property damage,” Vann continued.

Did you get that? We know beavers are good and help the very environment that we supposedly get a pay check for protecting, but we’re worried about property damage more so we focus on that. Maybe DEEP actually stands for Defending Emerging Energy  & Property? Clearly they’re not worried about Bass creek or the wildlife those beavers are supporting. They get a letter.

And you can’t be truly surrounded by beavers without a pop- culture reference. I am delighted to say that Cheryl was able to alert me to this from her bedside, which definitely seems auspicious! This is from the last week’s episode of Bones called “The Dude in the Dam.” Enjoy!

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