Month: October 2014

Getting to the bottom of things…

heidi08 Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions October 26, 2014

Filming Beavers Swimming Underwater

As the beaver slowly swam toward us, we held our breaths in anticipation and exchanged looks of excitement. The beaver dove under the surface and, to our amazement, swam directly beneath us, under the bridge and out the other side! We saw it perfectly under the surface, undulating its body slowly and paddling with its huge tail and webbed rear feet.

1) First, of course, we found a location where we could stand unobtrusively above the path of swimming beavers: the bridge. But I soon discovered a small side canal next to the dam with a large fallen tree above, which allowed me to get even closer to the water!

2) Secondly, I attached a GoPro HDHero 2 with an underwater housing to the end of a monopod. In the camera settings I flipped the image over because I would be filming upside down.

3) Finally, I learned the habits of the beavers and waited patiently each evening til one began to approach. Slowly, I lowered the monopod down into the water, in the expected path of the beaver and hoped for the best.

Hal Brindley is a wildlife photographer whose enthusiasm for beavers is a joy to encounter. You should really go to his website and see the whole thing for yourself. But I have to share his underwater treasure so can think what it’s like in our beavers murky H20 world. Rusty from Napa is chomping at the bit to get a GoPro cam and try for himself, but I am less eager. To be honest, I feel like everywhere I can see our beavers, I’m responsible for them – thinking about their lives and well-being, problem solving to make sure the don’t trouble the city and worrying about their safety. I’m not sure I want to add to that job by knowing more about their lives by seeing them swimming over trash or sharp car fenders underwater.

But it would still be massively cool.

I spent yesterday in the trenches laboring over the grant for the Contra Costa Fish and Wildlife Commission. Chris Richards of the Alameda one came to the festival last year and said we should definitely apply. The goal is to get them to pay for the keystone activity at the festival, which will look a little different this year. Reading over the grueling application it is clear that the festival itself is way too much fun to get funding, but hopefully an educational activity can squeak by. Here’s my opening pitch:

The concept of species interdependence is a difficult to teach, but important to the understanding of crucial ecological relationships. The emerging understanding of Trophic Cascades, for example, is changing the way agencies and individuals understand the role of predators. The idea that one species could influence another, or make habitat for another, makes intuitive sense to children who are naturally so dependent on others. Having a firm grasp of how species interact is essential to understanding the consequences of our adult behavior later on.

K.E.Y.S.T.O.N.E.

Kids Explore! Youth Science training On Natural Ecosystems

The K.E.Y.S.T.O.N.E activity provides a fun way to learn about complex connections between habitat, food chain and species abundance using the beaver’s Ecosystem Services.Admit it, that might possibly be the best acronym in the history of beaver education! Well, I’m proud anyway. The sticky wicket is that the grant specifically says “Formal education” which means classrooms, test tubes and zoned-out kids. I’m trying to get around that with this quote:

“One result [of formal education] is that students graduate without knowing how to think in whole systems, how to find connections, how to ask big questions, and how to separate the trivial from the important. Now more than ever, however, we need people who think broadly and who understand systems, connections, patterns, and root causes.”

David Orr

Earth in Mind

Isn’t that a great quote? Wish us luck!

Turkey before Halloween?

heidi08 Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now? October 25, 2014

Beaver comeback continues in Windsor-Essex on Turkey Creek

Nearly a century after they all but disappeared, beavers continue to make a comeback in Windsor-Essex County. The latest sighting has come in LaSalle, along Turkey Creek.

Ron Harway found the beaver in his backyard.

Earlier this year, Harway noticed the bark from a tree 60 centimetres in diameter in his backyard had been torn off. Now, wood chips lie in a pile on the ground.

Let me say, if that picture is your beaver, he’s a teeny tiny insect of a beaver. Looking at the later photo of the chewed tree I’d say it looks more like porcupine chewing or muskrat, just not much damage to show for all that gnawing. I suppose if it is a tiny kit who has no idea what he’s doing that means someone killed his parents and he’s an orphan, that’s IF its a beaver I mean. Which I doubt. Anyway Ron needn’t worry. he has a smart Turkey biologists nearby who know all about them.

Biologist Dan Lebedyk with the Essex Region Conservation Authority says more beavers may not be a good thing in Essex County.

Fifty years ago, the region had some of the lowest amount of tree cover in Southern Ontario. It’s been a long, slow recovery.

“So our resources are getting better but it’s not good to have an animal like this because we don’t have the actual resources to sustain a [beaver] population yet,” he said. Beavers can cut down up to 200 trees per year.

Lebedyk is also concerned about the local watershed.”Because all of our water courses are basically drainage systems for our agricultural industry, we don’t want to see dams created on our water courses. it would create flooding and damage property,” he said.

I feel fairly certain Dan might get a letter from me. And in the meantime you should really amuse yourself by watching some footage of beavers that Napa has been smart enough to welcome. How wonderful to have good friends in Beaver places! The first is from Robin Ellison and shows a young beaver chewing on the branches of a willow tree they brought down the night before.

The second is from Rusty Cohn who has been experimenting with a trail camera to catch work at night. Notice the two beavers on the right and a muskrat or mink at the left hand corner of the screen swimming by at the end.

Defending England’s Beavers

heidi08 Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? October 24, 2014

FoE launches legal action to stop capture of beavers in Devon

The environmental charity Friends of the Earth has launched legal action to try to stop the government from ordering the capture of a family of beavers living in the wild in Devon.

FoE lawyers have submitted legal papers seeking to challenge licences that allow the capture the animals, believed to be the first beavers to live in the wild in England for centuries.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) plans to trap the colony and transfer the creatures to a zoo or wildlife park. It argues they are a non-native, invasive species and could carry a disease.

FoE argues that because Britain was part of the beavers’ natural range before they were hunted to extinction, they are protected under European law.

Friends of the Earth has picked up the gauntlet and will challenge DEFRA under EU law. Unlike their English overlords, they think 500 years of extinction is enough, and want beavers back on the landscape. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me for those lucky beavers and for all of us who get to read quotes like this over and over in international media.

“We know that beavers can bring many benefits, such as boosting fish stocks, improving biodiversity and helping to prevent flooding – as well as injecting a little more joy into our landscape.

The story was picked up by the BBC this morning, and will be everywhere by tomorrow. The first step was to write a protocol letter to ‘Natural England’ who very unnaturally issued the license for the beavers to be trapped in the first place. This forces them to release more information and is the first step in a judicial review. If you would like to help you can donate to the campaign or sign up for alerts here:

Let’s hope the next step is “Liberty and Justice for all beavers”

Defending your Beavers

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? October 23, 2014

Beaver habitat topic of concern

Now after yesterday’s horrors, any sane person reading this headline from The Cabinet in Milford, New Hampshire, would obviously suspect that the concerns were mosquitoes, flooding or giardiasis. But any sane person would be WRONG because this is actually the exceedingly rare and absolutely best kind of concern.

MILFORD – Residents were back before selectmen last week to complain about the breaching of a beaver dam at Heron Pond. It was the second time since the Department of Public Works breached the dam in August that residents, lead by local environmental activist Suzanne Fournier, went to a selectmen’s meeting.

Fournier said removing part of the dam, which was done by hand, resulted in mud flats and harmed many kinds of wildlife.

Ahh Suzanne! We read about her almost exactly a month ago – the last time they did this. Apparently they haven’t learned much although Suzanne has been doing her homework. The good news is that this time school is back in session and she brought friends.

Several other residents went to the microphone at the Oct. 13 Board of Selectmen’s meeting to say they were unhappy with the dam breaching, including Suzanne Schedin, a teacher at Heron Pond School, who said the town should reconsider the decisions made 14 years ago when the 270-acre Brox property was purchased to see if development is a good idea.

Chairman Gary Daniels conceded that town officials should have involved the Conservation Commission in its decision about dam breaching, and Audrey Frazier, commission chairwoman asked the board if they could be informed the next time work is done to the pond.

Have you noticed how development is always lurking in the wings? The article describes how the selectman responded with the usual weaseling, saying the pond had just been altered, not drained and they shouldn’t worry so much and “Work together for the town.” Grr. But if I were one of these very select group of men I would pay attention to the fact the Blue Heron School is an elementary and if they’re not very, very careful they will wind up at the next meeting with a room full of these: (The original weasel deflectors).

(That reminds me, I have to send an email to some teachers.)

In the mean time, if you haven’t seen the scathing editorial from the Contra Costa times about one of our own ‘select men’ you really should read it. And I know this website isn’t supposed to be political but the endorsed candidate Mark Thompson is a friend of our beavers and came to the recent Beaver Safari. Incumbent Lara Delaney who is also endorsed, faught for a chance to be on the beaver sub-committee. And Gay Gerlack who is running for mayor spoke up for the beavers at the original meeting in November 2007.

Coincidence?

Three scoops of stupid

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's Killing Beavers Now? October 22, 2014

Every now and then we pass through a news cycle that is so full of beaver benefits and so absent of stupidity I begin to feel like we’ve finally turned an important corner – that all across the country people are understanding more about the good beavers do and why they should solve problems without trapping.

Then there’s a day like today when I remember that people from one side of this country to the other (and everywhere in between) are still deeply committed to their stupidity about beavers. And it shows zero sign of evaporating.

We can start with the tail bounty they’re increasing in Winnebago County in Iowa. From now on, every person who brings in a cut tail will get 50.00$ instead of 25.00. Don’t worry, they have to prove it was from that county. I don’t know how. Maybe the beavers in Iowa have license plates?

Dorchester Struggles With Beaver Troubles

Then we can march 1000 miles across the state to Salem, Maryland where they’re tossing around ecological phrases to justify killing beavers by aiming the USDA at them. These are my favorite quotes.

“They’re damaging the ecological forests, as well as the timber value, because no one is going to be able to go in there and harvest that timber now,” said Libby Nagel of Salem.

“It’s killing the trees and the branches that absorb the nutrients. It’s killing a lot of habitat, mainly causing flooding in fields,” said Eberspacher.

Ecological forests? Absorbing nutrients? Did someone drop out of college after ecology 101? We should all be reminded of Alexander Pope’s Essay on criticism.

“A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring;
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.”

Apparently someone stopped reading before they sobered up.

Click on the photo if you want to see the newscast. The only good news from Dorchester is that when I first saw the story last night they were running it with my very favorite KIT PHOTO by CHERYL! I summoned all my doctoral indignation and wrote the station manager that if they were going to rifle through our website and STEAL anything they wanted they might at least have read the information while they were there.

This morning it’s magically swapped for an NPS photo. I thought it might be, so I took this screen shot last night.

And just when you thought the world couldn’t be any more ridiculous about beavers, there’s this.

Ravens, beaver cause power outages in Willow

According to MEA spokeswoman Julie Estey, the main outage — first reported on the MEA Facebook page just after 11 a.m. — cut power to roughly 3,700 customers. Estey estimates the second incident temporarily left fewer than a dozen people in the dark.

“It was actually caused by two ravens,” Estey said. “They were actually in a substation, and they took out one of the breakers.”

The Douglas substation where the breaker was located covers much of Willow all the way north to Talkeetna. Estey says the outage was first detected at 10:56 a.m., with power restored by 12:18 p.m.

A second, smaller outage reported between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. affected fewer than a dozen people on Willow Fishhook Road. While crews were quickly able to repair the line, the area was within the substation’s coverage area — which meant customers there lost power twice.

“A beaver cut down a tree and it actually fell onto the line,” Estey said. “So they got their power restored, and then they got hit by the ravens.”