A few months back I was contacted by Sarahbeth Maney who introduced herself as a 3rd year photojournalism student at San Francisco State that happened to grow up in Martinez. She needed to do a multimedia project for school and wanted to interview local women who had made a difference. A recent article in the times made her think that me and the Martinez Beaver story was just what she was looking for.
She came by before earth day and we spent the morning chatting about the story and looking through the scrapbook, then I sent her footage of the beavers. Sarahbeth was very nice, engaging, responsible and startlingly young. (I think her mom and I are the same age.) It was one of those interviews where I was answering specific questions that you never hear in the video, but I think it mostly works when you see it.
Of course, I said way more than made it to the finish line, about salmon and frogs and birds. I’m pretty sure I even mentioned nitrogen removal. There’s never enough time to say all the good things about beavers. I’m glad the surviving footage mentioned climate change and California’s water problems specifically. I’m also really happy about saying there was a dramatic difference between how long it took to solve the actual problem rather than the fear of the problem!
Yesterday she sent the finished product which is a short retelling (2.5 minutes) and fun to see. It puts things together nicely using bits and pieces from the story, her video, photographs and my footage. I never love watching myself on camera but I’m fairly content that I don’t look or sound too insane or tired in this. (Let’s face it though, I’m grading on a wide curve.)
Thanks Sarahbeth, for sharing your talents with our beavers, and letting me tell their story.
More silly mulling from the Scottish countyside: Should beavers be allowed or not? A reader on the Tayside group pointed out that this same argument could have been made 15 years ago, I say probably longer than that.
Their reputation as strong swimmers and prodigious engineers is not an understatement. Their large incisors and clawed front feet enable them to construct dams and lodges that can extend for hundreds of metres, as well as burrows of up to 20 metres into the riverbank.
“Any species introduction, particularly if it has not been in this country for hundreds of years, can have a massive impact on the many benefits that the countryside delivers,” Mark Pope, an arable farmer from Somerset who has instigated numerous initiatives to provide habitat and food for birds and insects and encourage diverse plant species on his farm, said.
“In the case of beavers, the NFU has concerns about the damage to farmland and the landscape caused by their physical activities.” Mark, who is also chair of the NFU Environment Forum, added. “Farmers and the public must have the tools to manage the impacts beavers will have to farmland, the countryside, flood defences and urban areas.
“Beavers can add biodiversity, as well as the interest, enjoyment and socio-economic benefits they can provide to many people. What the NFU is very clear on is that in some locations there is a clear need to manage this species to minimise undesirable impacts on agriculture, forestry, inland waters and other land uses.”
There is increasing interest in the beneficial role beavers could bring to habitats. The natural activities of beavers could help to regulate flooding and improve water quality, if managed properly. The Devon trial on the River Otter, led by the Devon Wildlife Trust in partnership with Clinton Devon Estates, the University of Exeter and the Derek Gow Partnership, has been exploring the role of beavers in managing and creating wetland habitats, the impacts on water quality, and influence on water flow and flood risk.
Tolkein once wrote “Go not to the elves for council, for they will say both ‘No’ and ‘Yes’.” Mostly no, though.
On the other hand, beaver burrows near watercourses can weaken river embankments and flood defences. Material felled and gathered by beavers for dams and lodges can create flood risk downstream and block drains upstream. The potential consequences of this for farmland and the rural economy is a cause for concern.
It is estimated that the costs of the 2007 and 2013-14 floods on agricultural businesses alone were £50m and £19m respectively, not to mention the wider economic impacts on local employment, infrastructure and utilities and the damage caused to people’s homes and communities.
The knock-on effects can be wide-ranging. The loss of productive farmland, for instance, would have a detrimental effect on food production and supply.
The Scottish Beaver Trial was a five-year project between the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, the Scottish Wildlife Trust and Forestry Commission Scotland to undertake a trial reintroduction of beavers to Knapdale, Mid-Argyll. The trial concluded in 2014 and as a result the Scottish government is considering recognising the European beaver as a native species.
A change in the legal status of beavers raises additional concerns. This is because beavers have no natural predators in the UK so it is important that populations can be managed, particularly if they are present in extensive low-lying areas such as East Anglia, Wiltshire and the Somerset Levels where their activities could block field drains leading to waterlogging (known as ‘wetting up’) of productive farmland.
Clarification: Beavers might benefit us if they don’t kills us all first. “We killed off all their natural predators in the UK so there’s nothing left to kill them and their numbers will swell like taxes with national health”. Are there no otters? No bacteria? No vehicles in your land? Beavers just don’t get killed by predators you know. And honestly, why act like you want to explore an issue and ONLY speak to one farming fiend from the National Farmers Union?
Who’s going to list all the many benefits for fish, wildlife, birds and water storage that come with beavers? Who’s going to talk about how much you can learn about nature by watching them? Who’s going to say how much they improve the health and vitality of urban waterways?
Once upon a time I was surprised to read that beaver change the rushes on their lodge floor every week or so. Mostly because that’s more than people did in the middle ages. But Rusty was lucky enough to come across the activity last evening at the beaver pond in Napa. I seem to remember that this is the time of year I saw it most often, obviously having babies muck up the place must make it dirty faster. When Rusty got to the pond last night he saw this:
Carrying in new bedding: Rusty Cohn
After watching for a while he saw a beaver gathering up some of the cattails and then swimming with them into the lodge. The original changing of the guard.
Apparently in the winter months, when there are no fresh grasses or cattails they rely on
woodchips. I’m trying to imagine
why, because it can’t be comfortable. Maybe it’s like elephants covering themselves with dust and it help keeps insects away?
Rusty Cohn
I’m not sure, but I know that May is an EXCELLENT time for beaver watching in the bay area. Rusty has been watching the pond spring to life. And years ago it was when I was lucky enough to see this:
(The records say it was May 3rd, nearly 5 weeks before we had ever seen a kit in the evening, so you can imagine why we were so surprised!)
The “Beaver Patrol” in Juneau understands how beavers are important to salmon. It was started by our friends Bob Armstrong and Mary Willson years ago. But obviously beaver beliefs are still forming and changing up there, because the forest service isn’t so sure about them. The reporter still thinks they live in the dam, and even one of their volunteers needs to look up the word “Destructive” in the dictionary, I think.
Last summer was a great year for coho salmon returns to Dredge Creek. Unfortunately, salmon redds in the creek below Dredge Lake have been negatively impacted by someone it appears was trying to help them, says the Beaver Patrol.
The “Beaver Patrol” is a group of volunteer Juneau naturalists and concerned citizens who have been working in the Dredge Creek and Dredge Lake area — U.S. Forest Service Land — for about five years. They and the Forest Service manage the dams and have improved salmon habitat in the stream, said member Chuck Caldwell.
Another factor helping Dredge Creek’s coho rearing? Beavers.
Caldwell had taken note of three different redds — nests of pebbles where salmon deposit their eggs — just above a beaver dam. A fourth was outside the main channel and needed a nearby dam to maintain its water depth. The destruction of the dam lowered the water and this winter that area froze, he said.
“He was tearing (the dams) out once or twice a week. Clearly he just hated beavers. He also wanted to dig in the stream to make a nice, deep channel. He dug through two of the redds,” Caldwell said.
The digging and the dismantling of the dams destroyed all the salmon redds he had observed in that area, Caldwell said.
In the first half of November, Beaver Patrol member Jos Bakker ran into and confronted the man when he was in the process of destroying a dam. The man doesn’t appear to have come back after that, but the damage was already done, Caldwell said.
The Beaver Patrol emphasizes beavers’ positive impact on salmon rearing.
“If you look back a couple of decades, people used to think that if you got the dams out, the fish could move back easier,” Caldwell said. “That’s not the limiting factor in the coho population. The limiting factor is having a habitat the juvenile cohos can live in.”
“By and large, it’s a safe bet that beaver dams do provide excellent coho rearing habitat,” Schneider said. “They can cause major problems for adult cohos to access fish habitat, and that’s probably what gets most folks in the public tempted to tear out dams. It has to be a fine balance, like anything else … In a normal setting, you would have these major flood events on occasion. It would rearrange them and keep them in check. You’re not going to get that in Dredge. On top of that, there are not normal predator levels that you would find in a normal wild setting.”
Dams’ impact on adult salmon in a setting like Dredge is something about which the Beaver Patrol and the Forest Service are not in complete agreement. Member Mary Willson says 90 percent of the time beavers are actually helpful to coho populations. Schneider disagrees.
When he and the cub scouts notch the dens, they use specific techniques and tools to ensure muddy debris doesn’t end up covering redds.
Beaver management does require a balance, Miller said.
It’s one of those interesting situations,” he said. “It’s true that habitat is being created, but at the same time, beavers are very destructive.”
In areas where beavers might create an aesthetic issue, the patrol has put a cloth around the trees that will keep the beavers from gnawing them, Miller said.
In my old days back before my time as a psychologist we used to call that “they’re good, they’re bad, they’re really good, they’re really bad” kind of messaging ‘schizophrenogenic’. Meaning if it kind of makes you crazy. Of course now they no longer think schizophrenia is caused by parenting BUT I would argue the term still applies to beavers. Just look at the dedication of folks in a very small area on both sides of the fence. Bob Armstrong even got the forest service to bring out Mike Callahan to talk about flow devices in 2009, but they never let him install one. The breadth of understanding of beaver benefits there is razor thin. But still a lot thicker than some places.
Here’s what Michael Pollock said to me in our podcast interview. “Does some particular beaver dam ever prevent some particular salmon from getting over at some particular time? Sure.But that’s asking the wrong question”.
Beaver dams are doing so much good for so many salmon it balances out.
Here’s my own unscientific variation: “Do people ever get hit by ambulances? Of course they do. Does that mean we shouldn’t have ambulances? Absolutely not.”
I’ve been hard at work knitting together my video presentation for Marin Audubon next month. It’s coming along well enough, but the job gives me a chance for some odds and ends housekeeping. The first is showing you the lovely shout out from our friends at Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Centre in Canada. Director Donna Dubreuil has been a true beaver friend these past years, and she is a big friend of beavers. Nice to see Martinez discussed from 2881 miles away. It may take a moment to load, but believe me it’s worth waiting for. You can use the plus button to zoom closer and read the completely unnecessary praise. (Although I do like the part where she calls me a spark plug.) 🙂 Thanks Donna!
Yesterday I heard from author of the much anticipated (and yet untitled) beaver book Ben Goldfarb, who just finished a stay with Louise and Paul Ramsay in their lovely beaver retreat in Bamff! He snapped this while he was their enjoying their hospitality and has lots big ideas for the European chapter. He says he also enjoyed hanging out with Derek Gow in Devon and exploring beaver sites on the river Otter, as well as visiting the Knapale trial.
Jealous yet?
Beaver through the Spotting Scope: Ben Goldfarb
Finally I heard from Chris Scarf, the very kind website wizard from San Francisco who helped us recently, and is back from his trip with the Dromedary Camels in Mongolia. For a change of pace he recently jaunted with his wife over to photograph some beavers in Napa. Here is the lovely photo he has to show for his efforts.
American Beaver. Natures engineers, this family lived downtown Napa. Right next to a hotel and main road, they built a small dam which cause a small pond to form. That pond provided life for all kinds of other birds, fish, turtles, otters, muskrats, mink and other critters. Napa, California May 2017
Rusty has been happy to see the pond get busier. Yesterday he captured another beautiful Great Blue heron photo at just the right moment as the bird took off in flight.
A few months back I was contacted by Sarahbeth Maney who introduced herself as a 3rd year photojournalism student at San Francisco State that happened to grow up in Martinez. She needed to do a multimedia project for school and wanted to interview local women who had made a difference. A recent article in the times made her think that me and the Martinez Beaver story was just what she was looking for.
In the first half of November, Beaver Patrol member Jos Bakker ran into and confronted the man when he was in the process of destroying a dam. The man doesn’t appear to have come back after that, but the damage was already done, Caldwell said.
