Month: May 2017

Artfully done

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Mike Callahan May 21, 2017

It’s Sunday, and there’s so much good news to share I’ll be choosy and just show you the very best for now. First there is a nice article following Mike Callahan’s beaver presentation Smyrski Farm owned by the Weatinoge Land Trust.

Robert Miller: The return of beavers to Connecticut

Maybe the fierce-eyed bald eagle is the national symbo, but beavers — those social, endlessly industrious homebodies — fired the exploration of North America more than any other creature. To get their pelts, traders and trappers moved across the continent years ahead of any settlers.

“They make drastic changes to the landscape,” said Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions, a Massachusetts-based company dedicated to helping beavers and humans peacefully coexist. “Usually for the better.”

As with the other large mammals that have found the state to their liking — white-tailed deer, black bear, coyote — humans now have to learn to live with beaver. Gone from Connecticut for at least a century and a half, they’re back in force, slapping tails, damming streams, sometimes flooding back yards.

“Native Americans called them ‘little people’ because other than humans, no other animal changes the environment so much,” Callahan said.

When beavers build a dam, that makes a pond. That makes an open habitat in the middle of the woods, where aquatic plants, fish, waterfowl, muskrat and mink can all thrive.

“They’re really great at creating an awesome heterogeneous landscape with lots of biodiversity,” said Mike Jastremski, watershed conservation director for the Housatonic Valley Association.

Beaver ponds help regulate downstream flooding with the newly created wetlands soaking up rain water like a giant sponge.

After a time, when the beavers vacate the premises, the dam deteriorates, the pond flows away, and you’ve got a new habitat — a woodland meadow. A new set of species adapts to that. Eventually, when that meadows grows back to woods, beavers can return.

Callahan now makes his living installing systems to let people and beavers coexist. The only other option is trapping and killing them. There are too many beavers in the state to relocate them.

“They used to move them to somewhere else,” Josephson of the Naromi Land Trust said. “Now, there is nowhere else.”

“They’re sort of like mice,” said Marge Josephson, president of the Naromi Land Trust in Sherman. “If you see one mouse in your house, it means you’ve got a lot of mice. If you see one beaver, you’ve got more than one.”

Hurray for Mike, traveling between states to spread the beaver gospel with other land trusts. Clearly Mr. Jamstremski did his homework on the topic and understands why all this all matters. We’re not so sure about Marge (who needs politely reminding that its not generally a good idea to remind listeners that beavers are like mice in their house!)

Sheesh!

My mailbox has been ringing with donations all week for our silent auction at the beaver festival, but I’m going to start with the watercolor prints by Robert Mancini of Melbourne Australia.

He is a truly talented artist that works to capture the natural world with his prodigious gift. I still can’t believe how generous he was with us. Obviously his beaver painting got my attention first, but I was thrilled to see the many others he included, of which these are just a sample., all signed and on quality paper. Go look at his website to see how talented he truly is. Thank you Rob, for your generous support of beavers!

Photo-Contract_0013

That’s great, just great!

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Birds May 20, 2017

Recently we’ve been having a bit of discussion about the Great Blue Heron. It started when I asked the artist to make the tattoo of the heron ‘bluer’ so that’s it clear what it is. She responded that it is often more gray than blue, which is true. But our project needs his bluest moments. Sibley’s points out it even has a white morph that looks more like an egret. Nevertheless, I persisted. In preparation for our awesome nature journals Jon and I carved 170 sticks with beaver chews for the bindings this week at my parents property in the sierra foothills. It’s going to be wonderful!

Meanwhile, Rusty Cohn of Napa captured the perfect moments yesterday, with more proof that beavers are great blue heron helpers.

BeaverGBHRusty — *GBH and Beaver: Rusty Cohn*

gbhbeaverswimming — *GBH and beaver swimming: Rusty Cohn*

The Great Blue Heron is there to eat the fish, which are there to eat the invertebrates, which are there because of the beaver dam and constant digging in the mud. It’s what makes articles like this possible.

Beavers save Great Blue Heron nesting ground

Beavers and Great Blue Herons might seem like unlikely bedfellows, but a recent beaver-led construction project on the grounds of a nature center in New York is proving yet again that symbiosis can be oh so satisfying.

The forested grounds of Sterling Nature Center, nestled along the shore of Lake Ontario in Sterling, NY has long been a haven for local wildlife and nature-lovers. It wasn’t until the early 1990s however, when group of beavers settled along a creek there and constructed a dam, that the park would welcome its most popular inhabitants — dozens of Great Blue Herons.

As it turns out, the 80-acre pond and defoliated trees which resulted from the beaver dam created an ideal fishing ground for the birds, and as many as 65 herons chose the spot to hatch their young. The beavers were happy; the birds were happy; and, thanks to the crowds they drew, the nature center was happy too.

This is just the time we’d see Great Blue Herons at our beaver ponds, because it’s summertime and the living is easy. Which animals are visiting the beaver pond near you? You better go see for yourself.

Beaver Reverberations

heidi08 Beavers and climate change, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water May 19, 2017

Yesterday’s blockbuster report is sounding bells all over the northern hemisphere. (Probably everywhere but Wisconsin.) The latest accolades come from Canada, where the CBC wants every countryman to know that beavers are Worth A Dam.

Beavers are dam important for the ecosystem

The beaver is a Canadian icon. To some it’s also a royal pest. Beavers are more than just a nuisance, though. They are also important engineers of our environment. A new study published in the journal PLOS One has discovered just how important beavers are in protecting habitat.

What role do beaver ponds play in the ecosystem?

There are lots of species that rely on beavers to engineer the environment to suit their own needs. Creatures like the Sandhill crane, the mule deer, and, most importantly, juvenile fish. Not only that, when there is a beaver pond, the water is able to be better absorbed by the land, allowing it to resist both droughts and floods a lot better.

For a long time, it was believed that beaver ponds increased the temperature of water in the ecosystem due to its greater surface area absorbing more energy from the sun. That was always thought as a possible way that beaver ponds could be damaging the surrounding ecosystem.

This assumption has been overturned by new research. Nick Weber is with Eco-Logical and his team conducted experiments along Bridge Creek, Oregon.

“As the volume of surface water increases,” he says, “it just takes a lot longer for streams to heat up during hot summer days.”

The work was done in the high desert of Oregon where temperatures can soar in the summer. But it’s not much different from what we can get in Canada, especially as our world warms.

Why is this significant?

It’s significant because the high temperatures of river water — which on some days can reach up to 29 C — is problematic for fish like salmon and trout. These fish need temperatures closer to 25 C, which is exactly what is achieved by having a beaver pond. Having much cooler water increases the survival of juvenile fish like the steelhead trout.

Needless to say, when we are living in the current warming world, it’s important to find ways to reduce the impact of higher global and water temperatures on important stocks like salmon.

So the proposal is to take inspiration from nature, and the beaver, to help restore habitat by constructing artificial beaver dams. And the coolest part is that beavers eventually take over the dams after a few years.

Not only can the dams restore river systems, but it means beavers might be guided into building dams where they might reduce the impact on people’s lands.

Hurray for beavers! Everybody worships at the ‘salmon and trout’ alter, it seems. Birds and frogs don’t matter as much. But that’s fine. Whatever reason you find to appreciate beavers is good by me. It’s wonderful how surprised folks are by this news, which is old news to us. I think Pollock was talking about the cooling effects of hypoheic exchange 10 years ago, but better late than never.

All this excitement has clearly made the researchers giddy, because yesterday Dr. Wheaton forwarded me an email from the senior author, Nick Weber, excitedly showing photographic evidence of beavers using the BDA’s they had made. Look closely at the picture, because I see something other than beavers. I especially like that patient coyote.

Do you think Joe Wheaton is trolling me?

Come on in, the water’s fine!

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? May 18, 2017

Another block buster from our friends at the science site that should be called “Beaver Phys.org”. This morning the news has also been picked up by plenty of followers including “New Scientist”. Because beavers are just rock stars like that, you know?

Beaver dams may buffer against temperatures that threaten sensitive species

Both natural and artificial beaver dams may alter stream temperatures which may benefit temperature-sensitive salmonid species, according to a study published May 10, 2017 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Nicholas Weber from Eco-Logical Research, Inc., USA, and colleagues.

Beavers are ecosystem engineers, altering stream temperatures by building dams that increase surface water storage and connectivity with groundwater. Some studies suggest that the dams make water warmer and so are detrimental to salmonids, which are sensitive to temperature. Weber and colleagues tracked beaver dams and monitored water temperatures along 34 kilometers of the John Day River in Oregon over eight years. In addition, the team assessed the impact of artificial beaver dams on water temperature along four reaches of Bridge Creek.

Yes beaver dams lower the temperature for sweaty fish. We here at beaver central have been touting this fact for years. Pollock proved it years ago, but now it’s especially even more extra proven. Has any creek been the subject of more study than Bridge Creek? I doubt it.

The researchers found that beaver dams may alter stream temperatures to the benefit of salmonids. Studies suggest that juvenile steelhead salmonids in Bridge Creek experience extreme stress at about 25°C, and the researchers found that maximum daily temperatures in much of the study stream exceed this temperature for much of the summer. However, temperatures rarely exceeded 25°C after the proliferation of beaver dams, likely because they help moderate temperatures both by increasing water storage and encouraging exchange between surface water and groundwater exchange. This fits with the fact that both beavers and salmonids were once more abundant and widely distributed in North America, and suggests that beaver dams could help mitigate the thermal degradation that can threaten sensitive species.

Dr. Weber notes: “Beaver are often considered a keystone species, and their propensity to build dams plays an integral role in maintaining biodiversity and enhancing aquatic processes that benefit an array of aquatic and terrestrial organisms. Recognizing this, beaver relocation efforts and installation of structures designed to mimic the form and function of beaver dams are increasingly being used as effective and cost-efficient approaches for restoration of stream and riparian function. Despite this trend, the notion that beaver dams negatively impact stream habitat remains common, specifically the assumption that beaver dams increase summer stream temperatures to the detriment of cold-water species such as trout and salmon. However, by tracking beaver dam distributions and water temperatures throughout a high-desert, scientists have demonstrated that beaver dam can actually reduce high stream temperatures by increasing surface water storage and connectivity with cool groundwater. These results suggest that construction of artificial beaver dams and beaver relocation projects could be used to mitigate the impact of human induced thermal degradation that may threaten sensitive cold-water species.”

If you need the reference to go look up it’s here. Feel free to notice how many of the names are friends of this website.

Weber N, Bouwes N, Pollock MM, Volk C, Wheaton JM, Wathen G, et al. (2017) Alteration of stream temperature by natural and artificial beaver dams. PLoS ONE 12(5): e0176313. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176313

Dr. Wheaton wrote yesterday to make sure I saw it, but three beaver readers had beat him to it. Let’s hope all those backwards thinkers in Wisconsin who rip out beaver dams to protect their baby trout read it and at least think, huh??? Maybe they’ll even start to read the research later than the 1970 study they tuck under their pillows at night.

Our Edinburgh professor friend saw this photo last night uploaded on to the California Academy of Sciences page “biographic” and sent it our way. I knew you’d appreciate it. No sissy GoPro camera for this lovely shot. Read about the sturdy and patient French photographer who got this beautiful shot.

Castor d'Europe; Castor fiber; transporte une branche sous l'eau; BBC 2011 — **Louis-Marie Preau** has been watching beavers in the Loire region of western France for more than 15 years. He’s never forgotten the first time he saw an adult delivering a tasty branch to its family underwater—but it took him four years to successfully capture this intimate scene. Each evening, **wearing snorkeling gear and weights, he would lie motionless on the riverbed for two to three hours**. Finally, one evening, his patience paid off. Preau had only just plunged into the water and positioned himself when this adult returned with a freshly harvested poplar branch to feed to its three young kits. He was impressed by the beaver’s strength and determination, as it dragged this leafy meal through the water. Saumur, France

Be Careful Out There

heidi08 Dispersal May 17, 2017

Beavers are notoriously vulnerable on roadways. They are low to the ground and usually crossing in the dark which makes them a prime target for roadkill. Do they ever use wildlife crossings? Inquiring minds wanted to know. Some fine investigative beaver reporting comes from Robin Ellison of Napa. She was interested in whether beavers ever use the crossings trans Canada offers. You know the ones I mean.

Turns out they have an extensive system to document the wildlife crossings with trail cam footage, and trackpads keep records to monitor use. They were only too happy to share the info with Robin and wrote back:

Thank you for your inquiry and interest in the wildlife crossing structures as they relate to beaver species movements. I’ve had our database specialist look through the history of wildlife crossing documentation and have found some results for you. We’ve not been able to find documentation on whether or not road mortality numbers for beavers were affected. However, we did find information on beavers using the Trans-Canada highway wildlife crossing structures. There are only 5 incidences that have been documented on all of Banff National Park’s highway wildlife crossing structures (we currently monitor 44 of these structures). As you mentioned, all the beavers that have been documented on wildlife crossing structures were associated with waterway travel–in these cases the beavers were on a flat pathway in an underpass that has a creek running through it.

Below I’ve listed the information we have on beavers using the Trans-Canada highway wildlife crossing structures. I’ve also found a photo of a beaver using a wildlife crossing structure (you can see the creek in the background).

Not a ton of observations, beavers are probably less likely than others to venture out of the water. But there are more observations than I might have expected. You can see three identifications came from trackpads which I had to look up. Here’s a nice description from some research they did trying to find which tool worked better. They found that trackpads had their place but cameras were better if there was a lot of wildlife traffic.

Field Data Collection

All 24 CS in the study area were continuously monitored forlarge mammal use since 1996 using track-pads (Clevengerand Waltho 2000, 2005). At least one track-pad (range 2–7pads/CS) was constructed at each end of every underpass,and each track-pad spanned the width of the underpass and was approximately 2 m long in the axis of animalmovement. Track-pads on the overpasses consisted of onetrack-pad located at the center, spanning the width, and were approximately 4 m long in the axis of animalmovement. Tracking material consisted of a dry, loamy mixture of sand, silt, and clay, 1–4 cm deep. We visited eachCS every other day, and at each visit we classified thetracking medium as Good, Fair, Poor, or Too many,depending on our ability to detect tracks. A track-padcondition of Good occurred when our ability to detect tracks

Here’s what one of the cameras documented. That lucky beaver made it safely across and back into the water. (The darker area is the creek).

I haven’t been doing this beaver work for very long, but I’ve already come across several beavers and otters struck by vehicles. We could learn a lot from our Canadian friends. Thanks to the helper who shared this information

J. Kimo Rogala, M.Sc.
a Resource Management Officer II
Ecological Integrity Monitoring, Banff National Park
Parks Canada Agency | Government of Canada
Box 900, 216 Hawk Ave, Banff, AB, T1L 1K2

for keeping track of this information. And thanks Robin for doing the legwork! This is a wonderful insight into something we understand very little about. I’m just glad these beavers never had to go through this:

(For the record I spoke years ago with the fellow who filmed this beaver. Not the news site that made his footage into a comedy. And the witness swears he made it across safely. Although one foot did appear injured in the photos I saw.)