Month: May 2018

PICKING UP THE PACE

heidi08 Festival May 26, 2018

Yesterday was a blur of beaver festival riches, to begin with Folkmanis made an amazing donation of puppets to the silent auction, which Jon picked up from their wonderful office right across from Pixar. 937 dollars worth of puppets including some breathtaking wonders like this bobcat which I just adore. Do you know that makes 11 times they have donated to our yearly beaver festival?

Then Amelia sent me her work in progress for the brochure. It still has some tweaking to come but she is off on much needed vacation now and will finish it when she gets back. There are so many exhibitors to list this year that we’re actually increasing the size to fit them all in. Here’s a shot of the front and back.

I am beyond grateful for her patient, yearly help. Doesn’t that cover make you want to go? I do too! It looks so inviting and delightful. (Somehow I always feel as if I’m so busy I miss it, but you’re lucky you can just enjoy it.) I especially like the inside where she promotes everything we have going on but since that has the most tweaking left to do I won’t show you for now. Suffice it to say It’s going to be wonderful.

Then as if all that wasn’t enough, Cheryl stopped by with a donation from photographer and the hero of our Ranger Rick article Suzi Eszterhas! Her friend volunteers at IBR so it’s a great way to bring in a donation. She generously donated a framed premier quality print of this lovely photo. And a handful of delightful wildlife photograph children’s books. I think she took that photo in Moss Landing on one of her weekend excursions that meant she couldn’t be at the beaver dam.

All of which might be enough good news to make me nervous, but for now I’m just soaking it in. NPS rangers from John Muir are joining the festival, which they haven’t done for many years. I’m not sure why there are so many more exhibits this year. Is it because of the new park? The new time? Or just the fact that having crested the 10 year mark we appear to be sticking around?

Whatever it is I like it! Maybe it’s true what they say. You can only walk halfway into any forest,

The other half you’re walking OUT.

Finally here’s another very positive news story from New Mexico, which is really catching on to the whole “Beavers save water” thing.

Forest officials take cue from beavers to improve wildlife habitat

Oh yeah, good morning from Tulocay Creek where Rusty was able to snap this. Memorial day weekend is a great time to see beavers!

Adult beaver visible underwater: Rusty Cohn

LETTING BEAVERS BE BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers and Wetlands May 25, 2018

Yesterday I received an email from a woman in Vallejo who who had friends coming for the weekend from Seattle and they had asked her (stay with me here) “If they could all go see the Martinez Beavers while they were in town”. (!!!) That’s right, people from 800 miles and 2 states away in the most famous beaver state in the nation want to come see OUR beavers. Because our beavers were that famous.

I told her that our beavers had gotten tired of the constant paparazzi and were currently living somewhere they had much more privacy, but told her where to try in Napa and mentioned coming to our beaver festival. I just thought you’d enjoy basking in this story as much as I do.

Meanwhile there’s this letter in Squamish British Columbia that I thought you’d enjoy.

LETTER: Why Wetlands are important and need our care

We live in a community rich with abundant wildlife and natural spaces. During the winter months, the ground becomes saturated with rain and stays wet well into the spring.
However, with the greening of the trees and sprouting of vegetation, the water table starts to drop down below the surface of the ground.

Areas where surface water remains, such as wetlands, provide important habitat to a numerous wildlife and critters. Wetlands are areas that contain water and hydrophytic vegetation (water loving plants) for at least a portion of the year.
Some wetlands are only wet for a few months, others are wet year-round.

Can you guess what comes next?

In Squamish, the beavers often help to create wetland habitat by building up dams to staunch the flow from a stream or creek. This allows species such as amphibians and invertebrates a chance to lay their eggs in the spring which will hatch in early to mid-summer. Many beaver-dammed areas have active populations of salmonids and create large “rearing” habitats where the juvenile salmon can find plentiful food and shelter before they head out to the ocean in the fall.

It is particularly important in the spring and early summer to leave any beaver dams alone so as not to disturb these dynamic wetlands. Releasing the water too soon from a beaver dammed pond or wetland could result in catastrophic mortality to amphibian eggs that may not have hatched yet, not to mention impact or devastate the other species that had made their home in the wetland.

What a wonderful letter! I had to go at once to look up the author – Edith Tobe the executive director of the Squamish River Watershed Society which works to use holistic solutions to improve the river and surrounding areas. After reading her letter that discovery didn’t surprise me at all. It turns out that there are many paths to beaver appreciation – you can get there by being an expert in salmon, in amphibians, in otters, (or even apparently in child psychology) – but the surest, most direct path to beaver appreciation is to be a lover of healthy waterways.

Because if you love one, you learn soon enough to love the other.

Recently a reader pointed me to this ‘rewilding project’ in Southern England which seeks to use beaver techniques to restore a major watershed. I enjoyed their story and thought you might also. I especially like the part at 1:52 when they admit the source of their inspiration.

Knepp Wildland

THE MAINE REASON TO LIVE WITH BEAVERS

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact May 24, 2018

Maine has a complicated relationship with beavers. On the one hand it is a state that considers itself “ourdoorsy” and values wildlife in all its facets. On the other hand it considers itself “outdoorsy” which means it reveres pastimes like fishing, hunting, and trapping.

So you can imagine where that leaves beavers.

But more and more often I am running into beaver fans in the pine tree state. Last year Skip Lisle gave a weekend of presentations on the value of beavers and the use of flow devices to manage problems. Karen Corker of Maine’s Wildwatch has written some very smart articles in their defense. And now some completely new voices are speaking about why they be allowed to should stick around.

Here’s what to do when a beaver family moves to your property

When it comes to looking for a new home, beavers are not ones to ask permission before setting up housekeeping in the ponds or streams of Maine’s small landowners.

“Whether it’s good or bad having [beavers] on your property is completely in the eye if the beholder,” according to Griffin Dill with University of Maine Cooperative Extension. “You need to ask yourself if you can tolerate them or if their presence is causing actual harm to your property.”

“There is constant change with the comings and goings of beavers in and out of an area,” he said. “They are responsible for creating large patchworks of wetland habitats that benefit a whole host of other wildlife and they are a really important part of the ecosystem.”

That sort of ecosystem design can be an upside for landowners, according to Shawn Haskell, Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife regional biologist based in Ashland.

Haskell said he and fellow biologists have spent some time recently in the field looking for the Rusty Blackbird (Euphagus carolinus), which has experienced a population decline in recent years and is not all that common in Maine.

“This bird likes really thick stands of young spruce near wetlands where they can forage,” Haskell said. “That is a really unique habitat and invariably when you find it it’s an old beaver flow [and] the beavers could be long gone but they have created that perfect habitat for the rusty blackbirds.”

Red-winged blackbird at beaver pond: Rusty Cohn

Nice opening! Hey speaking of Rusty blackbirds, our own fearless Mr. Cohn snapped this yesterday at the Tulocay beaver pond, which is no longer easy to get to because of the construction. Let’s hope the beavers stick around.

That can be a real boon for property owners, Haskell said.

“As a landowner, you might say, ‘jeez, they just flooded 10 acres of my land and that means I have lost a bunch of trees,’” Haskell said. “But I’ll tell you what, for that landowner that does not mind, they now have have something special and different [with] blackbird habitat.”

Glass half full! I’m starting to like Mr. Haskell. I might need to introduce myself and make friends.

Overall, Dill said, beavers tend to be good neighbors until they decide to help themselves to an ornamental tree buffett.

“If they are causing harm it’s usually because they are doing one of two things — eating the prized ornamental trees someone took the time to plant or causing flooding,” Dill said. “But if they are just swimming around and minding their own business they can be a joy to watch and really interesting to observe.”

Wow. I’m going to take a stand and call this a positive beaver article. It isn’t exactly glowing but it has all the needed elements: a description of why beavers matter and a guide for how to solve problems besides just killing. Even though the comments section is filled with ravenous beaver-bashing from back woods types, this is a pretty sweet breath of fresh air.

Dill suggests wrapping the trees’ trunk with galvanized metal fencing or chicken wire to prevent the beavers from chewing the bark. Larger landowners, like paper companies, often call in help when beavers block culverts which then overflow and wash out roads. Haskell said.

“Some people just want the beavers gone from their property,” Haskell said. “At IF&W we have [animal damage control] agents who we train and license to trap and remove the beavers.”

“Basically we work with the neighbors to solve any issues and we are lucky in Maine in that in cases where one person wants the beaver but a neighbor wants it gone, they work it out,” Haskell said.

I’ve learned over the years to lower my standards of beaver husbandry. I don’t need an article not to mention trapping, I just want it to be clear there are other ways to solve problems and good reasons to try. I don’t think that’s too much to ask, do you?

Love them or hate them, Haskell said it is impossible not to admire their work ethic and construction skills.

“My wife and I spent a good part of a Sunday recently pulling apart one of their dams,” Haskell said. “We pulled out rocks, sticks, mud and logs — it is amazing what they can do.”

Yes it is. They can turn a shabby urban stream into a wildlife preserve and make a whole community care about them, spawning the largest wildlife festival in Northern California.

I’m sold.

THAT’S NOT FUNNY — THAT’S DROUGHT SERIOUS!

heidi08 Beavers and water May 23, 2018

Add this to the “I-don’t-get-why-this-is-funny” column. A writer from Colorado offering a ‘humerus’ column about a city that should have added beavers to its water-storage plan.

Does not seem silly to me at all.

HUMOR: Beavers, to the Rescue?

Last November, the voters in Pagosa Springs, Colorado turned down yet another chance to increase their taxes, to allow a local water district — the San Juan Water Conservancy District — to move ahead with a plan to build a new reservoir, north of downtown in a dry valley known as Dry Gulch. At one point, the reservoir had been priced at $357 million, but more recent estimates from SJWCD suggested a price of maybe $100 million, or even less. The District publicity mentioned a reservoir capable of storing around 11,000 acre-feet.

The tax increase requested by SJWCD would have allowed for a $2 million loan. I admit, I struggled with math back in high school, but it seems to me that a $2 million loan would have left the Water District a bit shy of the total needed.

Maybe the Water District should invest in beavers, instead?

A recent essay published on the Sierra Club Colorado Chapter website suggests that a typical beaver family is capable of building a pond that stores about 10 acre-feet of water — about 3.3 million gallons. Beavers are apparently willing to perform this service year after year, with absolutely no government subsidy — and without any need for a government bureaucracy to supervise their work. All a beaver asks for is a few saplings, now and then, to munch on.

See what I mean? What’s funny about that? It makes perfect sense.

If we were able to coax just 2,000 beaver families into relocate to Archuleta County (with a typical beaver family consisting of a husband, a wife, and four children) we would soon have 11,000 acre-feet of water storage at our disposal. Free of charge.

I’m certainly no expert on beavers, [Editors note: I really, really believe that] but my general impression is that they favor small government, private property rights, and a quiet, sparsely inhabited neighborhood surrounded by trees. Which is to say, they would fit right in with Pagosa Springs’ social culture.

The above-mentioned Sierra Club essay on beavers expressly mentions the “Colorado Water Plan,” assembled a couple of years ago under Governor John Hickenlooper’s watch. (You can read the plan at this website.) The Water Plan doesn’t list any “authors” — at least, I couldn’t find any such list — but I get the impression that hundreds, maybe thousands, of citizens had input into the Plan, through the various “Basin Roundtables” scattered across our great state.

If you do a search for ‘beaver’ on the plan website, however, you will be sorely disappointed.

How could hundreds of intelligent citizens give input into the Colorado Water Plan… and not a single mention of our water-loving friend, the beaver?

I ask myself the same thing about California every dam day. But I’m not being funny or teasing the Sierra Club when I do it. I’m drought serious.

On behalf of Nature’s little water storage expert, I will go out on a limb and offer a possible reason why Governor Hickenlooper and his vast team of advisors utterly ignored this taxpayer-friendly rodent. It’s pretty simple, really. The Colorado Water Plan ignored everyone who questions massive government debt and expansive government bureaucracy. The beaver, as it turns out, is in good company, politically speaking.

If only beavers were allowed to vote, what a different world this would be.

Now that’s the truth! I know the author, Louis Cannon, fancies himself very droll with this article, but it couldn’t be more true if it tried. Not that I think beavers care about our troubles enough to vote, but for goodness sake they should be counted as an asset in every water plan in the west. And every time someone wants permission to trap one they should have to appeal to the local waterboard and indicate how they will personally compensate for the water storage and wildlife they remove if they are allowed to trap.

Sigh.

I at least want the loss of a beaver dam to REGISTER. Like it does in this article from Montana.

Destroying beaver dam stops flooding, impacts environment

Flooding in Helena almost immediately subsided in several areas of the valley after the county decided to dismantle a beaver dam. News of the destruction set fine with those affected by weeks of high water around their home.
However, our Bliss Zechman sat down with Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials to discuss how destroying a habitat can affect the surrounding ecosystem.

They provide an important ecological benefit in natural system. The problem is, our systems are not completely natural,” said Greg Lemon, Spokesperson for FWP. Dams provide rearing habitats for small fish and they help promote wetland species. This natural process produces colder and cleaner water, which can benefit the stream miles down the line. However, problems occur when humans interfere.

Yes you fixed your little flooding problem but at what cost? And when will new beavers move in and do the same thing all over again? I wish this was the permanent template for every future beaver damage article.

A girl can dream, can’t she?

BEAVER FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS

heidi08 Who's saving beavers now? May 22, 2018

Don’t you just love firemen? With the exception of the Rodney King riots they have been almost always celebrated as heroes when they arrive. Certainly they were greeted with free meals and beers during the Napa fires. I had a delightful young patient once who stuck a metal nut on her ring-finger once and fancied herself engaged. She came to session the next day with her entire hand swollen and we called the local fire department. Five kindly men came to cut her free and she comforted her 7 year old self by calling them all charmingly “my boys!” as they rescued her from the tight band.

Jon himself will recognize this moment from getting his head stuck in the banister on the stairs as a boy. Last night in Idaho they just got to do something even more fun.

Eagle firefighters rescue beaver in bind, latest of several unusual rescues in Valley

I’m not sure why it is that we all – beavers included – tell ourselves that if we can just get our heads through the gap we will be home free. Unless we happen to be hammerhead sharks it is almost never ever true. I’m glad they were on hand to help him wriggle out. Thank goodness some kind soul called them to the scene.

Speaking of watching out for beavers, our good friend Rusty Cohn of Napa has been back on the scene, this time watching a family of beavers fittingly enough behind the firefighters museum. Apparently the first thing dad does every night is check the dam. (In Lily Pond Hope Ryden loving called this beaver the “Inspector General”) Of course the nice thing about beavers is that they always show up with their usual ‘groupies’.

Wonderful photos! Check out the size of that tail, because that beaver has survived a good many summers!

Meanwhile our good friend Susan noticed that there was a mention of the beaver festival in this month’s Mt View Monitor and the MVSD newsletter and was kind enough to send it to me. Let’s hope lots of other agencies follow their lead!