Month: January 2018

UNSOLVED BEAVER MYSTERIES

heidi08 Beaver Art January 31, 2018

A month ago I stumbled on this illustration while searching for possible donations to the silent auction at the beaver festival. It was offered by a very unfriendly sort of woman on Etsy who told me crisply to never contact her again. Bob Kobres of Georgia found other illustrations like it, but we still didn’t know their origin. Originally I assumed it was from Canada because of the wildlife, but no Canadian I asked recognized anything about it.

I checked with the library of congress and the national archives who decided they didn’t recognize it either. That made me think it wasn’t from this hemisphere after all, so I showed to our European beaver friends. Along the way I learned how to do a reverse image google search and I looked that way as well. The only place the images came up was the etsy site I originally saw them on and our website!

Except for the bat. The bat one was offered as a card also on this website.

I contacted the owner of the sight and asked her about the image. She said she had come across it in a secondhand shop the 70’s in Massachusetts, sold as a single 9×7 print with no other information but a line of text reading “At the low dark entrance to the cave she stopped”.

She loved immediately that the girl showed no sign of fear entering the cave, because she herself was interested in encouraging more young woman to go into natural sciences. She noted it was an old yellowed print already, and reproduced it as a card.

Polly Pearhouse of the Scottish beavers group didn’t recognize the artwork but thought the clothing looked Germanic (Bavarian) especially. That prompted me to ask my German beaver contacts. Our old friend Alex Hiller wrote that he didn’t recognize it, nor did Dietland Muller-Swarze when I asked. Gerhard Schroder didn’t know. Duncan Haley of Norway agreed that it could be German but suggested any Scandinavian country also.

This brave little girl who stumbled into the forest has been all around the world in such a short time now. Everywhere she has gone people fall in love with the illustration even thought they know nothing at all about its origin. I am reminded of William Golding’s book The princess bride which opens by saying “This is my favorite book in the world, though I have never read it.”

My fondness for this mystery maiden has grown over the search, and I remain committed to resurrecting her story!

In the meantime, our friends taking care of the beavers in Devon shared this on youtube after it aired recently on the BBC. I like everything about it but the part where they examine the yearling which made me squeamish. The rest is excellent. Enjoy!

PROTECTING WETLANDS

heidi08 Beavers and Nitrates January 30, 2018

A few reminders came this morning of how valuable beaver habitat can be. Here is an actual headline from Alberta:

Province taking extra steps to protect wetlands near S.W. ring road

The company constructing the southwest portion of the ring road has been ordered to protect Beaver Pond and put in extra time monitoring of the wetlands. KGL Constructors and Alberta Transportation will monitor the water quality and quantity in the pond.

The decision follows the Environmental Appeals Board reviewing the situation, after concerns were launched by residents in the area and the group YYC Cares. Jeff Brookman, with the group, is pleased with the province’s actions.

Be careful of the beaver pond! We talked about this group months ago when they protested work on the ring road threatening their beaver pond. Now they won the right to insist that those wetlands be protected. Good for them!

Wetlands are important. And good for business as this research shows.

Study shows wetlands provide landscape-scale reduction in nitrogen pollution

High nitrate concentrations in waterways can be harmful to ecosystems and human health, contaminating drinking water and eventually flowing downstream far enough to increase the size of the Gulf of Mexico’s “dead zone.”

A study published today in the journal Nature Geoscience by National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded researchers offers new insights into this problem: Multiple wetlands, or “wetland complexes” in a watershed, are extremely effective at reducing nitrate levels in rivers and streams.

Wetland complexes can be five times better at reducing nitrate than the best land-based nitrogen mitigation strategies, the scientists say.

Honestly, I sometimes feel like all these researchers are beaver lobbyists without knowing it. Certainly they promote the very things beavers are blamed for doing every day. Recently I started to think about what it would be like if beavers had a ‘business card’ they could present to recommend their services. I came up with this which amused me very much.

And on the back:

Vistaprint is having a sale so I might just have to make some up. I just love the idea of handing these out to nonbelievers.

THE WILLINGNESS TO ACCEPT WHAT THEY CANNOT CHANGE

heidi08 Who's saving beavers now? January 29, 2018

There are wonderful things from Canada today, from the western side to be precise. The first is an almost entirely fine article about the Elk River Alliance embracing our flat-tailed friends (if by embracing you mean holding with two fingers at a distance.)

Elk River Alliance makes beavers their friends

Beavers can be a real pain.

The traditional solution is to simply rid of them—but the Elk River Alliance says that there’s a better solution for these animals, who also provide critical benefits to the ecosystem.

The group has launched an initiative called Accepting Beavers and enhancing Wetlands, which is a partnership with the City of Fernie to enhance the McDougall Wetland, as well as the West Fernie Wetland.

ABEW? Seriously? That’s the best acronym you could come up with?

“Beavers are rather vilified creatures,” said Lee-Ann Walker, with the Elk River Alliance. “They create problems for landowners.”

She says that while many see the animals as nothing short of a nuisance, they in fact provide key benefits to wetlands.

The dams act as sediment filters, and habitats for many beneficial insects like dragon flies and even juvenile fish.

“How do we learn to live with beavers and use beavers to our benefit?” she said.

The solution is a device called a pond-leveling device. The mechanism is a pipe that allows water to flow through the dam, with caging around it so the beavers can’t stop the flow.

Well I’m almost a fan. I’ve seen some images of your ‘pipe’ though, and you clearly weren’t trained by Mike Callahan or Skip Lisle or even Adrian Nelson. Still, I’m hopeful.

“It’s a balancing act,” said Walker, explaining that the device manages the water, protects the beavers and satisfies landowners.

The group is also wrapping trees with wire in order to prevent beavers from felling them.

“We’re humans, we have bigger brains than beavers—can’t we outsmart them?” said Walker. “Pond leveling devices are a much better solution.”

She says that as rodents, they’re difficult to eradicate. She says that residents should also avoid breaking out beaver dams not only because the beavers come back and build it twice as large, but because the dams are highly beneficial to wetland ecosystems.

“They’re not doing it because they want to make your life difficult,” she said. “We’re not going to get rid of beavers. Let’s just learn to live with them.”

Is it appropriate to call that advocacy really? Well if saving beavers has taught me NOTHING else its taught me that there aren’t enough allies in the world to be picky. WELCOME ABOARD ABEW! We need all the friends we can get!

This was uploaded yesterday to the Canadian Geographic photography page with the following description. Isn’t it lovely?

Uploaded by James Brohman on 28 Jan 2018

“Beavers play a critical role in creating and maintaining wetlands in North America which many plants and animal species require for survival. Without these masterful animals, much biodiversity would be lost.”

BEAVERS AND THE WEATHER?

heidi08 Beavers and climate change January 28, 2018

Yesterday Jon and I were startled to see our first butterfly of the year, a lone Mourning Cloak in Susana Park. Since it’s January we assumed it was confused, or over eager. But Jon observed more on his longer walk in Franklin Hills. I saw my first popcorn tree burst with blossoms on the way home. The climate is changing whether we like it or not. But maybe there is something we can do about it.

Weather from the Ground Up: How Biodiversity Can Help Shape Local Climate

We generally don’t think we can do much about the weather. Expert prediction and analysis, such as that from Weather Underground, help us prepare for storms, cold and hot spells, errant jet streams, and the like. But the weather seems to insist on having a will of its own.

On a local level, however, there’s much we can do to affect a number of weather factors—temperature, for example. What makes the temperature difference is water, shade, and ground cover. Nature’s rule is that healthy soils are never bare—asphalt is the equivalent of very bare soil, made worse by its low albedo, i.e., low reflectivity and increased heat absorption. Here’s one place where water comes in: it’s a great temperature buffer. It’s the lack of water that causes day-night temperature extremes in deserts, for example. With abundant and strategic use of soils, plants and biodiversity to capture and cycle water, local temperatures, including heat-island effects in cities, may be significantly moderated.

There is growing evidence that we humans may have far more control over the meteorology above our heads than we think. We can create weather more to our liking—and beneficial for our survival and that of many species—by paying attention to the soils, plants and other living creatures underfoot and all around us.

Isn’t that interesting? To think that we create the weather around us? We know that lush trees create micro climates, and that beaver ponds can act as micro climates on the landscape, but I admit I never thought of it in larger terms before. Or as a function of biodiversity.

Riparian zones (the areas around creeks and rivers) are the lifelines of arid and semi arid regions, and often corridors of great biologic diversity. Recovery of the riparian zone (sedges, rushes, willows) is the first step in restoring floodplain function. Riparian areas can and do respond to changes in grazing in just one or two growing seasons where the water table is available to the riparian plants, even in areas with as little as 9 inches of annual precipitation.

In northeast Nevada, an old, broadened-out gully called Susie Creek (see figure below) changed dramatically within the first few years following the change in grazing management. 15 years into the project, beavers showed up on their own, making a major contribution with their water engineering skills. Even after a four-year drought (2012–2015) in which other ranere having to truck in water, the Susie Creek area still had perennial ponds and streams.

This work was a collaboration among many participants, including federal and state agencies and Maggie Creek Ranch, led by fisheries biologist Carol Evans—who wanted to bring the Lahontan Cutthroat Trout back to Susie Creek—and rancher Jon Griggs, who wanted grass and water for his herd. (See video of Carol and Jon telling their story here). If we can do this in Nevada, we should be able to do it just about anywhere!

Figure 4. Restoring floodplain function: Susie Creek in Elko in northeastern Nevada on Sept. 25, 1989 (left) and Sept. 11, 2015 (right). Nevada is the driest state in the U.S., with less than 10” of annual rainfall. The 2015 photo was taken at the end of one of the region’s worst four-year droughts on record. Image credits: Carol Evans, Elko District, Bureau of Land Management.

Of course water cycles, It changes forms and rises as vapor and returns as rain and dew. So having more available water in the creeks and water tables is going to affect its cycle. It seems so obvious when you think about it. How does it affect the weather when we leave little pockets of water in beaver ponds all across the landscape rather than letting all the rivers run their course to that big ocean.

Did the weather actually change when we trapped out all the beavers? Probably not right away, but a few years after when their dams started to decay and lose their function. I can imagine that the west looked and felt different 3 years after all the beaver were taken. Of course, no one had time to notice.

Because they were too busy looking for the next gold.

Before they were slaughtered

MIGRATORY TROUBLES

heidi08 Beavers and Birds, Dispersal January 27, 2018

When I was a teenager my father was the oversight supervisor for the first major windmill built in Northern California. It was a towering structure with a single blade longer than a football field. It stood atop a barren hill in Cordelia where the wind was sometimes so strong it could hold you upright if you leaned out into it. Standing under it was like being below a giant scythe at harvest that swept by again and again just missing you every time. Years after it was built my father loved to bring guests to its strange wonder, proud of his role in its launch. I remember one of the things I was most struck by at that time was learning that PGE had to hire biologists to identify any birds that were killed by that giant blade and report them. I remember thinking that counting dead birds was a very strange way to make a living.

The giant windmill eventually got a cracked shaft and is no longer standing today. Now there are many windmills all over the state and producing various amounts of power – and all of them have to count the birds they kill. I thought of this because yesterday we learned that the department of the interior just ‘opted out’ of the restrictions imposed by the Migratory Bird Act which has made it illegal to kill birds without permission since 1918.

Interior cancels decades-old protections for migratory birds

Think about that a moment. Since the end of WWI we have agreed with many other countries that killing birds was a big deal. MBTA has enjoyed such broad support in so many regions of the world that I admit even I was surprised by this. (I’ve been known to watch jealously as birders made friends with politicians because of the luxuries afforded by that standard.) Saving birds is usually much easier than saving beavers. Both sides of the aisle have often acted like a friend to birds. I guess birds don’t build dams and they usually fly somewhere else before they get too annoying. Audubon has never been the Sierra Club – nor had to be. They are polite and mind their manners working with industry and big business to help winged creatures they care about.

Until now.

Announcing that business has a permanent ‘open season’ on birds is a huge deal for birds AND humans. I have to say I’m curious how this will affect the ‘polite’ birders of the world. Maybe they’ll get a little more noisy and start to sound more like the people who protect beavers or coyotes.

I know if it had happened years ago PGE would have fired those biologists and been happy to pocket the money. Same with the least tern population they had to count at the powerplant where Jon worked or the peregrines that nested on the smoke stack.

I can’t help but think that any industry that doesn’t have to take worry about birds today, is an industry that won’t worry about us tomorrow.