Blame it on the Rodent Again

heidi08 Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? December 6, 2015

Last night, this was the headline on Iowa’s The Gazette:

Discerning readers will be scratching their head and saying, “hey that’s not a beaver”. And they’d be right. It’s actually a ground hog! The paper posted a mislabeled photo by mistake. I wrote the author, Michael Castranova, last night and he immediately wrote back. This morning there is no photo, only a very interesting article about the pilgrims and the fur trade.

The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World, a New History,” explains that, “In the 1620s, a single beaver pelt fetched the same amount of money required to rent nine acres of English farmland for a year.”

So to Weston and the Fellowship, this seemed liked a reasonable business risk: Put up the cash for a number determined folk who were in a rush to flee the country — King James I referred to the Puritans as “pestes,” and the 30-Years War was about to chase them out of the Netherlands where these one-time farmers had taken up clothing-factory jobs — and then, oh boy, just wait for those spiffy beaver pelts to come flowing back.

But as with many a business venture, several calculations came undone. One of the two hired ships sprung more leaks than a rusty colander and had to turn back. And, in their dash to get going, they’d shipped out in September 1620 rather than wait until spring. That meant by the time they reached North America, two months later, planting season — and one assumes, beaver-catching season — was well and truly past.

And, even worse, they landed 200 miles off course. What they found upon arrival was not other colonists but “a whole country of woods and thickets.” Almost half the colonists died that first winter, and the Mayflower was sent back to England in 1621 with no financial benefit for the investors.

Now I knew Canada was settled by folk looking for beaver pelts, but I had NO IDEA America was. The price of a pelt was worth a year’s rent for 9 acres of farmland? Think about that, nearly a decade in a prime live-work space that will provide your home and your income. For one lousy beaver. Who knew? I think when I made this graphic years ago I was just kidding. Apparently it was almost true, or would have been true if they knew how to find them. Considering that in 1620 when they left there hadn’t been beaver in England for nearly 200 years. Nobody knew what they looked like. And nobody’s grandfather could tell them how to catch one.

Onto a great article from Louise Ramsay about the issue of farmers shooting beavers, this time in the ecologist.

Scotland’s wild beaver ‘shoot to kill’ policy is illegal and wrong

The Tay Beavers began when three of the animals escaped from a wildlife park in 2001. Nine years later, having bred and dispersed and been added to by subsequent escapes from enclosures in the same catchment, they came under threat of official elimination in the autumn of 2010.

A campaign to save them led to a SNH study that estimated their numbers at 106-187 (midpoint 147) in 2012 and mapped their spread across hundreds of square miles of the linked catchments of the Earn and Tay, from Rannoch to Comrie, Blair Atholl, Forfar and Bridge of Earn.

The presence of beavers and the wetlands that they build also brings great improvements in biodiversity, and the mitigation of both flooding and drought by re-naturalisation of the waterways. Recent research by Dr Alan Law has shown how beaver dams reduce peak flow by an average of 18 hours. A fact he tweeted in reaction to a farmer who falsely accused the beavers of having made the flooding worse.

In California, beavers are also credited with restoring rivers, wetlands and watersheds, creating conditions for the return of Coho salmon and increases in their populations.

We are calling on SNH and the Scottish Government to immediately place a moratorium on the shooting of beavers as another breeding season approaches, and to afford the animals the legal protection they are due as soon as possible.

But above all the two bodies – and nature lovers everywhere – need to recognise that the return to Scotland of this wonderful keystone species is something to be enjoyed and celebrated.

Nicely done, Louise. There are grand videos on the article too, as well as a link to Maria Finn’s California beaver article, so go see for yourself. Probably more so than any woman on the planet I feel a deep kinship with Louise who’s mild-mannered life was completely transformed by some unsuspecting beavers. She’s done a valiant job trying to keep all the correct people talking to each other, and managing some pretty challenging personalities with a single goal. And now, after finally getting the reprieve from the government they worked so hard to achieve, she is dealing with farmers shooting the beavers she worked to save.

Battle on!

Beavers to the rescue!

heidi08 Beavers and water December 5, 2015

Yesterday was a little unreal, but certainly really exhausting. The team from Middle Child Productions got their permit in the morning and marched across the street with unbelievable amounts of camera equipment to film our interview. I’d done interviews before and seen the big round thing to reflect light and the fuzzy microphone- but I’d never seen this. Two huge light stands that would have allowed for surgery in my dark victorian, and an impressively large camera on a triple reinforced tripod.

So I retold the story of our urban beavers and the challenging education process of the city council. That wasn’t different, although I was cautious about using words that wouldn’t fail to be understood in the UK or sound too ‘American’. Lots of things I had to repeat twice. Or more than twice. Like “can you say that again but lets try a different lens” kind of twice. And then you have to try to remember what you said in any shape or form. And wind up being very lost and disoriented as to your train of though.

One thing I never said enough for their liking was WATER WATER WATER. They weren’t that interested in community benefits or wildlife, because it wasn’t the focus of their program. But their eyes lit up when I talked about our creek not drying up in the summer, which is a pretty short sentence, and hard to draw out for a three hour interview.

Then they went off with Jon to film the tile bridge. They had Jon drive up on camera several times and filmed the beaver bumper stickers with him getting out of the car thoughtfully striding to the creek. He was a good sport and obliged them twice. One fun part came when they used a ‘slider’ to film the bridge tiles slowly one by one. There were lots of passers-by interested in this mechanical wonder, and they received a hum of appreciative attention from the Christmas lunch the daycare was having at the Creek Monkey.

Afterwards we went for our own lunch at Lemon Grass Bistro and talked about their project. They had just come from Bridge Creek in Oregon where the ponds were just freezing up and had already interviewed Carol Evans in Nevada. They weren’t including any folk from the UK yet because they wanted to focus their energy on the American west and water storage. The program would have a narrator but he or she hadn’t been selected yet.

After lunch they walked Main street and did ‘vox’ interviews catching people and asking them about the beavers. They found out late in the day that their Napa permits fell through and they wouldn’t be able to film there Saturday, so they were happy Martinez had given them a good day of filming.

Who knows what the end product will be? I never got a really great feel for my director’s vision or personal charms. It was an odd day for all of us I’m sure. But hopefully some clip saying that cities can co-exist with beavers will make its way into their project, who’s working title is apparently “Beavers to the rescue.”

I was looking back through Don Bernier’s unfinished documentary about the subject and was surprised to see this, which would definitely help them with their water argument. This was taken before the flow device was installed and when our dam was 6 feet tall. I’m including the recent destabilization work for comparison. This from 2007.

And for comparison in 2015:

Even if I kept forgetting my watery lines, that should speak volumes. Here’s a recent article on the subject that is oddly missing its most relevant word.

Worsening US droughts demand alternative water protection approaches, study suggests

Alternative models of watershed protection that balance recreational use and land conservation must no longer be ignored to preserve water supplies against the effects of climate change, argues a new study. Researchers claim that the management of Salt Lake City’s Wasatch watershed in Utah provides a valuable example contradicting the dominant view presented in academic literature that informs many current conservation strategies.

“While regulatory exclusion is often thought of as the only viable alternative to market-based incentives in managing ecosystem services, the management of the Wasatch watershed provides a third, yet under-recognised, successful conservation strategy for water resources,” says Libby Blanchard, lead author of the study from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Geography.

Sadly no, its not the one you think. But it should be.

Lights, Camera, Action!

heidi08 Beavers December 4, 2015

Back into the limelight we go today, as the good folk at Middlechild Productions landed in SF last night, trotted to Napa for permits, and will meet with Martinez PD tomorrow for their local permit, before coming to interview me, filming the tile bridge and shooting some man-on-the street interviews.

They return at night to film my glowing christmas light beaver. Tomorrow they are following Lory to Napa to film Rusty and the gang there. They are valiantly trying to make their case that cities can live with beavers and the UK should stop being terrified of them. And plan to stay at the hotel next to the beavers to demonstrate that beavers can be good for business.

My life, at the moment, has no room for this kind of activity, as I am as busy as 15 bees, retiring my practice and getting ready to move out of the office, writing the urban beaver paper, and last night was in a stupid car accident (not hurt) and have to arrange for a tow and repair today, but never mind. The beaver show must go on. Jon and I will do what we can.

If you happen to be walking around main street after lunch and you see some folks with a camera, stop and say nice things about beavers, will you?

A very bad beaver removal video came out yesterday in the news. I won’t disgrace myself by putting it on this website but if for some reason you want to see it go here. I think we need to occupy ourselves with more inspiring things than NOLA neaderthals.

Dog owners beware

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, What's killing beavers now? December 4, 2015

Trail use concerns: Dog caught in beaver trap

Just once I would like to see an article with a headline, “Beaver caught in Beaver trap” – as if that were important enough to make the news. But this was scary for the dog and the owners.

They need to clearly mark when they do this, and beavers need to learn to read. Or better yet, just don’t do this.

Michael Pollock wrote that he was very excited to stumble across this article last night, from this June’s Southeast Naturalist. I was less surprised, and I’m sure you know why.

An Unusual Beaver (Castor canadensis) Lodge in a Louisiana Coastal Marsh

Ruth M. Elsey1,*, Steven G. Platt2 and Mark Shirley3

Abstract

In Louisiana, Castor canadensis (North American Beaver) rarely occur in coastal marshes and are far more common in forested wetlands. We recently observed a North American Beaver lodge in a coastal marsh that was constructed partly of commercial lumber, possibly made available by recent hurricanes. The animals may have used lumber for lodge construction due to the dearth of trees or other woody vegetation in coastal marshes. This observation points to the adaptability of North American Beaver when choosing materials for lodge construction

Remember that in Martinez California we’ve seen our tidal beavers build lodges and dams using golf clubs, lumber, trash, and prosthetic legs. More than once. And nobody published that in a paper.

Hrmph.

Urban beavers

heidi08 Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? December 2, 2015

I invited a new team member onto the urban beaver chapter because they told me I could. I felt we needed more water weight in our cluster, and first thought of good friend Ann Riley who is too busy with her third book to help. That of course meant I needed to ask Dr. Ellen Wohl who was surprisingly interested and willing to assist. In case you’ve forgotten who she is, shes a professor of geo sciences at Warner College in Colorado who has written a great deal on beaver, rivers, and climate change. This audio is a great introduction. It’s taken from a few moments of her interview on Santa Fe Radio, and happens to be the smartest most tightly packed summary of beaver benefits I’ve ever heard.

Ellen suggested we consider using a tool for analyzing the likely role of a beaver dam risk and contribution of woody debris. Her paper on the topic is coming out soon and she attached a copy for review, with sections about the value of woody debris to invertebrates and fish that immediately translate to beaver dams. I thought for sure it would interest Michael Pollock and sent it along to him. He got very excited and thought it was a great idea to inform our paper.

Which just goes to emphasize that they are all super smart in their relative fields. And I just make connections. Because its what I do.