Month: August 2014

View from Beaver Mountain

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, City Reports, Who's saving beavers now? August 16, 2014

552882_1 — Sentinel photo by BRADLEY KREITZER
The Beavertown Beaver rides a motorcycle in the Beavertown Centennial Parade during Hillbilly Fever Days Thursday evening in Beavertown. Beavertown Borough is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.

Mind you, this Pennsylvania Beavertown mascot looks nothing like a beaver, but I suppose it looks exactly like the kind of beaver who would ride a motorcycle. And besides, I’m in the mood for a parade. A lot of very good things about beavers have been happening, and last night it was making me feel a little dizzy. So let’s celebrate!

Tale 1:

Let’s start close to home. We found out about the beavers in Rodeo from the environmental scientist of Phillips 66, who’s property they’re on. She wanted to talk to us about flow devices so they could keep the beavers there. No, I’m not kidding. Jon went out and saw the site and gave her Mike’s DVD. And she went to work persuading her employers to go for it. This was a while ago.

Recently, her efforts were successful and she got the go ahead to install. I introduced her to Kevin Swift from OAEC who trained with Mike Callahan. Things were all in place but the county commissioners of Rodeo got cold feet and told her that Phillips 66 needed to add a rider covering the city in case something went wrong. I asked around and everyone said that was unheard of, and that liability insurance for the installer was all that was needed. Things looked kind of stuck, then I met Fran.

She approached me at the beaver festival and said she wanted to help the beavers in Rodeo where she lived and had been watching them. What could she do? I told her what I knew and introduced her to the woman I’d been working with. She said she knew the commissioners well, and would get on the job of persuading them otherwise. She was a big fan of the community-based pressure Martinez used and she had many tricks up her sleeve.

With two strong allies for these beavers (who could be Martinez progeny!) I am very, very hopeful for Rodeo.

Tale 2:

Our VP who works in Cordelia at International Bird Rescue has been keeping her eye on a beaver who has been flooding a road near Suisun. She has heard that a Cal Trans biologist has been unplugging his dam so that he won’t need to be trapped, and she’s wanted to connect with him. Recently a very happy accident fixed that problem. I’ll let her tell you about it.

Timing is everything, especially when there is an unexpected schedule change that led me to finding this injured Golden Eagle. it also gave me the chance to meet the Cal Trans biologist I’ve been trying to find for months because of a local beaver issue in the same area. He was also the one to help free the bird from the barbed wire fence.

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So Cheryl can help the nice biologist find out what he needs to know to keep that beaver from flooding the road. Which means one less dead beaver, and since Caltrans is a big organization and can’t have too many biologists, this might mean less dead beavers all over California.

Tale 3:

You met Rusty and Hank at the beaver festival. They are among the heroes looking out for the beavers in Napa. Well the other day at the dam, Rusty met a gentleman he thought he recognized, so when he got home he googled him. He was pretty certain he was the former mayor of Napa coming to watch the beavers.

(And let me interject and ask you to guess how many times the current mayor of Martnez has come to watch the beavers? I’ll give you a hint, it’s a round number. Just sayin’.)

The next night he met him again and was told he was right. Not only was he the prior mayor he is a sitting county commissioner. He thought the beavers were incredible to watch, noticed the amazing wildlife, asked for more information about beavers, said he had planned to come to our festival, and knew the developer of the land next to the creek and would ask that access stay open to the public when the hotel was built. Rusty gave him info about beavers, told him about our website, and then gave him the records of the three depredation permits pulled in Napa county. Which the commissioner said he’d look into.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You know how it is. You plug along from day to day trying to make a tiny difference in the lives of beavers, and wondering if what you do matters at all. And then one day you wake up and look around and you are surrounded by an army of foot soldiers doing the same thing. You aren’t the only one anymore, there is a steadily advancing troop of beaver advocates spreading out from Martinez like an water seeping through a towel.

And suddenly everything looks a lot easier.

In Texas?

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, kits, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? August 15, 2014

Beavers trapped, relocated from Keller neighborhood

The beavers had dammed up a creek in the northwest Keller subdivision of Marshall Ridge, and for about six months, when it has rained, the creek overflows into yards and sidewalks.

So a manager of the development, whose website promotes wildlife, saying Marshall Ridge is home to a “number of animals native to the area,” contacted Plano-based A Wildlife Pro DFW to trap and move the beavers to a human-free environment.

‘Animals have feelings’

Fink said she checks the traps twice a day. Beavers typically work more at night and once they are captured, Evans will move the animal the next morning.

“The traps you want to use for them are big enough for a person to fit in,” Evans said. “You have to have some room for them to move around and fit comfortably so they’re not struggling as hard to get out and hurt themselves.”

I don’t mean to be state-ist or whatever, but this actually surprised me coming from Texas which isn’t exactly known for it’s beaver compassion. Beavers have feelings? And it’s better to relocate than trap? But these took the prize for the most unexpected paragraphs of 2014.

Prudi Koeninger, president of DFW Wildlife Coalition, a nonprofit whose mission “is to reduce … the incidence of orphaned or euthanized native wildlife” in DFW, said capturing and moving isn’t always the best option for beavers.

“Most of the time you don’t get the whole family, so they’re separated,” Koeninger said. “Beavers become independent at age 2, and before that the whole family takes care of the babies. Animals have feelings, family and commitments just as humans do, and there’s emotion if they lose a member of that family.”

Koeninger said one option for coexisting with beavers is to create a “beaver deceiver,” a device that uses PVC pipes to route water underneath dams in whatever direction the community needs.

“What beavers respond to is the trickling of water,” she said. “If you create a pathway underneath where there’s no trickling, you can get it flowing the way you want and the beaver will have no reason to keep working on the dam.”

Some wildlife companies also offer a kind of color-matching “tree paint” mixed with sand that deters beavers from eating the bark and prevents trees being torn down.

Remember that DFW is Dallas Fort Worth wildlife rescue, the director of whom I had a long phone conversation in June when beavers were unwelcome in Irving. Which just goes to show you should always take time to try even when the odds of success seem bleak. The Irving beavers couldn’t be protected, but DFW really listened to info about beavers and co-existence. Which made them great communicators to the reporter of this article who actually did a stellar job.

Maybe next time the beavers can stay?

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And on our less-humane-than-Texas end of the spectrum you might check out this proud announcement of the new orphan arrived at Turtle Bay in our own state of California.

The weird part of this is, with the depredation permits we just got, I can see that if this kit is 7 weeks old in Redding that probably means the warrant that killed his parents looked like this:

Shasta Redding Crop/Landscape/Garden Damage (Landscape trees) # allowed = 2trapped by Bob Hassel permit issued by Pete Figura 6/23/2014.

You might want to save this somewhere in case he ever asks about his mom or Dad when he grows up.

Catching a tiger by the tail

heidi08 Beavers, Educational, History August 14, 2014

Ranchers’ Friend and Farmers’ Foe: Reshaping Nature with Beaver Reintroduction in California

Steven M. Fountain

The twentieth-century project to restore animals to their former ranges often relied on the common support of sportsmen’s groups, wildlife managers, and biologists. Beavers were common but controversial subjects of early reintroduction programs throughout the North American West. In California,rapidly expanding industrial agriculture created a particularly intense conflict over the fate of remaining beaver habitat. Advocates turned to higher elevation ranch lands to relocate problem beavers, emphasizing the economic benefits of raising water tables and reclaiming the potential resource repositories of the foothills and mountains. These habitat extensions were a novel means of commoditizing an animal whose status shifted from harmful to beneficial depending on location and situation.

Reading the title and the abstract don’t you feel almost hopeful? Finally an intelligent article that discusses beaver relocation in California and their potential value! But reading through you see that he based his review on where beavers belong entirely on Grinell and Tappe’s 1930 report. Which as you know, says beaver weren’t in the Sierras because the mountains were too pointy.

Unsuitable riparian vegetation, rocky banks, and steep fast-flowing streams combined to keep beaver largely confined to the lowlands that have been their range for millennia.

Never mind about the beaver in the Rocky’s. And never mind about beavers loving Aspen. Oh, and never mind about that paper published in 2012 by Lanman et al, because he mentions in a footnote:

Richard B. Lanman, Heidi Perryman, Brock Dolman, and Charles D. James, “The Historic Range of Beaver in the Sierra Nevada: A Review of the Evidence,” California Fish and Game 98, no. 2 (2012): 65–80, also misreads several historical documents.

We misread? Who knew? Obviously we did it wrong, (as in we wore our THINKING caps rather than our FAITH caps). Sheesh. The author has slightly more interest in the carbon dated beaver dam, but he’s willing to ignore the fossil record too.

Far more convincing is Charles D. James and Richard B. Lanman, “Novel Physical Evidence That Beaver Historically Were Native to the Sierra Nevada,” California Fish and Game 98, no. 2 (2012): 129–32, which discusses pre–Gold Rush beaver dam remains on upper Feather River tributaries.

Never you mind about carbon half-lives. He has a point to make. In fact it’s so unimportant to his thesis he doesn’t even bother discussing it in his precious paper. Our work issn’t important enough to challenge or actually point out problems. He won’t bother to argue. Dismissing it only requires a footnote.

The outrage of having our years of work marginalized to a footnote got all our attention, but I am happiest that it got Dr. Lanman’s because he put on his most medical-researchy tone and went straight for the author. I can’t think of a single better person to politely challenge his ruthlessly irresponsible bullshit.

I’m easy to insult but it’s probably not every day that Rick gets accused of ‘misreading’. I’ll keep you posted on what happens. This is the picture that springs to mind.

I guess this means we are officially at the second part of Gandhi’s stages of opposition. I hope I packed enough trail mix.

First they ignore you.

Then they laugh at you.

Then they fight with you.

Then you win.

Beavers: The cure for what ails you.

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers elsewhere, Who's saving beavers now? August 13, 2014

At-Risk Columbia Spotted Frogs: Factors Influencing Conservation

USGS researchers, including scientist Robert Arkle, examined existing data on spotted frog occurrence, abundance and habitat to understand factors influencing habitat quality, habitat connectivity and climate suitability in the Great Basin. Preliminary results suggest that the area of the Great Basin with suitable climates for spotted frogs has already decreased over the past 100 years and will continue to decrease substantially over the next 100 years. Genetic research suggests connectivity between adjacent occupied sites is currently low, while sub-populations are isolated from one another.

USGS research suggests that management tools, such as beaver reintroduction, grazing management and non-native trout control efforts may promote conservation of the Columbia spotted frog in the Great Basin.

So NOAA, USFS, and USGS think beaver reintroduction is a good idea to increase habitat for threatened aquatic species. While USDA and CDFG merrily continue to kill them, ignoring the trickle down effect that eliminating each beaver dam will have on a rapidly drying planet. How long does it take for such simple wisdom to pass through government bureaucracy?

Let’s just say I wouldn’t want to be a columbia spotted frog.

Word this morning is that Utah is truly having another beaver festival, and they’re paying for me to come talk about our beavers in Martinez. It’s in Cedar City and I’ll tell you more details when I know them. The event is organized, of course, by the Mary Obrien and the Grand Canyon Trust where practically all good news about beavers originate. Considering Mary was the inspiring voice in the wilderness a million years ago when this all started, and now she wants me to come speak, I’m pretty honored.

Dying for Information

heidi08 Environmental June 29, 2017

254 permits to kill beavers issued from Modoc to San Joaquin counties in the last 20 months. And for what incurable crimes you ask? The vast majority weren’t for complicated levee damage or hard to protect culverts. Most were for something 2 boy scouts and a role of wire would have solved. See for yourself. Damage to vegetation is apparently the primary complaint, accounting for 36% of all permits.

Many of the permits said something like “We tried wrapping trees but it didn’t work.” Not sure why it didn’t work? But I remember the orange plastic fencing Bakersfield ‘said’ they tried over and over and can imagine.

Apparently it’s a skill that eludes most of California. Often the officer giving the permit noted that educational pamphlets were given for ‘next time’. It didn’t specify who the instructions were given too, but I don’t think the beavers read them closely enough.

Successfully wrapping a tree is less complicated than wrapping a present or a ho ho. But here are the methods.

Note that the tree needs to be protected to the height of 3 or 4 feet – more if the snow level is going to raise them up. The tree needs to be left room to grow. And don’t use chicken wire because beavers are way bigger than chickens. The second photo uses latex paint mixed with mason sand painted directly onto the trunk. The recipe is here:

Abrasive Tree Paint Protection

1. Paint: Exterior Latex (choose a color to match the bark)

2. Mason Sand (30 mil or 70 mil)

3. Formula Mix 5 oz sand per quart of paint, or

4. Mix 20 oz sand per gallon of paint, or

5. Mix 140 gm sand per liter of paint.

Make only in small batches at a time on the day you are going to apply it. Using too much sand will cause the mixture to roll off the tree. Apply paint to bottom three to four feet of tree trunk. For best results, do not paint every tree, leaving some for beaver food. This formula does not work for saplings, so protect them with wire fencing. This will need to be reapplied every couple of years, and in areas of snowfall you will need to cover for feet above the snowline.

Protect larger areas of crops or vineyards with electric wire around the area.

Or you can just get a permit to kill them. Apparently in California it’s easy.