Month: May 2017

Checking in on old friends…

heidi08 Beaver Anatomy, Beaver Behavior, Beavers May 11, 2017

This morning Choppa is in the news again! You remember him. He was that little yearling that ‘escaped’ from the Kansas children’s zoo and created a stir in the community when he strove for freedom. He eventually was recapture and has returned to captive life, but a local artist and musician posted a picture on his face book page with a pleas for his safe release.

“He was desperately trying to claw and chew his way out of his cage, so much so that he was bleeding from his mouth,” Hickey wrote in the caption accompanying the photograph. “I’m not an activist or a political person, but it was unbearable to watch, so I have to say something. This animal hides all day because it doesn’t like humans gawking at it, then at night it injures itself in a frantic but futile attempt to escape from its prison.”

This of course prompted worry and outrage and upset calls to the zoo that did their best to soothe jangled nerves with an article in the Wichita Eagle. Apparently ‘rumors of his death had been greatly exaggerated’.

Despite what you may have heard, Chapa the beaver is fine, city says

Wichita officials on Wednesday moved to calm local concerns about the health of Chapa the beaver, whose wandering ways a few years ago turned him into a local celebrity and landed him on this year’s Riverfest poster.

Local writer, gamer, artist and musician Esper Jared Hickey posted a photograph of Chapa on his Facebook page Tuesday, taken at the Kansas Wildlife Exhibit in Central Riverside Park the night before.

Hickey’s post prompted a number of responses, including one from a woman who wrote “Why does that zoo even still exist? It’s so cruel to the animals.”

But Stacey Hamm, director of marketing and development for Wichita Park and Recreation, said in an e-mail response to questions Wednesday that Chapa and his cage are in normal condition.

“Beavers are nocturnal rodents that are seldom active during the day,” Hamm said. “Chapa spends a lot of time in his den during the day. Beavers have different tooth enamel than people. Their front incisors are large and visible. The outer enamel of those teeth is much harder than ours and has a brownish color.”

Chapa receives all proper veterinary care, Hamm said, and “gets all he wants to eat.” Staff weave and stack tree branches that Chapa labors to disassemble every night. What has changed recently, Hamm said, is that the waterfall at a small pond next to the exhibit has been turned on.

“Chapa hears the noise of rushing water and it makes him want to go dam it up,” she said.

Chapa gained fame two years ago when he broke out of his enclosure in Central Riverside Park and spent several days on the lam before he was spotted swimming in the Arkansas River. A couple of days later

, he was discovered trying to dig his way back into his cage.

His escapades landed him on this year’s Riverfest poster.

Now, I agree totally that a beaver is nocturnal and will likely stay in his hole all day and come out at night, and I agree that his teeth are continuing to grow so it’s likely he gnaws on the cage all night, but he must get lonely and bored sometimes. Honestly, is there anyway to read the zoo assurances and not hear echoes of the smarmy reassurance “the norwegian blue prefers sleeping on its back“?

I heard from Glynnis Hood yesterday that she uses similar observations to infer the age of the beaver based on its incisor size shown on wood gnawings as Peter Busher. And we studiously checked our chews, finding that marks weren’t all the same size, even on the same pieces of wood, which could mean the different beavers are helping but might also mean that tooth marks change depending on the angle of the head.

Jon had the excellent point, ‘If I chew an apple my teeth marks don’t look the same with every bite”. Which I pointed out to Glynnis and to which she admitted that it hasn’t actually ever been studied and is just an informed guess.

Well then!

Rusty went to Bill Leikam’s fox talk last night at the Napa Library and saw this on his way home. Lucky bastard. 🙂

Three States and Counting

heidi08 Beaver Anatomy, Beaver Chewing, Beavers, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? May 10, 2017

There was a rickety bridge I used to cross when I walked across the creek to my volunteer job back in the long-agoes. Every time I did so I began by carefully considering whether the rotten old thing would be strong enough to hold me one more time. In the back of my mind I knew I should give up and go the long way – but the long way was very long. And the parts of the bridge without holes were pretty sturdy looking. Eventually I would pick my way across the strongest bits surprised that the thing which looked so worn out still had strength left in it. In all those years I never fell 25 feet to my death and it never failed me.

I’m hoping that our democracy is like that bridge this morning. Meanwhile, let’s talk about beavers.

Beaver Phys.org has a very nice story about climate change and our favorite topic, so this article about the Wildlife Conservation Society is exactly the right place to start. I especially love the title:

The latest weapons against climate change: The beaver, the oyster, cold water and more…

Beavers, high elevation streams, and oyster reefs are just three of the weapons in the fight against climate change discussed in 14 Solutions to Problems Climate Change Poses for Conservation, a new report released today by WCS.

From re-introduced beavers restoring the water storage capacity of ecosystems in Utah and Washington, to redesigned culverts that accommodate flooding in Upstate New York, the report showcases 14 inventive “real-world” solutions to a warming climate threatening wildlife and ecosystems worldwide.

Solutions profiled include traditional and innovative conservation tools applied strategically to address climate change impacts such as decreasing water availability, increasing risk of flooding and wildfires, rising sea levels, direct effects on species and habitats, and changing land use and human behaviors.

WCS Climate Adaptation Fund Program Director Darren Long said, “We are thrilled to share our ’14 Solutions’ report, and for others to learn from the adaptation work of those whose projects are showcased here. These solutions are on the leading edge of a field where traditional conservation work is no longer sustainable or strategic in light of climate change.”

One of those fourteen solutions was a grant to the Methow Project in Washington, another was building pretend beaver dams in Montana. Go read the report here, and just be grateful there are little steps we can make to help ourselves, and organizations like WCS to help us do it.

Time to visit Boston College where Beaver researcher Peter Busher has some interesting desk-o-rations. HDr. Busher hasn’t always been what I call a beaver believer, but he’s always been interested in the animal. Go to the website where you can see an interactive page that allows you to click on specific items and learn why they’re on his desk. I am currently wondering if this intriguing fact is true:

You know I’m already off to examine ALL the beaver chews in our house and compare incisor width. I asked a few experts whether they agree, because it’s nothing I ever head before. Oooh interesting.

Now onto Nebraska where their Ground water festival is in full swing. It’s been going on since 1988 so okay, they have us beat. But I’m not exactly impressed with the activity or the teaching about beavers! (Troubling statements will appear in red!)

Fourth-graders learn of key role of beavers and wetlands in nature

Build, Beaver, Build was a new activity presented by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission at the Children’s Groundwater Festival on Tuesday at Central Community College in Grand Island.Monica Macoubrie, wildlife education assistant, quizzed Boone Central fourth-graders about beavers and why they are critical to groundwater.

After her instruction, the kids enjoyed making an edible beaver lodge out of pretzels and chocolate frosting.

“We talk about why beaver dams are so important for groundwater and all the other species that use the wetland areas,” Macoubrie said. “Then they make their own beaver lodges. Lodges are different than dams, and we want to show the kids the difference.”

Macoubrie passed a couple of props, including a beaver skull, around to the students. She told them that beavers are members of the rodent family and that the unique orange coloring of their teeth is characteristic of rodents.

Really? Are rabbit teeth orange? Prairie dog?

Scientists classify beavers as keystone creatures because the ponds and wetlands created by their lodges are also used by many other animals and plants. Macoubrie quizzed the students about what kinds of creatures depend on the wetlands created by beavers.

“Keystone species are anything that affects other animals,” she said. “Without our keystone species, those other animals would not be as abundant as they are.”

Another reason beavers are a keystone species is the fact that half of all threatened and endangered animals in North America rely on wetlands.

“Without those beavers, we would not have half of those animals,” Macoubrie said.

Which half, the front half?

She said beaver populations are doing well in Nebraska.

“They are considered a least concerned species, so we have a lot of them,” Macoubrie said.In fact, Nebraska Game and Parks officials are sometimes called to help relocate beavers when their dams present a flooding problem for property, she said.

Okay, in a metaphysical way, death IS a kind of relocation. The last relocation.

Marcia Lee, festival coordinator, said Cedar Hollow teachers Ashley Dvorak and Lola Hoover attended the festival with 44 students. Dodge Elementary teachers Michelle Carter, Alma Gutierrez, Amy Mingus and Nikki Stevens brought 67 students. Knickrehm Elementary teachers Sydney Gartner and Diane Meyer attended with 32 students. Trinity Lutheran teacher Wendy Heider brought 11 students.

Overall, 744 students attended this year’s festival with 43 teachers from 19 schools. More than 30,000 students have been educated at the festival since 1988. The Nebraska Children‘s Groundwater Festival has been replicated in 41 states in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, India and the United Kingdom.

The Groundwater festival is a big big deal with a big foundation and financial backers. In Platte Nebraska it is focused on regional issues and makes a huge difference. I can’t exactly argue with that and I’m glad they teach about beavers. Fracking pressures are driving water protections down in the region, and for people to learn more about what sustains them seems necessary. I can’t help be curious how much money fracking donates to these festivals. I’m sure its some respectable amount designed to influence and make things appear rosy.

But let’s face it, the ground water festival needs some better beaver education and activity. I think I’ll just drop them a note.

GoPro Goes Beaver

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? May 9, 2017

Today is a great day in beaver-reporting land, because it’s the day that Denise Burchsted showed some ground breaking work to the media in using GoPro cams to film the fish in beaver ponds. If her name sounds vaguely familiar it should, because she’s the very bright mind behind the “River Discontinuum” which I wrote about way back in 2011. She’s the fluvial engineer that wants to apply the lessons of beaver dams to our urban settings, without actually using those pesky beavers.

Field biology shows that GoPro cameras aren’t just for snowboarding daredevils

An important skill for scientists is knowing where to spend your funding, which explains why Keene State College’s Denise Burchsted sounded proud when she described her protocol for studying beaver ponds: “Rather than investing in winches to pull undergraduate students out of the muck, I invested in a few GoPro cameras.”

Don’t worry, KSC parents: This assistant professor of environmental studies isn’t abandoning biology majors to the Cheshire County mire. Rather, Burchsted is developing a new – and cheap – way to understand the difficult-to-investigate ponds that are created by beaver dams, which are a focus of her research partly because they haven’t been analyzed as much as you might think.

“It’s hard to study beaver ponds. Boating is usually difficult, because the ponds are too shallow and full of dead trees (“gunk holes,” as my colleague says). Wading is also difficult, because the bottom is incredibly mucky,” is how Burchsted described the situation.

It’s well-known that beaver ponds are important for the New Hampshire’s ecosystem, since they’re rich in nutrients and organic material, and are home to a variety of invertebrates, fish and birds, but even a very basic fact like how many fish live in them is hard to obtain, she said.

The easiest method to determine fish populations is electroshocking, in which fish in part of a stream or lake are stunned by an electric charge and float to the surface for easy counting. That doesn’t work in a cluttered beaver pond, because the stunned fish get caught on all the woody debris. As a result, most beaver-pond population data depends on traps, which can be inaccurate.

Enter the GoPro:

She looked at these small, rugged cameras, best known for their use in making action-filled “selfie” films while skiing, kayaking or mountain climbing, and liked the idea. She knew that one of her students, Mike McGuinness, liked fishing so she thought he’d be just the person to splash through the muck and water, and experiment with ways of placing GoPro cameras in the wild.

“He spent a summer out in the field and looked for fish in beaver ponds with a GoPro camera. It was so much more successful than I would have imagined … There were more than twice as many fish we caught on camera as compared to traps. Not just numbers, but species. With a trap we would get one species, with a camera we’d get three or four,” she said. “We had to develop new methods to count them, there were so many.”

They collected underwater video more than 100 times at sites along 12 rivers and streams in New Hampshire, with an “in-channel” beaver pond having by far the highest number and diversity of fish.

“Some of our favorite videos show fish swimming in and out of a minnow trap, as though there were almost no barrier,” she said – a reflection of why trap data are suspect.

Yes, because seeing something is almost always better than counting it. Think for a moment of all the bogus data saying fish don’t do well near beaver dams. I’m guessing there are lots of variables responsible for the mistake, but this well might be one. Too bad Denise thinks we have to find out how to do this in a beaver-free world.

Interestingly, Burchsted, whose pre-academic life as an engineer involved helping remove human dams to improve river systems, admits she isn’t all that interested in fish and frogs and aquatic bugs: “I am more interested in the nonliving parts” of the environment. But you can’t understand the nonliving parts without understanding what the living parts do to them, hence this research.

What she really wants to accomplish, she said, is to understand how beaver ponds work so we can re-create their benefits in urban environments without having to import beavers, which will promptly fill in all our culverts.

“Beaver ponds are a part of the river system that was here before Europeans, and we want to know what functions they provide, how they contribute to the nutrient cycling,” she said.

“We’re trying to get a handle on what types of functions they are providing – what can we do to provide some of these functions that we’ve lost, that the beavers would be providing for us. (We want) kind of a recipe for what we can do to create more of these places, to support all of the life stages of in-stream habitat, not just fish.”

That’s why she thinks one of the most interesting videos collected by the GoPro “comes from urban Keene, where we see a relatively high density of fish … and a high species richness. It seems possible that these urban locations would provide habitat similar to a beaver pond.”

Pretty cool. But this is science, so it’s not that simple.

Burchsted said the GoPro project was a “proof of concept” and now she’s developing methods and processes to establish its bona fides. She needs to show that the results weren’t a lucky accident but a better reflection of what is going on in these ponds, which provides other researchers confidence in the results.

Okay, good job Denise et al. Now lets do a bunch more research projects showing what happens in beaver ponds, only lets do some of them with folks who want the actual beavers, okay? It’s a mad, mad, world when people who observe beaver benefits don’t want them, and people who study the effect of beavers on fish can’t see the benefits.

But still, baby steps, right?

Dam Smugglers!

heidi08 stupid solutions, Urban beavers, Who's blaming beavers now? May 8, 2017

Here at beaver central we’ve seen beavers and their dams blamed for many things: flooding, power outages, drowning fish, ruined hospital records, giardiasis and homicide. But we’ve never seen this:

Estonia faces cross-border beaver problem

Estonia wants to clear beaver dams from its border with Russia to prevent smugglers and other illegal activity.

The PPA is tendering for a contractor to undertake the work, saying that it’s necessary “due to reasons related to the guarding of the EU’s external border and the prevention of smuggling”.

There is a degree of difficulty to the task which involves the State Borders Act, meaning that trees reaching the border must be cut on the border line, or “from the Russian shoreline without setting foot on Russian land”, ERR says. Who gets custody of fallen trees will be determined by discussions with local Russian officials, and work cannot start on dam clearances until agreements are in place.

On average, 30 beaver dams are removed from the border every year.

Estonia says that the beaver dams are a problem from a national security point of view, especially when it comes to guarding the European Union’s eastern border with Russia.

The verb “to smuggle” means to move goods illegally into or out of a country. So a smuggler is someone who does that. Now I’m a fairly creative woman, I can imagine a lot of things: like talking beavers, flying popes and trails of bread crumbs. But as hard as I try I can’t really imagine how beaver dams aid smugglers. Are the goods floated in the pond and then pulled over the dam? Does a smuggler bury them under the sticks until the patrol guard leaves and then pull them free? Are weapons hidden in the beaver lodge, just waiting for the right moment to cross?

The article doesn’t have any answers unfortunately. So we’re left trying vainly to understand how beaver dams create international disruptions. Maybe you have an idea? Feel free to send it my way. I’ll be happy to share the most creative beaver smuggling stories!

Update: Robin of Napa and Bob of Georgia are both smarter than me. They had the very obvious thought that the dams were used as bridges to cross into the country. Obviously waterways are often borders and dams cross them. Duh! I guess my huge blind spot can be attributed to the fact that it would never enter my mind to commit the sacrilege of walking on a beaver dam.

A little funny from my niece this morning who definitely knows how science and beavers amuse me.

Just the good beaver news

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers and water, Mike Callahan, Who's saving beavers now? May 7, 2017

We had a great day yesterday and were especially happy to meet four separate people before 1 who started out by explaining that they attended “that big meeting to save the beavers way back when.” I was especially happy that the four strangers all said they didn’t speak because everyone there was doing such a great job already. I am always very happy to meet people that didn’t speak at that meeting. Because it means there were so many more people there that I even knew about.

No wonder the city council looked pale!

More good news about the Beaver Institute, still in it’s formative stages. Director Mike Callahan wrote me this week that he had just finished the first grant application.

Yesterday I sent in our first grant application for the Beaver Institute. Hopefully we’ll be awarded $10K from the Animal Welfare Institute, with us providing an equal amount for a big website, training webinars, getting the DVD on-line, and training and certifying flow device installers in 5 states, with a 5 year goal of a network of certified installers in all 49 beaver-inhabited states. We’ll see. Fingers crossed.

I love love LOVE the idea of certified installers. That means no more lying public works employee saying they installed a beaver deceiver because they inserted a broken pipe or half a straw. Will it be like a drivers test? Will their be a written portion?

I heard yesterday that Worth A Dam was awarded our grant from the CCC Fish and Wildlife Commission for the beaver festival activity that will let children earn their wildlife tattoos. Hurray!!! That’s 1000 dollars we won’t have to pay for. Something in me must have wanted to educate the commissioners as well, because this was the opening paragraph of the application:

The importance of beaver and their dams to salmonids, biodiversity, nitrate removal and water storage is becoming ever more widely recognized. In a recent article about restoring beaver populations in the United Kingdom, science writer Alex Riley aptly observed, “A beaver is not just an animal. It is an ecosystem.” This quote starkly illustrates how dramatically beaver presence enriches our creeks, and conversely, how severely beaver removal depletes them. Despite this, and despite the success of management techniques demonstrated for a decade in Martinez, beaver depredation remains common. Last year in this county alone, the 7 beaver depredation permits issued included three for an unlimited take. We do not emphasize enough that every time beaver removal occurs there are significant consequences for fish and wildlife, something that ecological education should strive to correct. With this in mind, our project was designed to teach children the importance of beavers’ role in the ecosystem, highlighting the direct impact they have on other wildlife.

Sometimes I get the weird feeling that getting a PhD in child psychology was the perfect training for doing a kid’s education beaver festival grant. Maybe it was destiny after all?

More good news, there was an excellent article in the Sunday Times yesterday in the UK. The paper is mostly behind a subscriber wall but I could tell from the first two paragraphs I wanted to see the rest. I of course went begging from my friends for help and the Scottish professor from Edinburgh was happy to assist. Thanks!

Busy beavers shore up our defences

If only someone in authority had had the foresight to call for beavers, thousands of flood victims across the country may not have ended up forced out of their homes with nowhere to go.

A new report by Devon Wildlife Trust uses scientific data from a pilot scheme to reveal that the rodent engineers are able to staunch floodwater by using their dams to store it in pools and canals, thereby lessening the impact downriver. The dams, constructed from mud and sticks, leak a continuous stream of water, which allows the ponds to refill during heavy rainfall. Beavers constantly adjust their water systems, increasing the number and size of dams, pools and canals to accommodate the volume of water.

The statistical data, gathered in what is believed to be the only scientific study of its type in the world, reveal that beavers could also be an alternative to hosepipe bans in times of drought because the dams continue to leak water downstream, even when upstream ponds have run dry. In dry parts of America, Coca-Cola has successfully used beavers to replenish water. The trust’s report also found that as water progresses through the beavers’ dams, it is purged of contaminants such as farming fertilisers and silt.

Isn’t that wonderful? Just in case you don’t have a Scottish professor friend, you can go read the whole thing here. But the upshot is that beavers make water better, and we need them in the places where we live because they will help waterways behave better. Ahh!

Finally a wonderful donation to the silent auction came from the Sonoma County Regional Parks Foundation this week. I originally glimpsed this wonderful 50th anniversary shirt on photographers Tom Rusert’s FB feed, and then asked friend Susan Kirks for an introduction to the group producing it, who was able to introduce me to the director, who in addition to promising one was kind enough to introduce me to the artist, Molly Eckler, a local artist in Sebastapol that has done amazing work for Point Reyes, The Laguna Foundation and others. Molly was kind enough offer a slough of posters as well. In fact we’re picking them up this weekend on our way to Safari West and I can’t wait. It’s kind of incredible how the intricate path we have walked these past 10 years links everything so seamlessly together. Thank you to Everyone!