Month: September 2016

Beaver Mania

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, featured, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? September 10, 2016

Sometimes when you talk to reporters they can’t remember things if you say too much and you have to limit your comments to one or two key points and repeat them over and over. Sometimes they get the gist, but not the details. Sometimes you can just tell they’re waiting to talk to the next person and are sick of listening to you. But every now and then you run into a reporter that remembers EVERYTHING you said so you better not say it wrong. Richard Freedman of the Vallejo Times-Herald definitely falls into that last category, I now realize. (Hopefully I didn’t get myself in too much hot water with the otter folks!)

Beaver mania comes to the Empress in Vallejo

Beavers don’t get the great PR like otters. You know, eating off their tummies in the ocean. Stuff like that. Even beaver crusader Heidi Perryman shrugs, “Everyone loves otters. They’re cute and don’t build dams. I’m feeling jealousy how easy otters’ lives are.”

Yet, the beaver, those buck-toothed, paddle-tailed rodents, play an integral role in the food chain and the environment, says Perryman.

Those dams they build hold back water, sure, but it creates more bugs. Fish eat bugs. Birds eat fish. Beyond more wildlife, the beavers have conserve water and in a drought era, it’s vital, Perryman noted.

A child psychologist when she’s not lobbying for beavers, Perryman joins Kate Lundquist as speakers this Friday at the Empress Theatre for “Beaver Mania,” an evening that includes the film, “Leave it to Beavers” as part of the Visions of the Wild festival.

Well I can’t deny it. I do feel jealousy. Ha!

Not only was the beaver saved in Martinez, it’s become the star of a huge mural and an annual summer beaver festival as Perryman created a nonprofit, “Worth a Dam,” with a website, martinezbeavers.org/wordpress.

“I really wanted to persuade people not to kill the beaver. I didn’t expect to become an expert,” Perryman said. “I’m an accidental beaver advocate.”

It shouldn’t be surprising that beavers even live in Vallejo, said Perryman.

“We’re constantly expanding. We’re growing into places where they used to be and that’s not going to change,” she said. “At the same time, their population is recovering.”

Though humans may be concerned that beavers could overrun an area, it’s not likely to happen, Perryman said.

“Beavers are territorial. They don’t want to live around each other,” she said. “If one family has moved in, another will go off to look for unchartered territory and sometimes that’s an urban stream with a low gradient, trees on it, and nobody usually goes there.”

It’s interesting to me that one could look through the evolution of my beaver advocacy like analyzing the layers of stratification in soil and see where I crossed paths with a new teacher who taught me something I wanted to retain. Like the term “low gradient” applied to urban streams (from Greg Lewallen when we worked on the urban beaver paper) or the upcoming section on beaver resilience (from Leonard Houston’s address at the last State of the Beaver conference). I guess sometimes I listen too.

Beavers, continued Perryman, are a resilient bunch.

“They were the first animals after Mount St. Helens eruption (1980). And one of the first species after Chernobyl (nuclear explosion 1986),” said Perryman. “They have a lot of adaptive ability, so they’re coming to a city near you so we may as well learn how to deal with them.”

“Leave it to Beavers,” a 53-minute documentary by Jari Osbourne, “is a great movie,” Perryman said. “I know people will leave the theater thinking, ‘Beavers do a lot of things I didn’t know.’”

Visions of the Wild runs through Sept. 18, including “Beaver Mania!’ 7 to 10 p.m. Friday, Empress Theatre, 330 Virginia St., Vallejo. Free. Discussions and documentary, “Leave it to Beavers.” For more, visit visionsofthewild.org.

I’m pretty happy with this article, and starting to get excited about the event. Solano county received its share of depredation permits in the last three years so I’d love to teach them something new about beavers. The theater is a lovely old restored venue and it will be really fun to watch our beavers and Jari’s documentary on the big screen.

Are you coming?

Head of the beaver class

heidi08 Beavers September 9, 2016

And again today the Huffington Post makes room for more silly articles about beaver. Because why report actual news when you can just write about what every one else said five years ago?

Here’s What A Beaver’s Anal Secretions Have To Do With ‘Natural Flavoring’

If the vagueness of the term “natural flavors” on ingredient lists has ever left you feeling uneasy, your gut may have been trying to tell you something. It turns out that one of the ingredients that can be grouped into this cryptic category is castoreum, which is basically a beaver’s anal secretion.

Beavers typically use castoreum to mark their territory. It is a yellow-ish liquid found in the beaver’s castor sac located in between the pelvis and base of the tail. Because of its location the gland often contains anal secretions and urine. Gross as it may be, it is nontoxic.

Due to the beaver’s healthy diet of leaves and bark, the secretion doesn’t stink. In fact, it is said to have a pleasant, musky aroma. It’s because of castoreum’s pleasing scent that it has been used as a flavoring in foods, mainly to enhance vanilla, raspberry or strawberry flavor s. (It’s used in perfumes, too.)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were so surprised the first time we read this rumor that we fell off our dinosaur and broke our wooden underwear! Why not talk about beaver importance to salmon or water storage? Hey maybe you could let me write a column of REALLY SURPRISING BEAVER NEWS for a change. What do you think?

Sheesh.

These English children are cuter with a stuffed beaver than anyone on the HP.

An event aimed at informing people about mammals which call the River Otter home has been hailed a success.

More than 200 people turned out at Otterton Mill to find out about the beavers which reside in the river. Children made badges and beaver crowns and visitors of all ages, saw from a model beaver named Justin, just how large the animal can be.

Badges and beaver crowns! I wonder where they could possibly gotten a smart idea like that?

Meanwhile, I’m happy with the way this cause and effect lesson came out. Click to expand and give it a moment to load for best effect. It should remind you of its inspiration but just in case you don’t recall it, here is a reminder.

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail

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Martinez Approves Beaver Mural

heidi08 Beavers September 8, 2016

Ta daa! We have a beaver mural! Just under 11 months since it’s discussion, the whole project is finalized. You silly thing you were probably assuming that we already had one when the idea was approved, and when the painting was finished according to plan, or when it was approved by the Parks Recreation Marina and Cultural Commission – but you’d be dead wrong. Because the completed mural needed the approval of city council – which it got last night. Someone from the public even commented that it cheered them up when they walked by it. I presented and updated them on our two beavers, Mark and Lara thanked me, the mayor said nothing, then they voted and it was approved.

Ta Daa!

Meanwhile there’s plenty of beaver news to share this morning. I was enormously disappointed to see this article made the Huffington Post yesterday. It’s from the anti-trapping source “Born Free”.

What Kind of Person Still Traps Wild Animals?

What kind of person purposely destroys a beaver dam and sets a “wall of death“ of Conibear traps, knowing that the unsuspecting beavers will return to repair their handiwork—only to be possibly smashed across their abdomens and drowned?

What kind of person knows that these atrocities occur regularly across America—still, in 2016—and does nothing?

Today, Born Free USA has revealed our second undercover investigation, Victims of Vanity II, which delves into the brutal trapping industry and fur trade in an effort to expose these grotesque and indefensible industries. Trapping, like hunting, is dominated by people engaged in “sport” and “recreation,” not necessity. And, even if there is some commercial by-product—selling the furs—trapping is about vicious slaughter, not gainful employment.

Oooh, BF doesn’t like Fur! Give them money right now! Never mind using the podium to talk about beavers as a keystone species or discuss their impact on wildlife or fish or water storage. Never mind using your time on the HP to mention about what beavers could mean to our resilience in climate change. Never mind that the vast majority of beavers are trapped for depredation – not fur – and have been for years and years. Never mind that people might never use beaver fur again in the history of the world and many thousands of beavers would STILL be crushed to death in conibears every year anyway.

Of course the two predictable comments to the post are from me, and a trapper, saying exactly what you’d expect them to say. BF and trapping folks must follow each other like shadows always saying the exact same thing and never learning anything at all. I’m impatient to hear something new from either of them or make them hear something new from ME.

When do I get to write an article on the Huffington Post?

There’s also an interesting article on the Canadian Railway about the removal of two seemingly abandoned beaver dams in Banff.

Legacy Trail beaver pond to be removed

A prominent beaver pond along Legacy Trail in Banff National Park has all but disappeared as Canadian Pacific Railway prepares to destroy a beaver dam that’s causing train track safety concerns.

Two ponds have dried up while water levels in the main pond are extremely low. At the same time as the water levels were lowering, two beavers were found dead in the area over the past two weeks, run over by vehicles on the Trans-Canada Highway.

Beaver are known for their unprecedented feats of ecological engineering – building dams, ponds and wetlands that can flood and damage human infrastructure – and are persecuted by humans as a result.

They are also considered a keystone species, creating ponds that consistently have higher waterfowl diversity, more complex invertebrate communities, and provide critical habitats for amphibians. They also create habitats that provide flood mitigation and resilience to extreme drought.

The two dead beavers were found on Aug. 25 and Aug. 29.

“Both appear to have been struck by vehicles,” said Tricomi. “When the TCH fence is replaced, we hope to bring the fence closer to the road to keep beavers away from traffic.”

A spokesperson for Canadian Pacific Railway could not be reached for comment by press time.

Bow Valley Naturalists are disappointed to see the beaver dam go, noting the trailside beaver dam is one of the few opportunities for a Legacy Trail nature connection, other than the Valleyview picnic area.

“The proposed removal of the dam and Parks Canada’s suggestion that fencing modifications should be put in place to prevent beavers from crossing the road – separating cyclists from the remainder of the dam – would remove this connection,” said BVN’s Reg Bunyan. “It would be very sad to see that beaver dam go.

Seems Alberta just came across its first documented case of ‘whirling disease’ nearby and the railroad is holding off removing the big dam until they find out if their fish are affected. I’m just happy when people have to review beaver benefits before removing an abandoned dam. We’d call that success in our book.

Don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll get more soon. Did you notice how densely wooded that dam is? There must be a truckload of trees in the area.

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Rendevous with Destiny Indeed

heidi08 History September 7, 2016

It’s always said that the folks who really made money in the California Gold Rush weren’t the lucky prospectors or the miners that followed, but the merchants who established a way to sell goods to both. This was true for the Fur Trade as well. The first rendezvous was held at Henry’s Fork Wyoming, which is on the very bottom of the state and the very top of Utah below it. It was the brain-child of William H. Ashley, who operated the first supply train to Henry’s Fork on the Green River to supply the trappers so they could remain in the mountains and keep sending him a steady supply of pelts.

The first rendezvous in 1825

The location here at Henry’s Fork was well advertised from mouth to mouth between the trappers of the area. Ashley states that 120 mountain men and Indians were at the rendezvous, with famous names such as Etienne Provost, Jedediah Smith, John Weber, William Sublette, Thomas Fitzpatrick, James Beckworth, David Jackson and a young Jim Bridger. For months or more, most of the trappers had not seen groceries such as sugar, coffee, tobacco or salt, not to mention gun powder or fish hooks.

Ashley usually paid $3.00 per pelt and sold tobacco for $3.00 per pound. Other goods that he brought were priced accordingly because it was a trade, not cash, transaction. Ashley sent most of the furs up to the Big Horn River, with 80 to 100 packs of beaver pelts arriving in St. Louis valued at $40,000 to $50,000. The average number of pelts in a pack was 32, so a lot of beaver started their way to someone’s hat that year.

The streams froze in the winter and made trapping difficult, so many of the mountain men wintered in warmer areas such as the Cache Valley of Utah. Jim Beckworth estimated that 600-700 men, including Indians, were at these winter quarters. When spring began, it was back to the trapping and the next rendezvous, which were carried on at various locations until the last one in 1840.

Because in just 15 years they had eliminated the beaver population in the west. I can only assume it took a little longer in the East just because there were fewer trappers in those days. The rendezvous eventually added whiskey to the mix and became huge social gatherings of not very social men with guns. While civilized folk didn’t cherish the tradition or want it too near their town, its lucrative practice would never have gone if the beaver hadn’t. 3 dollar pelt by pelt, up the Green River and down the Colorado River and over the Santa Fe River and finally through the Sacramento delta and then they were gone.

I try to imagine that last gathering, in 1840, when the bottom had already fallen out of the fur trade. The demand for beaver hats was gradually being replaced by a preference for silk, and this was happening at around the same time that the rivers were starting to be drained of beaver. The fur business must have gotten slimmer and slimmer in those last months. I’m guessing that whatever pelts were purchased weren’t sold up the river in St. Louis or anywhere else for that matter.

I wonder which came first. Did people stop buying beaver or was their no beaver left to buy?

The two events must have happened almost simultaneously. And no one stopped to think about the coincidence because there were new lands to explore and territories to grow into, once you got rid of those pesky redskins. And then gold was discovered and everyone forgot about the last gold they had eliminated and they moved west and complained about the drought.

End of chapter one.

______________________________________________________________________

I present tonight to the city council, so they can vote to approve the mural. It seems ancient history to me but they tell me it’s not official until they have voted to accept it. So here’s hoping they do tonight and I can move along to the next hurdle this weekend when the wildlife photographer wants to get some shots of Martinez children planting willow trees for Ranger Rick.

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You’re doing fine, Oklahoma!

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere September 6, 2016

I’ve been in the beaver biz a long long time, I’ve seen folks amused, curious, frustrated, angry, or protective of beavers all across the hemisphere and beyond. But there are a few things that really surprise me and make me tear up. Reading about beaver benefits in the NYTimes, watching our beaver story on London TV, and getting in the congressional record all spring to mind.

But this surpasses all of them.

First a little background. Years ago when Mike Callahan finished his beaver solutions DVD one of his first buyers was the ‘Skunk Whisperer’ from Oklahoma. He’s a remarkable wildlife defender that really wanted to know how to solve beaver problems so that folks would be able to stop killing them. He watched the video, talked to Mike, and learned about flow devices. And he waited.

And waited.

Seems no one in the state would hire him to do this work and save beavers. It was much easier to kill them. Never mind the drought. Never mind the fish. Just kill them every time. Ned was committed though. He decided he’d offer to do the installation for free just to show that it would work.

Still he waited.

Turned out, no one in is entire state could see any reason to try coexisting with beavers when it was so easy to shoot them. Really. Even the universities in OK teach classes about how bad beavers are. No one wants them. Not the farmers, or the duck hunters, or the fisherman. They are not welcome.

So you can imagine how surprised I was to find this:

I have a brand new beaver dam!

I am so ridiculously happy tonight you would not believe! Yes, this is the world’s dumbest little beaver dam, built by the world’s most juvenile and optimistic beaver. I will TOTALLY take it! Tonight I went out to the back corner of the property to look for oyster mushrooms. Instead, I found a beaver dam.

I live in central Oklahoma on 40 acres of land that belongs to my inlaws. Nobody has loved this land since before World War II, although there’s been constant activity in the form of a grazing lease and a couple of ancient but still producing oil wells.

There’s only one willow tree on the whole property, which I now plan to make the ancestor of an entire battalion of willows in the service of bank stabilization and erosion control. (My fantasy is that if I plant enough willows from cuttings, maybe some day the beaver will come back, build dams, and turn my dead ravines into beautiful pools. There’s beaver sign on this land — cut stumps — but none of it’s newer than ten years old.)

Late last summer I came upon one beaver stump near the property that was fresh enough that the chips were still visible by in on the ground. But the chips and the cut were weathered and grey, several months old at least.

Then today I was on county road that crosses the stream that’s in our ravine. The place where the road crosses is about 50 feet upstream from our property boundary, and it’s a culverted ford where the road surface serves as a shallow spillway when the water level is up, as it has been lately. Right in the middle of the road, left by the steam water, I found a fresh-cut beaver food stick!
That dumb little dam I found tonight is less than 24 inches high. It won’t survive the first rain event, I don’t think. I imagine it’s built by one juvenile beaver. But you know what? There’s a pond behind it that extends more than 200 feet up the ravine. And if you look closely at my blurry photo, there’s a black mark at the far end of the dam. That’s water, soaking upwards into dry soil. That’s my dumb little beaver dam already rehydrating the landscape.

It’s wintertime. I hope there are two beavers, busily making a whole family of beavers. That dam won’t survive the spring flood, but i want them to build it back six times as high.

I have felt for some time that given the available resources (not many), beavers were our only hope of rejuvenating the deeply-notched ravines that cross the middle of our property. I don’t care how many trees they eat — we weren’t using those trees anyway.

We have a beaver dam! My glee is probably out of proportion, but it’s just as real for all that. We have a beaver dam!

Dan from Oklahoma! Excited about beavers! As if it wasn’t enough to stumble on the excitement of the sole human glad to have a beaver dam on his property in OK, other folks actually responded to him with excitement on the same page! It’s a permaculture forum so folks were from all over, Michigan, British Columbia, Wyoming, Nevada New York, Idaho and one from Texas! And the responses weren’t “ew those rodents cause disease, kill it” or “this is the kind of dynamite you need to blow up that dam“. They were “Oh that’s wonderful! Beavers are so good for the water and land! Here’s a website I found on how to keep them!”

Honestly, it was like the entire internet was my Easter Egg Hunt and I just found the winning golden egg.

The post was dated 8 months ago, so of course I wrote Dan and asked about the dam. He wrote back that it failed in some hard rains and the little builder hadn’t been back unfortunately. But he was still eager to attract more and was thinking about planting willow along the bank to get them started. This morning another fellow from Las Vegas wrote how excited he was that the thread had started up again because so many states were using beavers to help save water.

So it turs out, some folks in Oklahoma are excited about beavers after all. I can’t wait to tell Ned.