Month: July 2016

Stirling had a beaver dam

Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow;
And everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go.

Mary had a little lamb. It was probably the first song you played on the plastic recorder in third grade. Did you know the original poem was written by the author and editor Sarah Jopsepha Hale about the real child Mary Sawyer who lived in Stirling Massachusetts? Supposedly the little girl really did bring her lamb to school one day and it really did make the children laugh and play (which of course children would never do normally). Later Sarah also published one of the first novels against slavery, and was famous for writing that while slavery dehumanizes the enslaved, it also dehumanizes their masters and retards national progress. Good point!

Flash forward 180 years and apparently they can tolerate lambs in educational facilities in Stirling, just not beavers in creeks.

Selectmen say beavers must go

“The intent was to sell the property once we put the easements in place,” said Town Administrator Michael Szlosek. “But the center easement was too intrusive. The desire was to get the Conservation Commission to move that center easement.”

But even with a less intrusive easement, there is still the matter of the beavers.

The selectmen agreed that, although there has not yet been any committed interest from a prospective buyer, the flooding caused by the beaver dam decreases the value of the property and that the dam must be broken and the land dried up before the parcel can be sold.

“You can’t trap and relocate beavers because they are a nuisance animal,” said Szlosek. “There is no place to put them. Nobody wants to kill the animals [but] the beaver population in Massachusetts has exploded over the last 10 or 15 years. What else can you do? They’ll continue to breed and they’ll flood more land.”

Because of the restrictions on lethal trapping, the animal control department is not able to preside over this matter. The town of Sterling will need to seek out a private company that can provide the trapping service.

“There was a referendum banning almost all trapping in Massachusetts so you really have to go through a lot of hoops to be able to do it,” said Szlosek. “Obviously, we will have to observe that.”

According to Szlosek, the season during which permits can be granted to trap beavers is between Nov. 1 and April 15. During the off season, appeals can be made to the Board of Health and a permit can be issued if the presence of the beaver dam demonstrates an impingement on personal or environmental safety.

“They’re relatively harmless creatures except that they can cause a lot of damage to properties,” said Szlosek. “They’re indirectly destructive to other species because they destroy their habitats.”

Destructive to other species because they destroy their habitats. Just pause a moment and let that sink to its full outrageous effect. Beavers destroy habitat. I obviously have been lying to you all these years and misleading the children at the beaver festival. We really should be doing an Demolition Beaver bracelet activity and teaching how they ruin things for fish and wildlife.

Mr. Szlosek gets a letter. And maybe a poem.

Stirling had a beaver dam
The babbling brook was stilled
Szoslek wants the dam removed
And all the beavers killed

The fish will have to go away
the muskrat, otter, mink
And all the birds that hunted there
go missing with the link.

From the sublime to the ridiculous!

heidi08 Beaver Chewing, Beaver News, Beavers, Beavers and climate change, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? July 6, 2016

Global beaver citizens that we are, I woke up with an email from the Edinbugh professor and regular reader of this website J. Suilin Lavelle, who said she just ran into Roisin Campbell at the mammal conference on the weekend! Roisin told her she had a lot of fun on her visit to Vermont meeting Patti and Skip. (Which I wrote about a few days ago because, honestly that’s how small the beaver world is.) The beaver champions of that nation are currently in a Brexit-induced panic because the Scottish government had dragged their beaver decision out for so long, and now the insanity over the EU vote might delay or derail everything.

You probably didn’t realize that Brexit was bad news for beavers too, did you?

Meanwhile, there’s a nice bit of news from the Mendenhall Glacier beaver cam this year, which I was recently alerted to by a US Forestry friend here in Vallejo.

Thousands Around the World Tune In to Snoop on a Beaver Den

Watching the beavers sleep has kept thousands of viewers occupied since June 28, when the US Forest Service installed an infrared camera in the den to record in real time the beavers’ activities. As nocturnal creatures, that means sleeping most of the day and getting up periodically to stretch, eat, or relieve themselves. Recommended viewing is between 7 AM and 7 PM Alaska Standard Time.

Natural resource specialist Peter Schneider and fisheries biologist Don Martin initially set up a beaver camera in 2004 to satiate their curiosities about a collection of food outside the beaver lodge on Steep Creek. To monitor the beavers’ activities, they set up a camera outside the lodge and even had it insulated throughout the winter.

Are you keeping track of the mileage with your atlas at home here? The beaver story has gone from Scotland to Vermont to Juneau to Vallejo to Martinez so far. Some 2500+miles and counting. Not bad for a morning’s work!

And just so we don’t feel too smugly accomplished, here’s a glimpse of how far we have yet to go courtesy of the silliest research ever published.

13614929_10207072161388714_3577635218269275857_n — **Yes. that photo is what you suspect it is; because you, dear reader are smart and this article is stoo-pid.**

As more beaver colonies form, the rodents have an adverse effect on the climate by changing levels of methane gas. This happens because beaver colonies are formed in ponds constructed by the beaver dams. These tend to be pockets of shallow water (no more than 1.5 meters high.) Within this oxygen-poor standing water, methane gas levels build up and the gas, because it cannot dissolve in the water, is eventually released into the atmosphere.

According to Professor Colin J. Whitfield (University of Saskatchewan in Canada), compared with 100 years ago, 200 times more of greenhouse gas is released into the atmosphere from beaver colonies. This has come from a study into beaver colonies in Eurasia (the Castor fiber species) and North America (the Castor Canadensis species.)

The model suggests beavers currently contribute 0.80 teragrams (or 800 million kilograms) of methane into the atmosphere. Interviewed by International Business Times, Professor Whitfield suggest this problem not going away anytime soon unless action is taken: “Continued range expansion, coupled with changes in population and pond densities, may dramatically increase the amount of water impounded by the beaver…[this] suggests that the contribution of beaver activity to global methane emissions may continue to grow.

Truly the reporter selected the IDEAL photo to accompany this groundbreaking research, it really communicates the level of intelligence of those involved. (Nutria) See Dr. Whitfield is from the university of Saskatchewan which is famous for the kill contest they held this year. He teamed up with Dr. Cherie Westbrook of Alberta who was probably just happy to publish something without the name Glynnis Hood on it, and I’ve been told that she regrets how this study has been misused. But I spare her no mercy and want this supposedly seminal research to be the beaver albatross around her educated neck. She should have known that folks would be only too happy for another bogus reason to blame beavers.

Let me explain this again for those who are mislead, yes beaver dams release methane, which is one of the green house gasses we are not really worried about. It dissolves in 2-3 years, unlike carbon, which we are VERY worried about, which lasts for decades. (When you drive to work your car doesn’t release methane.) Along the way beavers increase the water supply which we are going to need as carbon numbers keep rising. Beavers also aid biodiversity, which we need in on a planet that is rapidly losing species. (I of course tried to write the editor yesterday about the photo, but it appears they are obviously not overly concerned with accuracy.)

Oh and did you know that we successfully entered Jupiter’s orbit after the fireworks on independence day? We’re on a 20 month rotation studying a planet at 540,000,000 miles away. And the five year mission predictions were accurate to within 1 second.

Welcome to Jupiter!

Wolves, Aspen and beaver on my!

heidi08 Beavers July 5, 2016

Sometimes on the beaver study path you learn about an important player that you didn’t expect. That’s especially true with WOLVES, who turn out to be really important for beavers because their wary predation prevents elk from loitering and munching coppicing willow, which means beaver get to eat it instead. The presence of the wolves actually change the grazing patterns of the elk, because they avoid open ares and streams, which means beavers benefit.

Which brings us this issue of the Grand Canyon Trust’s 12 reasons for grazing reform.

Wolves, Aspen, and Grazing

by Mary O’Brien, Utah Forests Program Director

Given that cattle and sheep grazing is the single most widespread commercial use of America’s public lands, it’s no surprise that grazing by these livestock (as well as rising numbers of elk) can impact or even eliminate the thousands of native species living on our shared public lands.

The Trust is fortunate to be partnering with Colorado artist Heidi Snyder to illustrate stories of 12 Colorado Plateau native plants, wildlife, and habitats that are impacted by excessive livestock grazing. These 12 are just the tip of the iceberg. Our first blog described impacts on broad-tailed hummingbirds and sage grouse chicks. This second installment looks at some livestock impacts on wolves and aspen.

Wolves and aspen (along with cottonwood and willow) go well together, as these trees have an exceptional ability to regrow when chewed on (browsed) – but only if they aren’t browsed too heavily or too frequently. And that’s where wolves come in.

In a natural setting, wolves help keep elk and deer populations in balance with the aspen, cottonwood, and willow. Perhaps as importantly, wolves keep elk and deer on the move. Without wolves present, elk are likely to hang out where the living is easy: near streams and ponds (riparian areas) where willow and cottonwood thrive. Or in shady, cool aspen stands, where abundant grass, wildflowers, and shrubs grow beneath the aspen. While these elk and deer hang out, they eat. And the tops of aspen, willow, and cottonwood—when at mouth level—are a favorite.

Wolves know where to find these aspen-eating elk and deer. More wolves equal fewer loitering elk, which in turn leads to more aspen, cottonwood, and willow trees.

It’s enough of a struggle for wolves when hunters want to be the only predator of elk and deer. But add ranchers for whom every cow or sheep is money on the hoof, and wolves are relentlesly targeted. Then aspen, willow, and cottonwood become easy food for too many mouths.

There are options: many ranchers know how to manage their livestock in the presence of wolves; many hunters welcome wildness; and many public lands users favor a better balance between public lands that are grazed and not grazed by livestock – especially if it means we can share our world with animals such as wolves, who walked these lands before we ever did.

There’s no mention of beaver in this article but you can bet its coming. Water is a big issue in Utah, as it is in California and the GCT is devoted to anything that keeps it on the land. They are releasing one article on the last day of each month, and the next issue is biocrusts and cutthroat trout, which you know is going to be fascinating. The artist they’re working with ‘Heidi Snyder’ happens to share my name, and that is relevant because a month ago I received an email from Mary asking me to do a radio broadcast with her on 12 reasons and I was like, huh? She wrote back that she had mixed the emails of her “‘two favorite Heidi’s” and said she would explain later.

Ha!

Like water itself, Dr. Obrien is literally a force of nature working beyond tirelessly for this issue, eroding away every obstacle in her path. I know beavers are high on her internal list even if they never make the top 12, but I am guessing we’ll see them. She has the intense focus of the deeply committed and is as likely to behave like an absent minded professor in one moment as she is to hone in with lazor-like focus on a single issue and disregard everything else in the next. I have great respect for her work, and can’t wait to see what the next ten reasons will bring.

Here she is inspecting our tile wall at the beaver festival in 2010.

Meanwhile, across the pond, the beaver mascot of Devon has been given a name. You will remember there was a public contest a while back to name the mascot. Well, a Sidmouth shop owner chose the name because it the beavers habit of gnawing on trees and plants. I guess if you’re from Devon ‘Nora’ sounds like ‘Gnawer’?

Nora is the name of Devon’s six foot beaver

Flipping Nora! The new name for Devon’s six foot otter mascot. A competition held by Devon Wildlife Trust to find a name for its beaver mascot has revealed a winner.

Nora is the name chosen for the six-foot tall mascot which is being used by the charity to promote its work for England’s only breeding population of wild beavers which live on the River Otter, East Devon.

The name, which plays on the rodents’ habit of gnawing on riverside trees and plants, was the idea of Sidmouth shop owner Karen Greenslade. Speaking at her Humbug Gifts shop, Karen said: “I was delighted when I heard that Devon Wildlife Trust had picked Nora as its mascot’s name.

Wish she could come to the festival!

Beaver Gossip

heidi08 Creative Solutions July 4, 2016

Scotland visits our friends in Vermont to learn how to coexist with beavers.

The View from Heifer Hill

Willow, the beaver whose life I have been documenting in this column for many years, had a visit from a special guest a couple of weeks ago, Roisin (pronounced RoSHEEN, she’s Irish) Campbell-Palmer, Field Operations Manager for the team working on the reintroduction of beavers to Scotland.

The project in Scotland has been one of the most carefully controlled reintroductions of a native species anywhere. Over the course of the five-year study period, five family groups from Norway were released in a forested area in the center of Scotland. These beavers were introduced as a trial, and their probationary period ends this year. Roisin and the other researchers involved have demonstrated that the beavers can survive in the landscape of modern Scotland, and bring the many blessing beavers bring, including a greater variety of habitat types, greater numbers and types of plants and animals, and increased economic revenue from beaver watchers. With flood and drought becoming increasingly common, beavers are also valued as an ally in retaining water on a landscape, and reducing the impact of floods.

While this carefully monitored project was going on, an illicit beaver reintroduction occurred in another part of Scotland, a more agricultural area. Roisin is now also part of a team studying the impact of beavers there, and because the beavers in the farmland have not been as welcomed by the locals, she travelled to Vermont to find out how we manage conflicts with these industrious creatures.

Illicit beavers! Somhow I kinda doubt that there could be a population of 150 if it had only happened during the sanctioned trial. Don’t you? Still it’s nice to read about our beaver friends from the other side of the world visiting the other side of the nation.

Naturally, she sought out Skip Lisle of Grafton, proprietor of Beaver Deceivers International. Skip has been solving beaver conflicts for years, and has learned how to modify beaver works in ways that allow them to do their wetlands restoration without causing undue damage to human property.

I joined Skip and Roisin on a visit to one of Skip’s job sites—a picturesque site with an old red cape, a striking view to the south, and cows grazing tranquilly on the hillsides. The three of us agreed that the best part of the scene was the series of beaver ponds tucked into the middle. When we arrived, we watched one of the resident beavers towing a bundle of fresh plants to the lodge, a good indication that kits were inside. We went down to the roadway to inspect the device Skip installed to keep the beavers from damming the culvert. All was working as expected, and not only kept the beavers on the landscape, but saved hours of time and headaches for the Halifax road crew. As we admired the scene, a mink loped past us, another of the beneficiaries of the work of Skip and the beavers.

At dusk we hiked into the woods to visit Willow. Because it is Roisin’s job to trap, measure, weigh and take samples from the beavers in Scotland, she had never met one that was happy to be with people. She was delighted to meet old one-eyed Willow, who flopped down beside us to eat an apple and offer herself for comparison to the Eurasian beavers.

Now, back in Scotland, Roisin is awaiting the final decision on whether or not the beavers will be allowed to stay. Willow and I are optimistic. In fact, I can almost hear the ceremonial bagpipes welcoming the beavers back to their ancestral lands.

How exciting to read about Roisin’s visit with Skip and Patti! I’m sure the solutions to Scotland’s disgruntled farmers won’t be hard to find. The funny part is that there has always been a weird, salty competition between Skip Lisle of Beaver Deceivers Int’l (Vermont) and Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions (Massachusetts). Even though they started as buddies, and Skip trained Mike, things went wrong somewhere along the way when Mike either helped or stole a client (depending who you talk to) and now the two most important men to the beaver-saving campaign can barely stand each other. This is how Martinez (in the middle of nowhere) found itself so quickly in the middle of everything (because Skip was our hero in person and installed the flow device and Mike was our virtual hero online and gave us tons of advice along the way). It probably was no accident the two coincided, since both happened to be interested in the high profile case of the other.

I don’t know the much about original grudge, Suzanne Fouty at the beaver conference last year was ready to try an ‘Intervention’ to get them to shake hands and be friends – for the sake of the beavers if nothing else! I’m thinking its entrenched by now like Gaza or the beginning of Fiddler on the Roof. The shouting crowd of ‘Horse’ ‘Mule’ is the defense of the people who have stood on one side or the other. We are all the ‘villagers’ and now the feud has extends overseas because our friends of the Tay invited Mike out to do a training in Scotland, and our friends at the official trial went to Skip to learn the trade. Tradition!

Never mind though, because my position has always been that we all need to get along. There aren’t enough beaver defenders in the world, I always say, to pick and choose the ones you ‘like’. We all have to get along and do our part if this is going to have any chance of working, right?

Happy Fourth of July from the beavers, btw from our forefathers. Play safe out there!
I always am eager for an excuse to post this, which I think represents a window between technology and legislation that opens once in many lifetimes.

This train is Bound for Glory – this train!

heidi08 Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout July 3, 2016

When I pause and try to make myself remember that it was MONDAY I found out the artist for the charm activity wouldn’t follow through on his promise and now today it’s SUNDAY and we have a whole new awesome design from Mark Poulin it blows my mind. How adorable is that blue heron? Or the otter?

So kids will be making these bracelets on the day by visiting booths to learn how beavers help these species thrive. They will start at my booth and I’ll give them info and a silicon band to put the buttons onto. And I’ll be ready for them with my special Ecosystem Engineer cap!It’s starting to feel like the festival is REALLY happening. Friday we received a certificate for Lemongrass Bistro, Saturday we got SF Zoo tickets, and today our ad appeared in this issue of Bay Nature. Beautiful placed in a prominent corner next to a stiff coupon that makes the magazine naturally open to that page. Voila!

My favorite part is that the ad will educate as well as promote. Scanning eyes will think, hmm was the west watered by beaver? And minds will be forever changed because that thought was entertained. Not bad for 575.00.

Finally these photos from Rusty Cohn at Tulocay beaver pond in Napa last night just to make the point…