Month: November 2015

There’s too much nature in our parks

heidi08 Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Educational, Who's Killing Beavers Now? November 10, 2015

How much nature is TOO much? Let the biologists decide.

Maya Shikhman has photographed a Staten Island beaver busy at work, building and nibbling. The large, semi-aquatic mammal has been observed at two locations.

Beavers join the parade of wildlife attracted to Staten Island life

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — They have not been on Staten Island since the 1800s, but a few beavers have taken up residence in the last year or so.

Their population has increased in near-by locations in New Jersey and downstate New York. It’s likely our beaver were ‘disperser’ who left their original area due to competitive pressures from other beaver… similar to why the deer have come to the island,” said Wollney, a doctoral biology candidate at the College of Staten Island.

The growing numbers of the semi-aquatic mammal in New Jersey are leading to the consideration of solutions to manage their numbers.

“The Control Operators Association estimates New Jersey has around 10 million to 15 million beavers, mostly concentrated in the northwest part of the state,” reported the Associated Press in a story in January.

“Busy as a beaver” is an accurate description of an industrious animal or person. “The beaver’s ability to modify its environment is second only to humans,” reads the NY Department of Environmental Conservation website.

And though their industry is irresistible, it is not without consequences, beneficial or not, depending on the environment. Noting that in more wild areas, these “habiat engineers” play an important role by creating pools that become habitat for other species, Wollney observes “on Staten Island, their presence is generally not good.”

“The issue is that we have so few streams that they are all ‘sensitive’ to changes. Simply, we’d lose valuable habitats if the beaver alter it too much. The chewing down of trees just opens up the ground to be invaded by very undesirable non-native, invasive plants and ecosystems to replace what are right now “kind of” natural plant communities,” said Wollney.

Hmmm.Your use of the word ‘disperser’ was encouraging. But I’m concerned about your expectation of beaver population explosion. You do know these guys are territorial, right? I mean I suppose if the island has a million luscious trees and streams they will tolerate more sharing, but mostly beavers are pretty territorial. Which is why that little beaver had to swim so far to find a home in the first place.

I feel fairly certain that Wollney’s Ph.D. isn’t in beavers. Call it a hunch.

Finally, says, Wollney, they have “damned up a Blue Belt stream which is intended to relieve storm-water stress on the roads and sewers. The South Shore beaver(s) pose the same issue.

“One of the streams they are damning drains the Greenbelt and is used by American eels. “Their damn has the potential for blocking young eels from getting up in the water-shed where they mature,” said Wollney.

Well now you’ve gone and done it. You think you’ve heard it all. Every spurious beaver complaint the world can dream up. Blocking culverts, salmon, attacking dogs, causing beaver fever. But THAT is a new one. Blocking EELS. I have to hand it to you Wollney, for originality at least. And for giving me a chance to post my favorite brief poem of all time.

I don’t mind eels
Except as meals.
And the way they feels.

Ogdon Nash

I will try and track folks down and breathe a little beaver council their way, in the meantime our friend Sherry Guzzi of the Sierra Wildlife Coalition sent this my way and I’d knew you’d want to see it. Watch all the way through and look for a beaver surprise in nearly every frame.

More Beaver Gospel from HCN

heidi08 Beaver News, Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? November 9, 2015

In the beginning there was the word.

And the word was beaver.

The first truly exciting article I read about beaver was from High Country News in 2009. It described the way we had forgotten what watersheds were supposed to look like and introduced me to the dynamic character of Mary Obrien, describing her ‘long think rope of a gray braid.’ I was so excited to see her on the schedule at the first beaver conference that I peeked around looking for long gray hair, and was dissappointed that there were too many possibilities to guess. It was okay, she had cut her hair by then, but we met anyway, went to lunch and next year she came to the beaver festival. Remember?

Well this morning High Country News has done it again: celebrated beaver contribution on a grand scale with an article about the much beloved Methow Project and its guiding light Kent Woodruff. I feel obliged to say that the great headline was hijacked from the Canadian version of Jari Osborne’s game-changing documentary. But the rest of the text is golden.

The beaver whisperer

The lovers are wards of the Methow Valley Beaver Project, a partnership between the U.S. Forest Service, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Methow Salmon Recovery Foundation that, since 2008, has moved more than 300 beavers around the eastern Cascades. These beavers have damaged trees and irrigation infrastructure, and landowners want them gone. Rather than calling lethal trappers, a growing contingent notifies the Methow crew, which captures and relocates the offenders to the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest and state land.

Why would Washington invite ditch-clogging nuisances — so loathed that federal Wildlife Services killed 22,000 nationwide in 2014 — into its wildlands? To hear Methow project coordinator Kent Woodruff tell it, beavers are landscape miracle drugs. Need to enhance salmon runs? There’s a beaver for that. Want to recharge groundwater? Add a beaver. Hoping to adapt to climate change? Take two beavers and check back in a year.

Decades of research support Woodruff’s enthusiasm. Beaver wetlands filter sediments and pollutants from streams. They spread rivers across floodplains, allowing water to percolate into aquifers. They provide rearing grounds for young fish, limit flooding and keep ephemeral creeks flowing year-round.

“We want these guys everywhere,” says Woodruff, a white-stubbled Forest Service biologist with an evangelical gleam in his blue eyes. On this sweltering July morning, he watches as wildlife scientists Catherine Means and Katie Weber hoist Chomper and Sandy, now caged, into the truck that will convey them to the Okanogan-Wenatchee. “We want beavers up every stream, in all the headwaters.”

Yes we do. And mouth too. (Ahem). I’m so happy this is getting the attention of the higher-ups. Kent is a mild-mannered but passionate man who makes easy alliances across party lines. I’ve always been a little jealous of him. Compared to our hard scrabble here in Martinez, the Methow project has always lived a fairly charmed life because it has SO much agency support. Here’s the list of partners in 2014:

So you can see he’s very gifted at playing well with others. One thing I love about the article is getting the back story about Kent himself;

That’s where Woodruff came in. Since arriving in the Okanagan in 1989, he’d focused on birds, installing nesting platforms for owls. But he yearned to leave an enduring legacy, and in 2008 his opportunity -arrived. John Rohrer, Woodruff’s supervisor, had been relocating beavers on a small scale since 2001 — even digging a holding pool in his own backyard. Meanwhile, the Washington Department of Ecology wanted to improve regional water quality. Woodruff thought beavers could help. He offered to expand Rohrer’s endeavor.

I never knew he was a bird man! Cheryl will be happy to read that. Now I’m a purist and want there to be a sentence in here crediting Sherri Tippie for the realization that beaver families do better when they’re relocated as a unit. But I guess saving beavers is a bit like the story of Stone Soup if you’re lucky. Everyone contributes what they can without realizing it matters and in the end helps create something nourishing.

Anyway, its a great article. Go read the whole thing, and if you feel inclined leave a comment about the valuable role beavers can play in urban landscapes.

Here’s was my contribution yesterday, which is an timely response to the articles implication that the answer to our beaver problems is to take them out of the city and move them up country. (As you know, I believe the answer is to let them move wherever they dam well please and make adjustments accordingly.) Credit where its due, the play on words comes from our friend Tom Rusert in Sonoma. But I’m fairly happy with its application here. See if you can tell what city this is:

Painting the town – er trunk, in Fargo

heidi08 Beaver Chewing, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? November 8, 2015

Beaver Backers paint trees in Fargo to protect furry friends

Thief River Falls resident Nina Berg, a member of the Beaver Backers organization that sprung up to defend the Fargo beavers, said the large-scale tree painting Saturday will hopefully spare the beavers.

The board voted to cull beavers after hearing concerns from residents and staff about the animals destroying trees and costing the city thousands of dollars. Park District officials said later they were open to non-leathal options.

The painting is a solution that will appease beaver backers and those concerned with the trees, Berg said.

“(The mixture) will be very unappealing to the beavers, and they will avoid those trees that we’re trying to protect,” Berg said.

The group spent several hours on Saturday painting more than 1,300 trees on the Fargo side of the river. The group will paint about 75 percent of the trees in the park and save 25 percent of the trees for the beavers to munch on and build dams

Hurray for the sensible, compassionate folks of Fargo who held a kickstarter to raise funds for the project and got 30 volunteers out in November to sand paint trees! 1300 is A LOT of trees. They are officially the tree-painting capital of the world now. I’m thrilled that this was able to happen, but still a little confused about the color choice.? Why not match the trunk? We’ve certainly marched into Home Depot with willow branches for them to match. But heck, maybe mint green was on sale.

Michelle Peterson said the painting will save beavers and the trees and hopefully sway the Park District to allow the beavers stays of execution. “If they come out here and see that it’s working, then hopefully they’ll let us keep coming out and doing this every year,” Berg said, adding that the group had permission from the Park District to paint the trees.

Nina and Michelle ROCK! They got tons of media for this project and volunteer support. Fingers crossed they used enough mason sand to really discourage those beavers. Jon always found that by the end he was using his hands to really get the sand to stick.

And because remarkable stories like this deserve a treat, I’m sharing the stunning photo found by Ann Cameron Siegal on Creative Commons. It was taken by Elizabeth Haslam and posted yesterday on the US Fish and Wildlife Facebook page. And some lovely human said, “I just saw this fantastic documentary on all the great things beavers do”.

Guess what the nation’s wildlife experts commented. Go ahead, guess.

great mother kit beaver — Elizabeth Haslam: Creative Commons

“Awesome! Do you remember what it’s called? In case folks are interested.”

That’s right, even though all of America and parts of Canada watched Jari Osborne’s incredible documentary in 2014, and all of Canada watched it in 2013, even though it had the highest ratings of any Nature program on Public television that year and was the one that PBS sent for Emmy consideration, the experts at fish and wildlife didn’t even know about it. Because, I guess, busman’s holiday. They already know it all. Why learn more?

If they wanted to learn more they should come to the beaver festival this year. I spent yesterday finishing the grant application for this year’s children’s activity. It details how Mike at Wildbryde will design charms shaped like rail cars to for children to fashion into a bracelet. I can’t help being a little proud of this.

“Oh, the beaver and the cowman should be friends”

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, featured November 7, 2015

Do you know who Carol Evans is? You really should. I read about her work in Elko, NV many years ago and knew I had to reach out. You for sure saw her in the beginning of the PBS documentary checking out the beaver restoration of Suzie Creek in Nevada with Suzanne Fouty. Now do you remember? Carol has been working her special collaborative magic with the unbelievably complex cast of characters in her state with some pretty amazing results.

So amazing, in fact, that she was recently invited to a biodiversity and climate change workshop at Tufts University in Boston. (Which is about as close as you come in this line of work to being a rock star). Because the university is among the finest in the land, the web page for the conference has everyone’s presentation and slides up and downloadable. You could spend many hours but, start with Carol and Jon, who are a superhuman tagteam of why to live with beavers.

I know that everyone is busy and maybe thinking you don’t have time to watch. But believe me, you should. Here’s my favorite slide of Carol’s, showing the ground water increases adjacent to a beaver dam.
(That’s a little thing beavers do called “recharging the aquifer”.)

And just in case you are inclined to watch hers and not his, I will warn you that you would be making a very grave error. Because Jon Grigg’s straightforward, plainspoken presentation is wonderfully powerful. I can completely understand why they have had such success all over the state because of his resonance. I don’t agree with every single thing he says, but that is how collaboration works. You form alliances based on mutual interests and set aside disagreements until you get things accomplished. And I am proud to think both of them are allies in our work to educate folks about beavers.

Wasn’t that awesome? That’s right, now even Nevada knows more about beaver restoration than California. Sigh.

I got a call this week from a producer working on a beaver film for the UK, he wanted to make the argument for beaver reintroduction there and will be interviewing Carol, Mary Obrien and Michael Pollock, among others. They will be doing the bulk of their filming in Nevada and Oregon, but I made a strong case for urban beaver restoration and pitched what we had done and what Napa was currently doing. He was actually really interested in including Napa because it was so well known and was going to pitch the idea to his team. Fingers crossed, their local beavers maybe stars someday.

It’s been a weirdly busy month. In addition to everything else, I received a disappointing note that my beaver article won’t be included in this ‘Phoebe’ newsletter for the Sierra Foothill Audubon Society because it got bumped for climate change. Hrmph. Another year of massive beaver depredations in Placer county I bet. Hopefully it can appear sometime in the future. In the meantime, I received a great video this morning about genetic resilience and climate change in cottonwoods, that actually has a segment on the importance of beavers. The title is aptly a quote from Martinez’s own John Muir.

Its very well done, I learned several new words and you will be much smarter at the end than you were at the beginning. It won’t let me embed it here, but click on the title to go see for yourself. The beaver segment starts at 31.20. Just remember, we are what we learn.

A Thousand Invisible Cords: Connecting Genes to Ecosystems, the complete movie from Research on Vimeo.

The opposite of ‘News’

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, History, In the News November 6, 2015

There has been such a horn-of-plenty full of great beaver news lately; beaver removing nitrogen and beavers saving LA. If you’re like me, you probably get this tingly, turning-a-corner feeling. Like the SEA CHANGE we need in beaver thinking is FINALLY here. That were steps away from changing beaver policy in California, the west, – even the world. At last, things are starting to take root and penetrate the richer soils where they can sustainably grow and reseed generations. We start to see headlines like this, and get really excited.

Bullish on Beavers

While some cattle ranchers scorn the giant rodents, others are putting beavers to work Mellen is one of about a dozen ranchers in a four-county area of south-central Idaho who are bullish on beavers. While some folks scorn the big rodents for their propensity to choke culverts and clog irrigation ditches, ranchers are discovering that beavers can be a valuable tool for restoring riparian areas, the green strips of vegetation that border waterways and provide most of the habitat for wildlife along Rocky Mountain streams and elsewhere in the West.

Mellen and his neighbors are not alone. Ranchers in Colorado, Oregon, Montana, Wyoming and Nevada are also working with federal officials to rejuvenate riparian areas with beavers. “Beavers are now looked upon as an integral part of stream recovery,” says Wayne Elmore, a national riparian restoration expert for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Prineville, Oregon.

Slowly, public-land officials, along with some ranchers, are working on ways to reverse a large part of the damage. In 1990, the BLM and Forest Service developed tougher regulations for riparian areas on public lands. And last year, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt announced a plan for range reform on most public lands that includes higher grazing fees and penalties for land abuse.

In practice, to restore riparian areas, federal range managers must gain the cooperation of ranchers who hold grazing permits-and that’s not always easy. Ranchers often harbor a distrust of the government; some consider public grazing allotments to be their own land. And ranchers often detest beavers. “I don’t know why some people have such contempt for beavers,” Pence laments. “It’s hard to get people to let loose of that. Heck, there’s even some people in my agency that think I’m crazy.”

Probably no one can convince a cowboy of anything as well as another cowboy. Retired Colorado rancher Bill Barnard has won numerous awards for turning the Cathedral Bluffs BLM grazing allotment near Meeker, Colorado, into a shining example of range stewardship. He gives beavers a heap of credit for his success. He says of fellow ranchers, “Maybe they don’t like beavers, maybe they don’t want beavers, but I tell them maybe they’d better try beavers or they’ll be out of business.”

Fantastic! Getting a cowboy to talk sense to other cowboys. BLM has the sense to use a trusted voice to promote a very suspicious product! It seems like there is a real recognition that human psychology is the biggest obstacle to our seeing beaver as a resource. How exciting to come across such an encouraging article. I guess we can expect many more to come!

There’s just one little problem.

Read the date again.

If you were reading this article in the delivery room after just having a beautiful baby girl she’d be sipping her first chardonnay by now. Bill Clinton was president. Friends had its first season. Whitney Houston was winning the grammy for singing the song you never need to hear again. And everyone who didn’t go to Two Weddings and a Funeral was watching Pulp Fiction.

In other words, this was a long fucking time ago.

Now I’m fairly used to finding brilliant remarks about beavers from 100 years ago, in the writings of Grey Owl or Enos Mills. I’m even used to reading them surprisingly from Fish and game in the 20’s and thirties. But reading something THAT smart from our recent past makes me realize that we’ve been ‘turning the corner’ on beavers for such a ridiculously long time. Frogs, salmon, water, carbon. We’ve turned ‘more corners’ than the media reporting on Iraq. We’ve turned ‘more corners’ than an octagon riding a tilt-a-wheel. We’ve turned all the corners. There are no corners left to turn.

Which doesn’t mean I’m giving up. Just taking a slightly longer-term view. It’s not about getting better science. It’s not about telling better stories. It’s not about proving that we can. The next time I’m inclined to hold my breath because ‘its finally happening!’ I’m going to make myself watch this.