Month: December 2017

HE STARTED IT!

heidi08 Beavers and climate change December 21, 2017

This is what irresponsible reporting does in high places. It spawns a flurry of copycats that send tendrils around the panicked planet. I saw three such headlines this morning. How many will there be tomorrow?

You have an awful lot to be sorry for, New York Times.

Hordes of Beavers Are Invading Alaska’s Tundra

Research shown at last week’s American Geophysical Union meeting revealed that everyone’s favorite rodent has been using sticks to build dams on the Alaska’s treeless tundra. The colonization is reshaping the geography of the north and could allow other animals to follow beavers into the brave new warming world.

It also comes with a downside, though. The dams create ponds that help keep beavers wet, but those ponds also contribute to melting permafrost. That releases methane and carbon dioxide, speeding us toward a hotter future. While it’s not like beavers are going to overtake humans anytime soon as the dominant drivers of climate change, the findings are another unmistakable sign of unexpected changes overtaking our planet.

Turns out beavers are getting busy everywhere. Of the 83 sites researchers identified as potential beaver hot spots, 60 were being impacted by beaver activity. In some cases, they could see beaver dams be built, fail, and be rebuilt again.

Why the beavers are moving into the tundra is an open question. Climate change may play a role, but it’s highly speculative at this point. Ken Tape, a University of Alaska, Fairbanks researcher working on the project, said it’s difficult to know if trappers hunted beavers off the tundra prior to the start of the aerial photography.

“The beavers are very well adapted to working with what they have,” Jones said.

HORDES OF BEAVERS!

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

HIDE YOUR WIVES AND CHILDREN!

Good Lord, how many times can a reasonable woman be expected to slap her forehead in one morning! Now in addition to the many trappers, farmers and oil drillers against beavers, this post in on EARTHER means there will be some greenie liberal types that hate them as well.

Beavers are such big meanies hurrying climate change!

You know, the word “hordes” has two definitions. The first is of course deragatory and means lots of massing individuals. But the second comes to us from anthropology, and is defined as

“a loosely knit small social group typically consisting of about five families.”

There now, that doesn’t sound so bad, does it?

THE NEW YORK TIMES LOSES ITS MIND AGAIN

heidi08 Beavers and Ice December 20, 2017

It’s amazing how beavers can stroll blithely along the countryside, nibbling things and minding their own business and suddenly make an otherwise perfectly sane institution lose its frickin’ mind. I mean suddenly all the normally important distinctions between cause and effect go RIGHT out the window, and researchers are left with gibberish.

Case in point? This mornings NYT

Beavers Emerge as Agents of Arctic Destruction

Even as climate change shrinks some populations of arctic animals like polar bears and caribou, beavers may be taking advantage of warming temperatures to expand their range. But as the beavers head north, their very presence may worsen the effects of climate change.

The issue isn’t just that the beavers are moving into a new environment — it’s that they’re gentrifying it.

Take the dams they build on rivers and streams to slow the flow of water and create the pools in which they construct their dens. In other habitats, where the dams help filter pollutants from water and mitigate the effects of droughts and floods, they are generally seen as a net benefit. But in the tundra, the vast treeless region in the Far North, beaver behavior creates new water channels that can thaw the permanently frozen ground, or permafrost.

“When you start flooding areas with permafrost you immediately trigger permafrost degradation,” said Ken Tape, an assistant professor at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks who has researched the beavers. “You start thawing the frozen ground that’s holding the soil together, and that water and soil and other things are washed away.”

What remains is a pitted landscape, with boggy depressions, that directs warmer water onto the permafrost, leading to further thawing. As permafrost thaws it releases carbon dioxide and methane, which in turn contributes to global warming and helps increase the speed that the Arctic, which is already warming faster than the rest of the planet, defrosts. Worldwide, permafrost is estimated to contain twice as much carbon as is currently in the atmosphere.

Oh sure. It’s the beavers. Blame them for this melting permafrost and our collapsing polar bears. Because it surely can’t be our fault for destroying the planet with carbon and passing a tax bill that allows drilling in ANWAR yesterday.

Hey, wait a minute. Where is ANWAR anyway?

Gosh’ I bet it’s harder to drive all those rigging trucks across marshy unfrozen land, You better kill all the beavers you see right away. And just to make sure you don’t catch any flack for it, say you’re doing it to prevent release of green house gasses See if you can make NYT do a story on it. They’ll saying anything bad about beavers.

Yeahhh….that’s the ticket.

A mere 4 months ago the alzheimer-plagued gray lady released a very helpful melting permafrost interactive. And beavers weren’t even to blame. Go figure.

Alaska’s permafrost, shown here in 2010, is no longer permanent. It is starting to thaw.

YUKON DELTA NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Alaska — The Arctic is warming about twice as fast as other parts of the planet, and even here in sub-Arctic Alaska the rate of warming is high. Sea ice and wildlife habitat are disappearing; higher sea levels threaten coastal native villages.

But to the scientists from Woods Hole Research Center who have come here to study the effects of climate change, the most urgent is the fate of permafrost, the always-frozen ground that underlies much of the state.

Starting just a few feet below the surface and extending tens or even hundreds of feet down, it contains vast amounts of carbon in organic matter — plants that took carbon dioxide from the atmosphere centuries ago, died and froze before they could decompose. Worldwide, permafrost is thought to contain about twice as much carbon as is currently in the atmosphere.

That was then this is now, I guess. The story today did release some beautiful satellite maps showing the changes they were blaming on beavers. The maps start with 1950 and progress to 2012. It looks to me like an ad campaign promoting how valuable they are on the landscape.

But I’m told I’m quirky.

The moral of this story that the new york times missed? Here’s my takeaway. If you’re going to have climate change anyway (and we are) you are WAY BETTER OFF if you have it with beavers. Period.

“Beavers are these agents of disturbance that come from outside of the ecosystem and impose their construction, their activities on this landscape,” said Dr. Tape. “Probably the best analog for beavers in the Arctic are mankind.”

RANGER RICK COMES TO MARTINEZ

heidi08 Ranger Rick December 19, 2017

A few weeks ago I was contacted by Hannah Schardt, the senior editor of Ranger Rick magazine, regarding the May 2018 issue which will contain a 3-page spread of Suzi Eszterhas photos and the Martinez beaver story. She asked for input and then sent the layout and text of the article for me to comment on. I am very happy that this story mentions the flow device, mentions the benefits of beavers and mentions the beaver festival! Plus it has wonderful beaver photos and great kid photos as well. I’ve even received permission to shout it from the rooftops, so now is a great chance to renew your Ranger Rick subscription!

I just made this mock-up for fun. Sadly, we won’t be on the cover. (We would have if tragedy hadn’t struck and our kits hadn’t died so Suzi had been able to get more photos like she planned.) I’m just happy its finally happening.

I have already asked if they might share extras with children at the beaver festival. Maybe I’ll bring a copy to the mayor?

IT’S ALWAYS A WOMAN…

heidi08 Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? December 18, 2017

Yesterday was filled with bad beaver news and so depressing. Time for some Christmas cheer again. This time from Seguin township in Canada, across Lake Huraon from Michigan.

Seguin property owners wants beaver pond; township worried about road

SEGUIN TWP. – As the township pulls apart a beaver dam, the property owner across the way is hoping more beavers will move in and give her back the pond she used to have. The township said it’s not trying to destroy the dam, it’s simply trying to maintain the depth of the pond to protect the road they are doing reconstruction work on.

In the summer of 2015 a beaver dam on Clear Lake Road broke for a second time in less than a year, flooding a section of road further down where a creek flows under the road and, still today, the water level in the pond that sits partially on Diane Dow’s property is below what it used to be. The blame for that, said Dow, sits squarely on the shoulders of the township, which had trapped the adults leaving none to maintain their dam.

And now, she said, the township is pulling apart the beaver dam across the road and calling her for permission to go on her land to break the dam there. She’s having none of it. She wants the pond to return to what it was when she built her home there, she wants the moose, bear, and otters; she certainly doesn’t want to see the beavers facing starvation, freezing temperatures and predation if the water level drops and their homes become exposed.

“There has never been an issue with this road … until they started trapping the beavers,” she said.

Dow reached out to Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary to help with the situation. Aspen’s managing director Howard Smith said breaking a beaver dam at this time of year is “cruel …. now they are all set up for winter.”

Not only that, beaver ponds create habitat for many other animals including birds and amphibians. He recommends Seguin use a pipe through the dam to control water depth.

How much do you LOVE Diane Dow? We’re pretty fond of her ourselves. Imagine wanting to protect a beaver pond when your city wants it gone. It takes a special kind of woman and a bunch of her friends to do that, I can tell you!

Now what’s this ‘pipe’ that Howard guy is talking about? What a crazy idea. Do they even work?

Mitigating infrastructure loss from beaver flooding: A cost–benefit analysis

Glynnis A. Hood, Varghese Manaloor & Brendan Dzioba

Abstract

We installed 12 pond levelers to counter flooding by beavers and developed a cost–benefit analysis for these sites in Alberta, Canada. We also documented beaver management approaches throughout Alberta. Over 3 years, one site required regular maintenance until we designed a modified pond leveler; another required minor modifications. Others required almost no maintenance. Based on a “willingness-to-pay” (WTP) of $0 and discount rate of 3%, installing pond levelers resulted in a present value net benefit of $81,519 over 3 years and $179,440 over 7 years. Scenarios incorporating discount rates of 3% and 7%, horizons of either 3 or 7 years, and varying WTPs resulted in significant net benefits. Provincially, municipalities employed up to seven methods to control beavers: most commonly lethal control and dam removal. Total annual costs provided by 48 municipalities and 4 provincial parks districts were $3,139,223; however, cost-accounting was sometimes incomplete, which makes this a conservative estimate.

BEAVERS ARE NOTHING BUT TROUBLE THEY SAY

heidi08 What's killing beavers now? December 17, 2017

You shouldn’t be thinking, just because there have been several glorious days of beaver reporting, you shouldn’t be thinking that public opinion against them has finally tipped and it’s smooth sailing from here in.

You shouldn’t think that because it isn’t true. Beavers still face plenty of hardship and for every good story I am lucky enough to review here, there are a dozen of these. Maybe more.

Today we’re balance the scales a bit.

Gloomy fate for Bear Creek beavers

While the Sodalis Nature Preserve is best known for its bat population, a wide assortment of wildlife actually calls the almost 200-acre park home. That list of animals shrank recently after three beavers were trapped and destroyed after damaging or bringing down several trees along the shore of Bear Creek.

Andy Dorian, director of the Hannibal Parks and Recreation Department, said that live trapping the rodents and relocating them “would be the hope” of the city. However, he added that such decisions would be left up to the Missouri Department of Conservation, whom he contacted for help.

“Whatever their normal protocol is,” said Dorian. “We don’t have any ability to trap beavers at the Parks Department, so we have to rely on their expertise.”

According to Don Clever, Jr., conservation agent, live trapping wasn’t a viable option.“Relocation just doesn’t work,” he said. “Live traps aren’t accessible. We don’t have very many of them throughout the state. “It’s more efficient when we go in and use kill traps. That’s why they’re set under water, where nothing can get into them other than water mammals.” Trapping beaver can be a chore.

Beaver territory .This was not the first time beavers have taken up residence along Bear Creek.

“Ever since I’ve been here there have been beavers on Bear Creek,” said Dorian. “I think some years they are more prevalent than others. We had some pretty good ones last year and then the problem just went away. We never did any trapping last year.

“It was becoming a safety hazard,” said Clever of the damage to trees the beavers had done. “I’m sure the city is going to have to go in and cut a couple of trees down that the beavers were chewing on before they fall across the (Sodalis) bridge. They ringed some trees that are still standing and dropped several others.”

Falling trees were not Dorian’s only beaver-related concern.

“There’s always the fear of bank destabilization. What you don’t want to do is lose a bunch of trees and your bank becomes eroded out and then you lose part of your trail. That’s something you have to look out for,” he said. “You also have to look out for damming so you don’t have a big pool of water backing up which floods a big area.”

Now never mind that Sodalis is a nature preserve and beavers are, in fact, nature. The park was designated as a conservation site for bats. Apparently trees are too hard to wrap in Missouri.. Forget all those studies that say that beavers are actually GOOD for bats. This is Hannibal and we don’t need your highfalutin research around these parts. And my name is Don Clever Jr!

What do you mean ‘misnomer’?

Wind Lake canal has a beaver problem

A handful of beavers have become a little too industrious for the likes of some people living on the Wind Lake Canal. Officials from the Wind Lake Management District and the Town of Norway are both looking toward resolving the problem.

The lake area has experienced a number of beaver problems over the course of the past eight to 10 years, according to Jim Marks, chairman of the Wind Lake Management District.

“The beaver population is always there,” Marks said.

The district’s main beaver issue at the moment is a dam built by the creatures in the middle of the Wind Lake Canal, the channel that connects Big Muskego Lake in Waukesha County and Wind Lake in Racine County.

“That’s currently our major problem area,” Marks said.

Marks estimated that the dam, built in the center of the stream, is about 2 feet above the water level. He speculated that four to five beavers are likely to blame.Marks said he was alerted to the issue between three to four months ago.

“The residents are very concerned,” he said.

Wisconsin doesn’t like those pesky beavers either. I mean why would a lake-side home owner expect to have to deal with a problem like that, I ask you. Beavers are completely unheard of in those areas! The article goes on to say there isn’t actually a problem right now, but they’re worried it might become a problem in the future. Beaver problems are always anticipated. Just as they were in Martinez.

Thank goodness the criminal justice system doesn’t work like that. “Sure she isn’t a criminal now, but she looks like she might cause problems down the road.”

Cost of repairs compounds problem of beaver dams flooding road in Charlton

CHARLTON, MA – While killing beavers and breaching their dams to stop the flooding that closed Guelphwood Road is at a stall, town officials grapple with a new obstacle in the effort to reopen the road.

“Everywhere you look, there’s a problem with this project. It’s not just trapping the beaver,” Charlton Highway Superintendent Gerry C. Foskett told selectmen last week.

For more than a decade, incessant beaver-induced flooding has plagued a small portion of the road that connects Charlton and Southbridge, causing temporary closings several times a year.

Mr. Foskett closed it indefinitely more than two years ago and began efforts to permanently solve the beaver problem, which reaches past the town boundary into Southbridge.

Permanently solve the beaver problem? Are you suggesting installing culvert protection them or raising the road? I’m so surprised. People hardly ever find permanent solutions to beaver problems.

Perennial trapping, the report says, would ensure beavers don’t rebuild and reflood the roadway.

Wait, what hat does perennial mean again? Websters defines it as

Perennial: continuing without interruption

That sounds about right. So Charlton can solve this problem if we just keep paying for it over and over again. Are you sure ‘solve’ is the right word?

Charlton Conservation Agent Todd Girard told selectmen he got a permit to breach a dam in Southbridge but he also needs a permit from the health board to trap while dismantling dams in the summer months, which is off season for open trapping.

“If we can’t obtain these trapping permits from the town of Southbridge, I’ll never be able to de-water this site and I’ll never be able to have a safe passage for this road,” he said. “It was very challenging working with another municipality, and I was a little frustrated because they are not looking at the full picture.”

The plan to kill beavers outraged local animal rights activists, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals had launched a petition.

“It seemed that the people on the Board of Health were more concerned with their individual political protection of a beaver than over opening the road for human safety,” Mr. Girard said.

Gosh, the city of Charlton is really in a tight place. You are in between a beaver and a hard place. I feel for you. I guess lasting solutions like Mike Callahan of Beaver Solutions could provide are out of the question. I mean how far is Charlton from Southampton, anyway?