Month: November 2017

Beaver graduates and beaver drop-outs

heidi08 Beaver population, stupid solutions November 21, 2017

Inch by inch, the website is getting closer. Now the lime green is gone and I am starting to feel safer. We also have handy new share buttons that should link to the very post you’re reading, so try them out will you?

In the meantime we can feel sorry for Kentucky who is as surprised that trapping beavers didn’t solve the flooding problem as they are every year to learn that abistinence-only education doesn’t work.

Who would have guessed?

Beavers, and the dam problems, are back

Less than four months after beavers created a blockage in a Richmond neighborhood’s retention facility, flooding homeowners’ yards, a resident in the neighborhood says the creatures are back.

The area the creatures are inhabiting now is about 500 yards from the retention basin in the Banyan community, homeowner Cory Mayer said.

Behind Mayer’s house is a dam believed to have been built by the beavers. The pond is growing. Also, trees in that area show signs of beavers having gnawed on them. The creatures have even brought some of the trees down. Dams have caused some flooding in a neighbor’s yard.

Richmond city manager Richard Thomas said he hired someone who trapped and relocated the guilty beavers. Most likely, the creatures there now are not the same ones responsible for the flooding, wildlife biologist Tom Edwards said.

Edwards, who works with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife, said it’s more likely new beavers have moved in. In areas beavers like — those that include water and trees — it is hard to keep them out.

Sure it’s hard getting new results when you’re trying the same thing over and over again, but we’re Kentucky and we keep trying. It’s difficult work, sure, and sometimes folk get discouraged, but after years of trying we;ve nearly perfected the art of learning very little from experience.

Those finding beavers on their property can’t do much about it. If the beavers there are moved, it’s likely new ones will move in. The only resort is to keep moving them out every time they move in. Though it would be nearly impossible to keep the beavers away, people can defend their trees by wrapping metal fencing material around the trunks. As for the dams beavers build, the only thing to do is remove the beavers and knock out the dam. And keep doing it as the beavers keep returning.

“It’s a constant process,” Edwards said.

But KY is NOTHING if not consistent. They’ll just rip out that dam again and trap a few beavers and then everyone, including the reporter will act surprised when this all happens again in four months. Sound like a plan?

Of course they could install a flow device and control that water once and for all. The beavers would not cause a problem and could stick around using their own territorial beavers to keep others away. It would even save them money and bring in some new wildlife to boot.

Do you think that’s likely to happen? Me either.

Time for some cheerful news from our friends the Devon beavers with a headline I’ve truly never seen before!

Celebrations as River Otter beaver numbers grow

The Devon Wildlife Trust [DWT] says the reintroduction project is going from ‘strength to strength’ and estimates there are 27 animals living along the river, rising from nine when it launched its beaver trial two years ago.

DWT’s Stephen Hussey said: “The beavers are doing well, they are not fast breeders and each pairing will have one litter a year and usually two or four kits.

“It is suggesting there is a lot of room for the beavers and we are a long way from beaver maximum numbers on the river, what is happening is the beavers are spreading along to different territories.”

The charity is now halfway through its project after it was granted a five year licence to study the creature to 2020.

The trial is led in partnership with landowners Clinton Devon Estates and also working with Exeter University, who is co-ordinating research into the impacts the beavers have on the local environment.

Be still my heart. Not only is this article actually the first I’ve ever read expressing appropriate joy at beaver numbers increasing, it is also nearly the first I’ve seen truthfully admitting that their numbers grow slowly.

Someday all this will be behind us and there will be healthy beaver populations in England and Wales and Scotland. I wonder who will surprise and delight us with positive beaver news then?

IT’S NICE TO BE ASKED.

heidi08 Beavers in Wales November 20, 2017

Wales is inviting public comment before it makes a decision about whether or not to reintroduce beavers. I wonder what people will say? Ooh! I know! Call on me!

Opinions sought over beaver reintroduction in Wales

Members of the public will be asked to have their say on plans to reintroduce beavers into the Welsh countryside. Depending on the level of response and issues raised, a final decision could come before the end of the year.

Supporters of the plan believe they will bring environmental and economic benefits, but others remain unconvinced. Beavers were once native to Britain but were hunted to extinction for their fur in the Middle Ages.

The animal has been reintroduced into and in recent years and Natural Resources Wales (NRW) is currently considering an application for a licence to release ten pairs of beavers into the River Cowyn in Carmarthenshire.

The application has been submitted by Wildlife Trusts Wales and the Carmarthenshire-based Bevis Trust, which has three families of beavers penned on its land ready to be released.

Bevis Trust founder Nick Fox believes the experience of beaver reintroduction elsewhere proves that the animals will bring big benefits to the Welsh countryside.

He told Radio Wales’ programme: “Beavers have a key role to play in the ecosystem. They build dams in the slower-flowing small rivers – not in big rivers – and those dams act as natural filters for pollutants and sediment.”

Alicia Leow-Dyke, who oversees the Welsh Beaver Project for Wildlife Trusts Wales, argued beavers would help improve biodiversity.

“Many studies have shown that where you have beavers you have a much richer biodiversity, you have a mosaic of different habitats – and that’s possibly something we have lost in the United Kingdom,” she added.

Dam straight they do! Of course Wales should reintroduce beavers, although I’m going to predict that it won’t matter if you decide to or not, because they will find you all on their own.

This moss guy worries me. I get worried when lies are repeated over and over again without any change. Usually the liar gets called out and reshapes his lie a little. ‘I know beavers don’t eat moss but I’m worries about the wildlife that depends on it” or some such alteration. This is blatant unrefined lying over several months. I call it gansta’.

That is a concern for botanist Ray Woods, who has visited the River Otter in Devon where under licence.

“I asked the question, “What are they eating” and they just said, “Sorry Ray, we don’t know”. What’s been the impact on all these masses of mosses and liverworts and lichens that are absolutely bang full of useful pharmaceuticals?”

I’ve said before and I’ll say again, there is NO EARTHLY WAY that Ray ever asked anyone involved with the beavers in Devon what they eat and got the response “We don’t know!” for an answer. Unless he asked a gas station attendant or a delivery man.The beavers in Devon are some of the best observed, best studied, best researched any where in the world. There is no way they have not counted every blade of grass or sapling the beavers have nibbled.

I hate to get all biblical on you but I can’t resist Luke 12:24

Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?

It just so happens, Ray, that beavers are WAY more responsible than ravens. They both reap and sow, in a manner of speaking. In fact sometimes. In fact beavers are sometimes called “Willow farmers” because as streams get wetter and more complex willow or aspen appears in more places.

More beavers means more trees.
And more trees means MORE lichens and mosses.
Not less.

Sheesh! Get a new lie, will you?

Bob Kobres of Georgia wrote yesterday that he misses the left margin and he disliked the loading diamonds. I don’t have power over margins but VOILA! The diamonds are gone! And about those share buttons, if you click on the post they appear at the bottom of the page. OR if you use the share buttons at the top they will post this very column.

And check out the ID hint menu. It’s fun. We’re finding our way in the new world.

Foolish Things

heidi08 Beavers November 23, 2017

I spent yesterday moving the digital furniture and making the drop down menus look the way I wanted them to. Please humor me by going to look at them and telling me what needs fixing. Rusty of Napa wrote a couple suggestions about including photos so that they could be clicked on to make them bigger – and suggested adding some social sharing buttons. Of course they were working but just no stopped, but the picture thing works right?

Meanwhile Scott says he’ll get rid of the lime green next week, and Bruce updated the domain name for another year, so brace yourself: you’ll be stuck with me that long at least!

In honor of this auspicious occasion, Upstate New York was kind enough to publish this very amusing article. It starts out pleasantly enough but has one of the very best beaver mistakes I’ve read in recent years. Enjoy!

Sandra Scott Travels: Witness The Prowess Of Beaver Engineering

Last week I asked: Where can you see a beaver dam in the making? Near the Amboy 4-H Environmental Education Center.

John and I decided it was a great time to check out a beaver dam we had heard about. Beaver dams are an amazing feat of engineering. We didn’t see any beavers, but I think it was because there was a family with young children just leaving the area. Walk quietly if you go and you may be luckily enough to see the beavers.

They carry the mud to build the dam on their tummy.

Ahhh there it is! Imagine if you will, the series of misunderstandings necessary to convince oneself that beavers carry mud on their tummies! If this was a west coast article I’d be inclined to say they had seen sea otters breaking shells on a rock on their tummies, but that surely never happened in New York?

Nope, there’s simply no accounting for this. And since the author never actually saw a beaver we can assume that this “fact” was given to her by the naturalist, or seen in a display. I might have to right them and ask about it, but for now I’m just going to amuse myself with the notion of a round bodied beaver floating on his back carrying mud on his tummy towards the dam. Maybe paddling with his tail?

Heh heh.

Speaking of unbelievable things, 25 years ago today my dissertation committee officially gathered in a small windowless room for the last time to approve my research, making me an official Ph.D. Unlike the oral defense, this was a peaceful, mostly bloodless gathering, and no scalps were taken. The head of the committee was a brilliant, awkward man who bobbed when he spoke like we were all at sea. The technical wizard who helped with data analysis was busily recalculating my figures on his watch (beep beep) while we spoke, and the other member had just given birth and was breast feeding quietly. In between their comments and questions, tiny sounds of pleasure would come from the infant and brighten the room. “Ah!”

And then, after 9 years of college it was finally finished, and I had a doctorate. Who knew I be using what’s left of that education to save beavers?

And therefore as a stranger give it welcome!

heidi08 Devon Beavers November 18, 2017

I spent yesterday getting familiar with this new ‘hood. Check out the wide column on the right, which is easy to add to and fiddle with. It’s easy to embed video or audio and even easy to link to particular pages! Notice that the images across the bar are randomized and will be different when you come back, which I very much appreciate. I love the gallery feature at the bottom margin. A girl could get used to this luxury.

Now if I could ONLY figure out how to change the lime green bars at the top. Honestly I had a nightmare about lime green once in graduate school. It is my LEAST favorite color ever invented,

Let’s visit a fellow blogger today, Philip Strange of the UK, who is very excited to have beavers living nearby, for obvious reasons.

Beavers live here! Rewilding on the River Otter in East Devon

Four years ago, a family of wild beavers were spotted on the river Otter in East Devon. This was the first report of the animal breeding successfully in the wild in England since the species had been hunted to extinction more than 400 years ago. No one knows how the animals came to be on the river but their prospering population is now the subject of a scientific trial providing a unique opportunity to monitor the re-introduction of a native species, or “rewilding” as it is sometimes called.

I wanted to find out more, so one evening in mid-September, I met Kate Ponting, Countryside Learning Officer for Clinton Devon Estates, at the village green in Otterton. Kate has been closely involved with the beaver re-introduction trial, taking place as it does on land largely owned by her employer. We headed to the river, crossed the old stone bridge and walked upstream along the muddy riverside path. Banks of Himalayan balsam and nettles dominated the river bank while, on the landward side, clover leys spread as far as the low embankment that once carried the railway. Prominent official signs warned that “Beavers live here” and Kate explained that there had been some local problems with dogs.

The river was full after recent heavy rain but the scene was tranquil in the low evening sunshine. We paused on the wooden bridge where Kate pointed out one beaver lodge, a semi-organised jumble of mud, sticks and branches protruding nearly a metre from the river bank and covering the entrance to a burrow where the beavers live. Further up the river we stopped to watch a second lodge on the far bank. Kate had warned me that the beavers had become less “reliable” as the autumn progressed and, although a wren flittered about the sticks making up the lodge and a grey wagtail passed through, we saw no beavers. Kate did, however, show me some signs of beaver activity including severed branches and one felled tree.

Don’t you just love beavers for being the same in Devon as they were in Martinez? Changing their schedules with the sun? (Or visa versa. ) Since their lives are probably not driven by alarm clocks – they probably think WE are less reliable in the fall. They are doing what they usually do, impervious to the sun or the weather. It’s us that change.

These are, however, early days and, as the number of beavers continues to rise, their presence in this managed East Devon landscape may cause tensions. There is good evidence from Bavaria, where the animals were re-introduced 50 years ago, that beavers can have a beneficial influence on rivers. They support wildlife by opening up the landscape, creating coppice and diversifying the wetland habitat. Their dams regulate river flows and remove sediment and pollutants. Sometimes, however, they can be a nuisance to those who live and work by rivers, causing flooding, blocking ditches, undermining river banks and felling important trees. There are now as many as 20,000 beavers on Bavaria’s rivers and their beneficial effects are clearly recognised alongside the need to manage the animals when their activity has a negative impact. Hopefully, a similar resolution can be reached for the East Devon beavers as their population grows. Whatever the outcome, the River Otter Beaver Trial will be closely watched by those interested in “rewilding” the landscape.

Evidence out of Bavaria? How about out of EVERYWHERE? But sure, okay, Bavaria too. Beavers are good for streams. Period. And any stream without several is broken and needs fixing. Fortunately for us all, beavers don’t hold a grudge. They will happily recolonize the same waters where they were persecuted for centuries.

New Territory Ahead

heidi08 Beavers and salmon, Beavers and water November 17, 2017

If you were crazy enough to visit the website yesterday you probably saw something that looked like this telling you we were closed for maintenance. Of course from my perspective I saw something much, much scarier, One huge photo, no photos at all. One time the screen was even black and red. It was quite a day.

I‘m guessing Scott is busily untangling wires as I type, I’m trying to imagine what the finish state will be. At the moment I just know that his vision is way less cluttered than mine. I think of this website like a really rich library crowed with interesting-looking books you might never get around to reading but want definitely want to explore someday. I want it to be a space you could spend hours comfortably exploring or a space you could visit every day and still not see everything. I want it to be immersive and inviting.

But I want the information to be accessible too.

I’m sure we’ll figure out the balance eventually! In the meantime you should take time to enjoy this article about beavers in the tundra where they wonder if beavers moving in will make more habitat for salmon.

Beavers making themselves at home in an unlikely place: Alaska’s northwestern tundra

“It’s kind of the next wildlife you’d expect in tundra, but with much bigger implications,” he said. With their dams and new lakes that hold warmish water, beavers of the tundra ecosystem are thawing permafrost soils through their actions. Beavers could be “priming arctic streams for the establishment of salmon runs” that now don’t exist, maybe because extreme northern waters are too cold for egg development.

Tape and co-authors Ben Jones, Chris Arp, Ingmar Nitze, Guido Grosse and Christian Zimmerman are writing about those changes in a paper with the working title, “Tundra be Dammed: Beaver Colonization of the Arctic.”

“We do not know how beavers reached the Beaufort Coastal Plain, but they would have had to cross a mountain range or swim in the sea,” wrote Yukon biologist Tom Jung, who recently saw a beaver dam and winter store of food just 15 miles south of the Arctic Ocean in northern Yukon Territory.

I’m not so sure it’s that big of a surprise for beavers to swim through the ocean to colonize new places. They are much better than this than you think. But I hope you get lucky and get beavers soon! You will be richly rewarded.