Month: December 2016

Santa comes early for beavers

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Environmental, featured, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? December 21, 2016

Around this time of the Holidays everything starts to seem like “too much”. There are too many presents to wrap or cookies to frost or ravioli’s to make and there is barely enough time to squeeze them all in. Add to this that there is now a SURFEIT of beaver news to share. But I take my job seriously so I’m going to start with this, even though I’m saving the selfishly best for last.

How’s this for a headline? You gotta love Scotland.

Tree felling by beavers may save millions in flood repairs

CONSERVATION experts predict the controversial felling of trees by beavers will help save millions of pounds spent on flood damage and defences after the animals were spotted for the first time on National Trust for Scotland property.

The creatures are often blamed for causing flooding on farmland by building dams. But conservationists said their habit of gnawing down trees also encouraged multiple new younger stems to grow, which could help to prevent flooding by reducing erosion.

The nation’s largest conservation charity believes the beavers will play a key role in cutting its multi-million pound bill due to floods as they continue to spread across the country following the Government’s decision last month to grant them protected status as a returned native species.

That’s right, the country’s largest charity is excited that beavers are cutting down its trees because the coppicing will help prevent erosion. (And no, I didn’t just make this up in a basement with my beaver fantasy 500.) Follow the link and see for yourself. It’s for real. Never mind that in our silly country the Nature Conservancy is paying to kill beavers to save trees because they’re stupid. Imagine if our largest conservancy was excited about beavers!

Speaking of EXCITED (yes, I know I’m shouting), I heard from photographer Suzi Eszterhas that her beaver photo shoot is officially approved and can be shared by us. The Ranger Rick article will come out in the fall and in the meantime she generously arranged for allowing me to use her amazing photos in presentations and the website. There are 274 and at the moment I’m just like a happily confused child sitting in the middle of the candy store wondering which to enjoy first, but I thought I’d share a few beauties today.

Seeing these images is of course, bittersweet because it was that year that our kits died and our beaver family disbanded. There were no answers and few comforts. But every time you start to feel misty-eyed, I promise you will be cheered by the crazy curved tails of the Napa beaver kits. So you have to keep looking.

Most of the photos are of our Martinez beavers, including some wonderful images of our human children helping out, some are Napa images or rehab in Washington and Lindsay Museum (not ours). It is enormously special to have this record and I am so grateful for her remarkable work. If you want to browse the entire collection you can check out her website here.

There’s never enough time, I know.

Beaver Developments

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Conference, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? December 20, 2016

MIT continues to make great strides on beaver-inspired wetsuits.

Leave It to Beaver: Why a furry wetsuit could keep you warmer and drier.

Beavers and sea otters lack the thick layer of blubber that insulates walruses and whales. And yet these small, semiaquatic mammals can keep warm and even dry while diving, by trapping warm pockets of air in dense layers of fur.

Inspired by these fuzzy swimmers, MIT engineers have now fabricated fur-like, rubbery pelts and used them to identify a mechanism by which air is trapped between individual hairs when the pelts are plunged into liquid.

The researchers are particularly interested in improving wetsuits for surfing, “where the athlete moves frequently between air and water environments,” says Anette (Peko) Hosoi, a professor of mechanical engineering and associate head of the department at MIT.

Biologists had observed that beavers and other semiaquatic mammals trap, or “entrain,” air in their fur. But, as graduate student Alice Nasto notes, “there was no thorough, mechanical understanding of that process. That’s where we come in.”

The team laid out a plan: fabricate fur-like surfaces of various dimensions, plunge the surfaces into liquid at varying speeds, and use video imaging to measure the air trapped in the fur during each dive.

“We have now quantified the design space and can say, ‘If you have this kind of hair density and length and are diving at these speeds, these designs

will trap air, and these will not,’” Hosoi says.

Ah science! Working so hard to do what nature does without thinking. Not much new in this news, I admit, but I like the graphic. Given the temperature outside yesterday I can understand the need for really efficient entrainment.

I found out this weekend that Lorne Fitch from Cows and Fish is accepting our offer of a transportation scholarship and coming to the State of the beaver conference in February! Whoo hoo! The line up looks really grand with folks from Whales, Scotland AND Germany flying out to present their beaver work, as well as American experts like Suzanne Fouty, Mike Callahan, Damion Ciotti and um, me. I also found out that stalwart beaver champions Sharon and Owen Brown of Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife will be presenting there. Which is wonderful because I always get a little tired of hearing about ‘beavers as a means to an end’ by Friday! The video below is theirs and narrated by Sharon. You should really think about being there. We’re renting a house so we’d invite you for dinner and everything.

I’m not sure what to think about the Whit Gibbons learning curve. He wrote back that he’d look at the website and I sent him all sorts of educational links. His column is obviously syndicated and has appeared in a few other papers. But today’s appearance bears this headline:

Beavers Make Great Neighbors

Same exact column, but this one is printed in New York. Authors don’t usually pick the headline. So who knows what the explanation is?

Three states of why beavers matter

heidi08 Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, City Reports, Environmental, Who's Killing Beavers Now? December 19, 2016

Sometimes we get the faintest whiff of beaver benefits and actual solutions from sources you’d never expect. I think I’m a little like a mother who knows that her middle child isn’t the brightest bulb in the box and so reacts with extra praise when he gets the simple problems right. We want to encourage them, right?

Discover Nature and Evidence of Beavers in Your Area

This is the Missouri chapter of public radio, not an area usually known for progressive beaver solutions. So this quote at the end got my attention:

Beavers play a valuable role by damming backed up silt-laden waters and subsequently forming many of the fertile valley floors in the wooded areas of our continent. Beaver dams stabilize stream flow, slow down run-off, and create ponds which influence fish, muskrats, minks and waterfowl.

However, some landowners wish to protect certain trees from potential damage from beaver cutting. This can be done by enclosing the target trees with wire netting up to a height of three feet.

It must be the season. This article from North Carolina actually focuses on the benefits of joining BAMP (their beaver-killing club), but look at what it also finds time to include;

Rodent causes problems for farmers, residents and roadways

Beaver aren’t all bad. In fact, they can be responsible for some very diverse ecosystems. A 2015 PBS article titled, “Leave it to Beavers,” explains beaver dams as “Earth’s Kidneys.”

“Beaver dams and the ponds they produce act as filters, generating cleaner water downstream.”

One pond observed in Greene County, known as good duck hunting grounds, has a beaver family to thank. The dam extends several hundred feet across the mouth of a swamp creating a large, shallow home to waterfowl.

You heard it here, folks. Beavers aren’t ALL bad! Spoken like the most educated ecological mind in the entire state. Over the years I’ve become accustomed to the annual justification for BMAP printed in local papers. Usually they say something about how bad beavers are and what a cost-saving deal it is for the unlucky counties that are suckered into it.

Seeing the need for the management for the ever-increasing damage caused by the growing beaver population, State Legislative action created the North Carolina Beaver Management Assistance Program in 1992.

BMAP is a cost share program to aid landowners having problems with beaver damage. As of 2016, the cost share is a $4,000 per county contribution for annual membership.

The BMAP cooperative endeavor also receives funding from the NC Wildlife Resources Commission, NC DOT, USDA Wildlife Services and others.

Participation in BMAP is a county-by-county decision. Locally, Lenoir and Greene County participate, Jones County does not.

The total $21,800 set aside in Lenoir County for control and management (between BMAP membership and specialist) is an investment that pays dividends. Per the BMAP 2015 annual report, from June 2015-June 2016, beaver control prevented the loss of, or damage to, $262,140 in resources, including over $140,000 to roads and bridges alone. Efforts resolved beaver damage problems at 28 sites in the county, 13 were private landowners and 15 were Department of Transportation sites.

Of course, the more you use BMAP the more you NEED BMAP because of things like population rebound and short term solutions. Its a racket. Guess how much money BMAP spends on flow devices and solutions that will last longer than a season? I’ll give you a it, it’s a ROUND number.

One thing that confuses me in the article is this:

Also in the budget are funds to support a percentage of a Wildlife Beaver Specialist.

What percentage of the guy did you get? The part that goes over the fence last? Because I’d ask for my money back.

Hey, speaking of actual beaver specialists, and beaver benefits, NOAA just released its offical Oregon coast Coho Recovery plan. Which mentions beaver lots of times (by my count 227 times). Lots like this:

It even had time for the honorable mention of our noble friends in South Umpqua.

If you want to grind your teeth in envy that California is so remarkably backward that we just can’t have nice things, go read the report. It’s beaver-licious, and someday we might be too!

Riparian Ecology 101 and Beavers

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Who's blaming beavers now? December 18, 2016

It’s hard to appreciate beavers in South Carolina. Even if you’re an environmentalist and teach riparian ecology, apparently. Sigh.

ECOVIEWS: A beaver dam could test your environmental conscience

Whit Gibbons

My first evidence of something unusual happening came in autumn after a month of no rain when I measured the water level. I do this at least once a week downstream from our cabin and was surprised to find that instead of dropping an inch or so, it had actually risen 2 inches. I attributed it to mismeasurement until I took my walk.

Beavers are unquestionably keystone species in a region with small to moderate-size streams. They not only modify the habitat but can also change the environment in ways that dramatically influence the lives of animals, including people, and plants.

Beaver activity can result in big trees dying from flooding and smaller ones being debarked for food or cut down for dam construction. A mile downstream from my incipient beaver dam a larger one has flooded several acres, leaving tall, lifeless sweetgum and pine trees that began life in a terrestrial habitat and cannot persist in an aquatic one.

Animals are affected, too. Large aquatic salamanders called sirens thrive and become more abundant in pools of a stream created by beaver dams. We once observed more than 500 sirens along the margins of a small stream when a dam was removed and the water level dropped.

Cottonmouths, watersnakes and turtles are more apparent, and maybe even more abundant, around beaver dams, which create areas for basking on sunny days. Waterfowl, such as wood ducks, are attracted to the pond created above the dam. Clearly, beavers and their dams set the tone of the neighborhood for many wildlife species.

So close. So very close. I feel we are standing at the very threshold of almost discussing beaver benefits – peering through the keyhole at the verdant green garden on the other side. But Whit isn’t wild about beavers. And he’s surrounded by UGA buddies who feed him bad information.

Beavers live 35 to 50 years in zoos and more than 20 years in the wild.

One of the conundrums with beavers is that their positive traits – being chubby, cute, industrious pioneers – aren’t always enough to outweigh less desirable traits. I know folks who have had beavers cut down a beautiful dogwood tree, flood an area intended for a garden not a fish pond and dismantle a wooden boathouse to build the beaver lodge. The predicament is how to keep beavers for outdoor show-and-tell yet not have them misbehave, from a human’s point of view.

An ecofriendly society will always face perplexing wildlife problems and environmental dilemmas. Entertaining, yet potentially destructive, beavers are a good example of the complexity inherent in environmental preservation, with no simple solution as to how to handle the issue. A range of responses are available for dealing with nuisance wildlife. Which solution people choose will depend in part on their environmental conscience.

Whit is a reflective and thoughtful man with an ecological conscience. He wants to appreciate the inherent coolness of beavers because it’s fun to see wildlife in his creek, but he doesn’t want to be flooded out for 50 years. What’s a good man to do?

When information fails you its time to get better information. I’m glad you asked. First of all beavers don’t live for 50 years. Who ever wrote that down was wrong and should have their credentials surgically removed. I did read a scientific report that identified one as 19 once, but in the wild 10-15 years is an astoundingly good run.

Secondly, if beavers are flooding an area you can’t live with then you install a flow device and make the water a height you can tolerate. Here’s a video that will teach you how to do it cheaply yourself. I know these things work because they solved our problem for a decade. The first flow device was invented in your own state! But this works better and is cheaper to install. Oh, and if the bad beaver is eating your dogwoods try wrapping the trees with wire or painting them with sand.

Beavers do cause problems. True. And cars get flat tires. We can fix them.

Why not just trap the beavers and get rid of them instead of fixing the problem? First of all you can’t, because more beavers will return to adequate habitat and you’ll be in this fix all over again in a year or a season. But more importantly all the wildlife that depends on the beaver dam will be lost if you remove the beaver. Meanwhile, that dam is removing nitrogen, letting trout fatten, filtering toxins, and regulating water flow which god knows you need in South Carolina and Georgia!

The article concludes by saying Whit teaches at the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. I can’t think of a more useful place to start a conversation. Our retired UGA librarian friend needs to have coffee with him and nudge some useful information his way. Hey, maybe you could take this image into your classroom?

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Another glimpse of beaver life in Nebraska from wildlife photographer Michael Forsberg. Enjoy.

Wetlands inconvenienced by beavers

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Chewing, Beaver Conference, Beaver News, City Reports, Environmental, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now? December 17, 2016

Not a bad beaver report considering its from Indiana. I can’t embed it here but click on it for a nice review of the issues. Even though they newscaster can’t tell a lodge and a dam apart, there is actually discussion about beaver benefits and options supposedly being considered.

Damming Up the Place

A family of beavers is currently living the Hawthorne Park Wetlands it’s kind of like having, squatters move into your neighborhood. The rodents are causing a big problem and the Vigo County Parks Department is facing a tough decision.

The Parks Dept. say trapping and killing the beavers in the area is an option. The other alternative would be to capture and relocate the animals, but that equipment can cost around $200 per beaver. The issue is the dams they build can cause water back up in other areas.

On a cold, frosty day there’s not much activity at Hawthorne Park. But there’s definitely something going on.. and it concerns the wildlife here. In particular some pesky beavers.

“When they create dams, stop up water bodies, which creates sort of artificial wetlands in areas where people might not want those wetlands to be,” Falyn Owens, said

Owens, Urban Wildlife Biologist with Department of Natural Resources says the ideal would be to put up barriers to stop the animals. But if something more drastic is needed, then trap and kill is favored over capture and release because then the beaver essentially becomes someone else’s problem.

The beaver taking down trees and potentially causing flooding are primary concerns, but the animal does a lot of good too.

“They are what we call ecosystem engineers which makes them an incredibly important species in the natural system, just like human beings, they have the capacity to change their environment,” Owens said.

Since we’re talking about Indiana I would ordinarily hold little hope for these beavers, but I was tipped to the story by someone who works for the parks department who was tipped by the reporter. I was able to pull up email for Ms. Owens and the park superintendent, and send them information about flow devices and beaver benefits. Who knows? At least there’s a chance things could work out.

To be honest I was surprised they have a biologist in charge of Urban Wildlife at all. And Falyn Owens wrote me back twice, basically saying I can’t do anything and the park has a license to kill. But still. We’re grading on a curve.

Robin let me know that the infamous dollar store beaver made his way to Anderson Cooper at CNN the other night. Apparently causing him to get a bit of the giggles. Discretion being the furrier part of valor, I won’t comment. Sit thru a short commercial and enjoy the clip.