Month: November 2015

Good Beaver News

heidi08 Beaver News, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? November 5, 2015

Oh no, I hate when this happens. There are too many good beaver things to write about at once. I’m going to have to shuffle some to the back burner. Well, no matter. We have to make room for this:

How the Beaver War forever changed Batwater Station

Clatskanie resident Karin Hunt has always called her land Batwater Station, or BW for short, but there was time when the BW stood for Beaver War. She said the critters put up a prolonged fight against attempts to clear Batwater Station, a fight Eventually, the beavers’ tenacity and inclination towards plugging water flows led to a confrontation, pitting them against Hunt’s tide gates and culverts. Hunt’s attempts to regulate the water level on her land were matched at every step by the critters efforts to the contrary.

Hunt collaborated with Tyler Joki at the Columbia County Soil and Water Conservation District and Bill Bennett at the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership and they helped to apply for grants. The process of evaluation began, hydrological and other studies were conducted during a two-year period, and it was determined that a levee breach would have the most impact in restoring the land, returning the natural activity of the river to the area.

“What was amazing was how quick it happened,” Hunt said. “All because of the good old beaver.”

Since moving forward with the land restoration, the area has continued to develop its wildlife population. Ducks, frogs, otters, osprey and turtles are among the creatures that frequent Batwater Station, sometimes in such fruitful numbers that Hunt has to turn away prospective hunters.

“Our goal is to give the land back to nature and let it run its own course,” Tillson said.

How quickly can we all move to Oregon? This is an excellent report and I’m very impressed not only with Karen and her husband, but with the agencies involved who were committed to keeping beavers on the stream, enough that they made a plan to puncture a levee!

Someone tape this story to Sacramento’s forehead.

On to England, where this nice report was recently released. It was just tagged with a copy right warning so I lent a helping hand in case its removed. It has amazing footage from Tom Buckley who is obviously the Moses Silva of Cornwall. Watch:

Love the footage of her moving the kits and snuffling for danger after the dog intrusion is pretty nice to see also. Even though Tom is worried by not seeing the kits, this recent report was pretty reassuring.

Devon’s beavers still alive and healthy, wildlife chief believes

Devon Wildlife Trust has said there is ‘no cause for concern’ over the disappearance of England’s only wild beavers.

The colony – the country’s first wild beavers in over 400 years – have not been seen at their usual riverside home for six weeks.

Amateur wildlife cameraman Tom Buckley, who photographed the creatures last February in the River Otter, fears human visitors may have scared them away.

But Trust chief executive Harry Barton said they have more than likely moved to a new lodge upstream.

“Where they have been is a rather public place but its not unusual for beavers to move around and there are sings of activity,” he told the Western Morning News.

I am not wholly reassured by the DWT saying the beavers are fine, because in my experience the folks actually watching the beaver every day usually know better than the folks overseeing things. But I am comforted by the general resilience of beavers, and think its way more likely that they moved to greener pastures and tastier shoots than were killed by a farmer or his dogs.

We will stay tuned.

Wait, Wait! Don’t Tell Me!

heidi08 Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Educational, Environmental, Who's Killing Beavers Now? November 4, 2015

Oh look, California has a drought sad. They think concrete dams will make them happy. Good thing they have millions of dollars. Here’s a clip from yesterday’s PBS Newshour.

You know they said the word ‘environmental’ several times in this report, but did they ever say the word FISH? I don’t think so. Or SALMON. I mean obviously the fact that they talked to Dr. Moyle means they know the word and are thinking about it, but I guess they didn’t want to say it aloud?

Imagine what other western states use to save water? I’ll give you a hint. It starts with a “B” And it works for free. And it eats from a tree.

And California kills a bucket load of them.

You know I’ve been in the beaver biz so long that I remember how THRILLED I was when this video came out. Five years ago I thought for SURE this would turn the tide. Hahaha. I was so young and naive.

Thanks BK for sending this and HI PETER MOYLE who often is willing to play name that fish with us! I only wish the News Hour would invest this kind of money in the real solution which California ignores and kills every day.

Now beaver fans everywhere have an important job to do, and that is to turn the head of the master craftsman who made this stunning piece. I wrote him yesterday how beautiful I thought it was and told him I would send him a million beaver friends, asking him to think about donating to the silent auction.

I heard back from him right away. He had a purchase from England immediately after my email. And he’s thinking about it. This morning he is sold out of beavers, but has other beautiful wildlife to choose from. Help him be persuaded?

William Guse, known in the Society for Creative Anachronism as Master Ark of Ringholden, has been making Medieval jewellery for over 35 years. He has spent his whole life as a craftsman. Making things is not just his livelihood, it is his passion.

Good news and a repair

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? November 3, 2015

Let’s start with the repair first. A few days ago I wrote about the the Fork Factory Brook installing some pipes to ‘make the beavers leave.’ It was badly written report from the local paper, and I heard back from nearly everyone involved. clarifying that the didn’t just install pipes and had training and consultation from Mr. Beaver Solutions himself. I couldn’t be happier.

Actually I thought Mike Francis of The Trustees of Reservations did an excellent job of beaver ‘splaining. However, this is a classic example of a reporter writing an inflammatory article to excite readership. Trying to create an issue when there isn’t one. The author quoted people not directly involved who had inflammatory things to say about beavers. Nowhere in the article did it say that a few weeks ago Mike hired me and we met on site with the Highway Superintendent, Board of Health Agent, and Conservation Commission for an hour and a half. I made suggestions to improve the Pond Leveler pipes TTOR installed, and the Highway Super. was very satisfied with the plan. Try to find that info in that crappy article. – Mike Callahan

Thank you for sharing your comments and concerns on the beaver deceiver. To clarify, the two culvert pipes that The Trustees installed have cages on the inflow end, for the reasons that you pointed out. We’ve worked with Mike Callahan from Beaver Solutions in the past and he visited this site to share insight and recommendations. The Trustees will be installing a third pipe and expanding the size of the fence/cages to prevent the beavers from sensing water flow around the cage. Thank you for sharing the link to the book. -Mike Francis

And from Wayne:

I would appreciate it if you actually visited the site before publicly deriding our work to mitigate the beavers in Fork Factory brook. We do have a cage, something you would have know if you had gone to check out the site yourself instead of relying on a poorly written newspaper article. – Wayne Clullo

Well, you got me there. It is a poorly written article.

I did visit the site, it took a bit of doing but I eventually found your beaver management plan. And full marks for your saying trapping would be used ONLY as a last resort. There were no photos I found about beaver installations. I’m just thrilled BEYOND MEASURE that you took appropriate measures, consulted Mike, and didn’t do it wrong on purpose so you could kill them later. I’ll afford you the benefit of the doubt and not suspect ill intent even though the article quotes you as saying ‘the real long term solution will be trapping’. You have earned a retraction. Consider it done.

Now that this housekeeping is out of the way I can share the EXCITING new from our Southern California Beaver friends.

(Photo by Piotr Kamionka via Shutterstock)

There’s A Proposal To Bring Beavers To L.A. To Help With The Drought

In the midst of the devastating Californian drought, one woman is proposing that we reintroduce beavers to L.A. County to mitigate our water problem.

A couple of weeks ago, Britt Sheflin, a 37-year-old private chef for software startup company Oblong Industries, submitted her beaver campaign to GOOD Maker—a platform for social action—as one of the over 70 proposal entries for its “LA is the Best Place to Live” competition. The challenge encourages people to submit ideas, projects or programs that would make L.A. the best place to live today and in 2050. Voting for the competition ends on Nov. 3, and the winner will receive $100,000 to work on their project.

Sheflin’s plan is to reintroduce the North American Beaver (a.k.a. castor canadensis) to “to key areas where we need to control drought, flash floods, and further loss of fish and wildlife habitat,” she writes on GOOD. Sheflin suggests that the ways these “hydro-engineers” could benefit L.A. County includes “intensive water filtration, drought ‘savings accounts’ created by the deep, topographically varied ponds, and naturally rich soil that is dispersed throughout regions where beaver reside.”

If she wins this challenge, she would use the money to conduct research, work to advocate with policymakers, manage the project, and bring people who have handled the beavers on board.

How cool is this? Beavers make front page news in LA! If you’re anywhere in the vicinity you have about three hours left to vote. So DO IT! The article goes on to talk about her thinking that doing this will create better conditions for her 15 month old daughter, and refers to the recent water article and the Methow project. But the coolest part about this article is that ALL THIS isn’t even the coolest part yet. That I’m saving for last:

Sheflin also refers to the the beavers in Martinez, California as an example of a successful watershed program involving beavers. Back in 2008, a family of beavers began living in the area’s Alhambra Creek, according to Bay Nature magazine. While some were afraid the beavers would cause flooding and wanted them out of the area, the City Council voted to let them stay. Since then the beavers have helped create habitats for other species, and keep a healthy watershed.

And that, as they say, is some mighty good promotion of Martinez as a beaver-lovin’, problem-solvin’ community! Your welcome, Mr. Schroder. Can I expect my key to the city in the mail? Or will you just drop it off yourself on your way home?

Missing beavers report

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? November 2, 2015

Devon is worried. They haven’t seen their famously uninvited beavers since September. (Well, neither have we.) Hopefully they’ll be lucky and they’ve just moved downstream or are taking a vacation. But surely there are as many people who want them dead in Devon as there are in Martinez.

Maybe even more?

Man hasn’t seen beavers in Devon for two months

Fears are growing for a family of England’s only wild beavers – which haven’t been spotted for nearly TWO months. Researchers monitoring the group are growing concerned after one of the families went missing – believed to have been scared off by dog walkers.

The 10-strong collection of beavers, discovered by amateur wildlife cameraman Tom Buckley, are the first breeding wild-beavers in Britain since the 17th century. Initially it was feared they would damage the environment around their home, but a license was eventually granted to a research group to monitor their progress. But now the group from the Devon Wildlife Trust are growing concerned after cameraman Tom reported that one of the three families has disappeared.

Tom has been by the beavers side since he first spotted them in February 2014. But he now fears for one family of beavers, after they went missing in September from their burrow close to a public footpath.

I’m sorry for Tom, because worrying about beavers is very hard work. And would be troubled by that odd headline if the first comment hadn’t clarified its purpose, but allow me to say, as a woman who has watched beavers fairly steadily for nearly 9 years, they are harder to see in the winter months. They always area. Even our friends in Napatopia have been complaining lately. This is partly because they have longer hours without daylight and more options – which means they choose not to come out when folks are around. If you check our sightings pages for the past few Novembers and Decembers you will see barely two sightings per month, although of course there are exceptions.

All I’m saying is don’t panic, but keep looking, because beavers are good at surprising you.

Here’s what I worked on yesterday, which seems appropriate for Devon now too. A friend sent me the idea about rabbits and thought it would be better with beavers. (Well, isn’t everything?) I am very proud. Especially of the toes.

Good things come to those who wait

heidi08 Environmental, History, In the News, What's killing beavers now? November 1, 2015

Fur market has ups, downs

Trapping season opens soon. By keeping an eye on the global fur markets, a trapper can still do well if they target certain fur bearers for this season.

Beavers will probably not even be worth trapping, except for conservation and damage control. There is little demand for beaver, and most of the beaver fur is going to the hat trade at greatly reduced prices. Expect most buyers to not make any offers on beaver fur.