Month: August 2015

Beaver Sneeches

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? August 6, 2015

Beavers busy damming Cumberland Land Trust property

CUMBERLAND RI – It was just about a year ago when members of the Cumberland Land Trust figured out that flooding on their Atlantic White Cedar Swamp trail wasn’t caused by heavy rains.

This trail off Nate Whipple Highway utilizes a colonial-era cart path along the side of the swamp that crosses a stone culvert thought to have been installed 200-plus years ago.

At first trust members poking around the flood waters last summer simply cleaned out the culvert crammed with mud and twigs.

“Then we came back the same afternoon and it was all plugged up again,” says member Frank Matta. “We thought at first it had been vandalized.”

It was about then that someone suggested beavers. “It hadn’t dawned on us until that moment,” Matta said this week.

Oh those beaver rascals! Plugging the hole you dug in their habitat so that all their precious water didn’t escape. You do know that their are answers to this kind of problem, right?

The group has also called in Michael Callahan of Beaver Solutions in South Hampton, Mass. He’s proposing a piping system that will allow drainage through a hole in the dam. The company claims to have resolved more than 1,000 beaver problems in the United States since 1998 by installing flow devices that keep water draining without alerting the beavers. The Cumberland Land Trust is looking at spending about $1,700 for the installation plus a yearly maintenance fee.

Whooohooo! Rhode Island hires Massachusetts! I don’t think we’ve ever had a positive beaver story from there. But here’s a grand example! Remember that RI is an island so the article says that after beavers were trapped out these ones swam through the Atlantic after being reintroduced in Connecticut. Cool.

And I haven’t even shown you my favorite part of the story. Ready?

East Sneech Pond Brook connects the town’s Sneech Pond Reservoir to the swamp then flows east to Pawtucket’s southern reservoir in Arnold Mills.

Sneech pond? Really? Dr. Seuss would be so proud.

And an awesome letter from Ontario in Parry Sound.com, I’ll reprint here in full.

Not necessary to destroy beavers, reader

I read with interest the article that appeared in the July 20 issue of the Parry Sound North Star regarding the washout on Clear Lake Road. According to the article, the washout was caused after the nearby resident beavers were killed, as evidenced by the photos of a dead adult in the ditch and a drowned young.

As an individual who has had some experience with beavers, who are often labelled “nuisance animals” I feel compelled to write.

Beavers are nature’s engineers. They live peacefully in family groups of an adult pair, their last year’s offspring as well as up to three to four infants born early in the spring. The young learn how to create and maintain a dam by mimicking their parents.

It is an acquired skill and one that is learned by trial and error over time. When one or more adults are trapped, as it appears to have happened in this particular case, the young are not yet at a stage where they can maintain a dam properly.

As a result, the dam becomes unstable and breaks, resulting in a tremendous amount of water being rapidly let loose, causing flooding.

Beavers and the role they play in our ecosystems are widely misunderstood.

They create wetlands (which are rapidly disappearing throughout Ontario); beaver activity creates critical habitat for so many other species including fish, otters, muskrat, herons, osprey, moose, bears, ducks, etc. etc. Beavers contribute to biological diversity and regional plant succession regimes; they control the kinetic energy of streams, raise the water table, create canals and generally increase water storage capacity of watersheds.

Mr. Rob Marshall, Seguin Township public works foreman, claims that they hire a trapper to prevent washouts from “nuisance beavers”; however, it would appear that just the opposite happened on Clear Lake Road. Because the adults were trapped and killed, the dam could not be sustained and consequently broke, causing the washout.

In addition, I was informed that a large culvert intended to assist in road maintenance had lain in the ditch for over a year; had it been installed, when the dam broke, there could possibly have been little or no damage done. Instead, I can only guess at the expense involved in the repair of the road and excavating of the culverts; this is taxpayers’ money spent needlessly.

I visited the property of Diane Dow on whose land the beavers had been living peacefully to see for myself the devastation caused by the breaking of the dam.

The site is where three separate watersheds combine into what had been a very large pond – home to many species of fish and animals.

What I saw was muck; I saw a muskrat desperately swimming in a very tiny pool; I saw a mother duck and her ducklings forced to sit in the open and prey to any predators; I saw dead fish; I saw dead water lilies & other vegetation; I heard herons crying desperately searching for fish in the once-abundant pond. The peeper frogs are gone; the turtles are gone. And of course the entire beaver family is gone, either drowned in the washout or trapped. It was heartbreaking.

Quite apart from the environmental destruction, there is another factor involved in this situation (and probably similar ones within the township and elsewhere). The traps were laid in the ditch along a well-used public road and very near a public beach, often travelled by neighbour children and dogs. What would have happened if one of these had encountered the trap instead of the hapless beaver? And the dead beaver was left to rot for three days over the long weekend in July.

To quote from the website of the Fur Bearer Defenders, “Often these issues result in municipalities hiring trappers to kill families of beavers. And while lethal trapping may seem effective, it is only a short-term solution. More beavers will soon come into the area to fill the open niche. This is an especially tragic decision because there are many cost-effective, non-lethal options to prevent flooding from beaver dams”.

As it happens, representatives from Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary and Muskoka Watershed Council are in the process of organizing a workshop for municipalities regarding successful alternatives to control undesirable flooding that may occur due to beaver activity.

The two groups have invited an expert in this regard to head the workshop. The beaver deceiver, beaver baffler and other easily installed devices have proven successful in many regions of Canada and the United States. Last year, one of the programs appearing on The Nature of Things entitled “The Beaver Whisperer” highlighted the vital role that beavers played in our ecosystem and also demonstrated the devices mentioned.

I would respectfully urge the Seguin Mayor and councillors to seriously consider sending representatives to this workshop so that you, as well as other adjacent municipalities can work on implementing long-term solutions that truly work.

It is not necessary to destroy beavers – Canada’s national symbol – and I sincerely hope that this letter will provide more of an understanding of the vital role that this animal plays locally as well as nationally.

Marilyn Cole, Seguin Township

With beaver friends like this….who needs beaver enemies?

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, What's killing beavers now? August 5, 2015

At least Vermont has the good sense to question bad advice once in a while!

Commission wavers on fate of beavers

Though the Select Board didn’t pull the trigger on the trapper proposal at its meeting Monday night, members were told a nonlethal alternative, suggested by a licensed wildlife rehabilitator late last year, wouldn’t work in the estimation of an expert from the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Chris Bernier, the department’s furbearer project leader, visited the site in June and quickly concluded that erecting an “exclusion fence” or “beaver baffle” at the culvert would be futile.

According to an email from Bernier, that’s largely because the culvert in question serves as the outlet for nearby Berlin Pond and any permanent structure designed to deceive dam-building beaver would be easily overwhelmed by water flows, require frequent maintenance, or both.

“It is safe to say any structure (baffle, fence or combination thereof) would be readily overwhelmed during even moderate rainfall events,” Bernier wrote, noting his “desktop review” of the upstream drainage area revealed marginal storage capacity and “bank full flows” averaging 229 cubic feet per second.

Now we’ve met Chris before over the years, and his advice has been a mixed bag at best. But I wonder if you can guess what percentage of CDFG wardens contacted about the Martinez Beaver situation warned that a flow device would NEVER WORK. I’ll wait while you think. 50%? 75%

How about 100%.

Okay Mr. Solutions-only-work-on-easy-problems…we understand your hesitation. But Skip Lisle INVENTED the technique you’re dissing, and he happens to live 100 miles from you. (2900 less than he traveled to Martinez to fix OUR problem nearly a decade ago.) Maybe you could, I don’t know, ask his OPINION on the matter before you decide, in your infinite wisdom, with your beaver 101 education that this problem can’t be solved?

At the time, John Aberth — a Roxbury resident, college professor and licensed wildlife rehabilitator — gave the board a crash course in “beaver baffles” and “beaver deceivers,” arguing they would be relatively inexpensive to install, easy to maintain and significantly more effective than trapping.

Swayed by Aberth’s presentation, the board referred the issue back to the commission, which has since obtained a conflicting opinion from Bernier and reluctantly expressed renewed interest in trapping. The request was briefly discussed by board members who did not take any action.

Hmmm, like valiant little salmon trying to swim upstream against a current of bad information. Vermont MAY get this one right with a little more effort. I wrote everyone I could think of and Dr. Alberth for good measure. In the meantime let’s hope that the vibrations of nearby Skip Lisle will shake them into paying attention.

Now for some eye candy.

KTVQ.com | Q2 | Continuous News Coverage | Billings, MT

Never send a city worker to do a beaver expert’s job…

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? August 8, 2015

Northampton will install rocks to baffle beavers at Fitzgerald Lake

Hark back to 2013, when beavers dammed the area around the outlet pipe that sends water from the lake under the dam and into the Broad Brook. The lake rose about two feet that year, forcing the city to install a wire-mesh fence around the pipe, temporarily holding the beavers at bay.

Ever industrious, the beavers eventually burrowed under the fence, clogging the system again and raising the level of the lake. Some of the trails along the shore were even submerged this year.

Wow, Northampton MA is 20 minutes away from Mike Callahan. I can’t believe he installed a fence beavers burrowed under in 2 years, can you? Let’s use the search function on the website to see if it gives any clues. Here’s one from 2013:

“Once the new fence is in by the city’s contractor I’ll be installing a Flexible Pond Leveler through their fence.”

Ahhhh so it was a “I’ll-save-some-$$-by-doing-this-myself, how-hard-can-it-be” job. Gosh and now you have to spend a grand lowering rocks into the lake to hold down the silly fence that you installed, because otherwise Mike’s excellent flow device will get plugged. Have you learned anything by this? Are you going to stick to the experts next time?

Mike said at the time that this lake was the site of the FIRST flex pipe he ever installed – in 1998. How’s that for a history lesson!

Our dinner guests last night were Bob & Jane Kobres from Georgia. Here they are at the table with our awesome chef and FRO’s beautiful beaver watercolor in the background. He’s the retired librarian from UGA that always sends us beaver research and discretely points out egregious typos so that your reading experience will be slightly less marred. He and his wife made their first trip to California (first time ever) for the beaver festival. (No, really)

Every business they visited in Martinez they made a point of telling was stunned. And they just did a beaver presentation at the children’s program in their church. How awesome is that? At dinner we realized they are truly unique folks: Jane is the daughter of a white baptist deacon from Tennessee that voted for Obama twice.

(How small is that demographic?)

They had a great time watching Bob Rust put together the wattle beaver, and Bob filmed most of it so I hope we can get it on the website soon. They shared a similar knowledgeable quirkiness that I am starting to recognize in beaver lovers. (Myself included). It’s amazing that we have had three separate visits from Georgia in the past few years, and the Blue Heron Preserve in Atlanta is now talking about possibly doing a beaver festival. (Be still my heart!) They went to Muir Beach on their visit and boldly put their bare feet in the Pacific, as well strolling around Muir Woods and the John Muir house here in Martinez.

We’re just about finished with the final exchanges for the silent auction, meeting a lot of folk wednesday at the bridge, and everything is finally put away or tallied. I sent the followup receipts and paperwork for the grants yesterday, and am finally starting to feel done with everything. I got this fun photo from our bag piper yesterday, Dave Kwinter, who said he had a great time at the festival.

Of course I warned him to use caution when saying he enjoyed it, or else we will certainly ask him again!

Did they just get the memo?

heidi08 Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? August 3, 2015

This clip would be hyperbole if the article was based anywhere else but from Michigan, which along with it’s Wisconsin neighbor has been ripping up beaver dams to save trout (!) since the dawn of time and insisting the research telling them not to doesn’t apply to them because their streams are ‘special’. Maybe doing their own research will make a difference?

Outdoors: Beaver dams deserve second look by anglers

“Angler groups are under heavy impressions that beavers are the main causes for sediment contribution into the river channel,” said Huron Pines watershed coordinator John Bailey, who gets plenty of pressure from fishermen for beaver dam removal.

Still anglers persist in the quest for beaver dam removal. Finally, in an attempt to settle the question, the University of Michigan did a study on the west branch of the Maple River — a 16-mile tributary in Emmet County. A large population of naturally reproducing brook trout and local concern about beavers made it the perfect locale.

The scientists hypothesized that if beavers were causing excess sedimentation, it would affect both water quality and macroinvertebrate (aquatic insect) abundance.

To their surprise, water quality wasn’t significantly lower above dams nor was water temperature significantly greater above dams. Rather, dissolved oxygen levels and water temperature were stable above and below dams.

Dams did affect tasty trout treats such as mayflies, stone flies and trichos, though not in ways the researchers expected. There were more of these below the dams than above.

Stable water temperatures and dissolved oxygen levels meant that trout weren’t negatively affected. The shift in macroinvertebrate communities above and below dams did result in a change in available food sources for trout.

However, since trout have a highly variable diet, and they will generally consume any available food sources, the shift in community didn’t necessarily limit feeding.

In fact, hexagenia limbata — the large, burrowing mayfly larvae — prefers to dwell in the silt bottom that results from the damming process. (The hex hatch is an annual legendary fish phenomenon. Hex hunger generates more trout titillation and tourism than any other aquatic event.)

“Look for active dams with signs of use. If a beaver dam is large and old enough to have created a substantial pool of deep water, it just might be a brook trout bonanza.”

Michigan is shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, to learn that dissolved oxygen behaves in their state exactly like it does in every other state. Next thing you know someone will be suggesting that gravity works the same way too!!! In the mean time, they’ve contented themselves with the discovery that beaver dams actually improve invertebrate conditions and that this might be good news for the fish that eat them.

Ya think?

A Day of Wonders

heidi08 Festival August 2, 2015

Yesterday was amazing, very crowded, very cheerful, very full of children and parents eager to learn. Just how eager? Mark Poulin’s adorable buttons were an astounding hit. Kids were thrilled to learn and EVEN take the post test. Here’s an idea of just how proud they were of their work. Honestly look at those faces and tell me they aren’t beaming.

The musical line-up was amazing, the solar panels beloved, and the help of sound wizard John Koss was invaluable. We had California visitors from San Francisco, Alameda, Auburn and Winters, as well as national visitors from Virginia and Georgia. I didn’t see a single impatient parent or crabby child this year. They were all remarkably helpful, appreciative, and glowing. Everyone said the activity was enormously fun and educational. FRO’s art project was a huge success, and Martinez enjoyed the work of many new painters. Jon’s tours were well attended as always and his voice was thrilled with the assistance of his brand new personal amplifier.

Everyone said the children’s parade was the best organized ever. The Watershed Steward interns were amazing handling the buttons all day and the junior keepers from Safari West were uniformly helpful down to the last tattoo and tent removal. The silent auction was a huge hit and very well staffed, and membership enjoyed the extra helpers as well. Honestly, we had our best helpers ever this year, with sometimes more hands then even WE could put to work!

And no beaver festival would ever be complete without the wildly creative inventions of Beaver devotee and Martinez resident Robert Rust, who this year, after the giant inflatable beaver of 2012, the tail slapping beaver of 2014 decided to blow our minds with a wattle and daub beaver, formed entirely on site of willow and mud – just like a real beaver would make. (If you need a science and history lesson reminder on this technique, look here:)

There were a million other surprises I am forgetting to mention, but suffice it to say it was our best festival yet, and I’m sure all our volunteers could sleep for weeks. Enjoy your quiet sunday and THANKS!