Month: September 2018

SINKING YOUR TEETH

heidi08 Beavers September 15, 2018

Nice letter to the editor about Ben Golfarb’s book from our longtime friend Richard Hesslein of Mainet Great work!.

Sink your teeth into new beaver book

Editor of the Reformer,

Thank you for this fine article (“Nature’s carpenters,” July 26) that touches on many of the important aspects of the role of beavers on the landscape. The author Ben Goldfarb’s new book, “Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter” expands on these facts and many more, putting together the past to present knowledge in one place, and in a compelling, entertaining way. The following link is a great intro to this new book and includes many easy links to more interesting sources and commentary: Richard A. Hesslein Jr.

Brownfield, Maine, Sept. 9

Richard Hesslein

Watching Ben’s book ripple across the landscape is like doing a wave at a football stadium. Or better yet, like the roaring crowd at the women’s march that you can hear for a hundred blocks in each direction.

TRICKLING DOWN

Years ago Jakob Shockey was a young biologist who attended the State of the Beaver conference for the first time. He heard speaker Mike Callahan talk about installing flow devices and a host of presenters talking about why beavers matter. And he thought, “Hey, I wanna learn to do that” So he started talking more with Mike, who invited him out to work with him in Massachusetts, and then he came back to Oregon and a whole bunch of beaver-believing folks helped him get this new business off the ground.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Nedonna Beach Group finds solution to beaver issues

The beavers of Nedonna Beach have become a problem. But thanks to a group of neighbors, there may be a solution to allow beavers and homeowners to live harmoniously. After the critters built dams blocking McMillan Creek and flooding neighboring properties, many homeowners complained resulting in the trapping and killing of the beavers and otters that inhabited the area.

Seeking a more humane solution, the Nedonna Beaver Group set out to find a solution to the conflict between beavers and homeowners so property can be protected without removing or killing the beavers.

“The water would build up behind the dam and it would flood the homeowner’s septic drains,” Nedonna Beaver Group member Gillian Holbrook said. “It also made the foundation of the house go down since it is all sand, so they needed a solution.”

The solution was a pond leveler or ‘beaver deceiver.’ The group hired Jakob Shockey of Beaver State Wildlife Solutions to install a pond leveler in McMillan Creek on Aug. 13, in a beaver dam behind the house of a family who volunteered to try out the leveler. The Nedonna Neighborhood Association donated $250 to the pond leveler. The owner of the property and the other neighbors who were interested in the welfare of the beavers also contributed to funding the project.

Be still my heart. Folks chipping in for a flow device! 250 contributed by a neighborhood association which is practically a HOA. How amazing! I think I might be moving here when I retire. (Living in California we could probably afford a mansion, but I bet the neighbors would hate us. Hmm…).

Nedonna Beach is on the Oregon Coast about two hours from Portland. Think of it like the Bodega Bay of the Bay Area. Now with a flow device. The part that makes me most curious is that these beavers deal with some tidal influence just like ours. They might even use the ocean to disperse?

Shockey’s crew arrived with all the equipment and with the assistance of local volunteers, assembled the pond leveler in just a few hours and put it in place by rolling the cage over the creek side vegetation. The creek is very low this time of year and the device is exposed, but will be underwater when the fall rains come.

A large flexible tube goes through the dam and the upstream end of the tube is in a cage located a distance from the dam so the beavers do not discover the source of the ‘leak’ and close it off. The water level will be maintained at a level that will not flood the backyard, but high enough to provide protection for the beavers.

Beavers are an integral part of Oregon coast wildlife. The pools behind their dams provide safe, cool habitat for young salmon and other fish and create a wetland that supports mammals, birds, crustaceans and insects.

“With all the new rules regarding salmon, beavers have become really important to their habitat, Holbrook said. “Forest owners need to provide this kind of structure to promote a healthy salmon habitat.”

Mcmillan creek is one of two salmon-running streams in the area, so there are extra special reasons to be nice to the beavers.

Holbrook said pond levelers are growing in popularity and are commonly found in parts of Canada. The Nedonna Beaver Group will be monitoring the device to see if it works as it should, which means beavers can continue to live in the creek, the problems they can create for homeowners are gone and everyone gets the benefits of a healthy habitat for wildlife.

Holbrook said the device is pretty permanent solution to the ongoing issue.
“Only two percent of them don’t succeed for whatever reason,” Holbrook said. “They do require a little maintenance, but it seems like a much better way of deal with the issue as opposed to killing the beavers and pulling out their dams.”

These folks are practically our grandchildren when you think about it. Jakob was trained by Mike who was trained by Skip. It’s all one great big family tree! I’m thinking I’m sending a care package to the beaver group, ecosystem poster, tshirt and a copy of Ben’s book!

Welcome to the family guys!

CASTOR AND CARBON

heidi08 Beavers and climate change September 13, 2018

We have been spoiled for choice this year in beaver central. There have been so many alarmingly positive beaver stories because of the ripples cast by Ben’s book that I often decide to write about them instead of the same old story of beavers plugging the pipe in farmer john’s field or whatever. I just can’t bring myself to write about the same old bad news when there’s such FANTASTIC news waiting in the wings.

Carpe castor diem, I say.

Sometimes the wonderful news is disguised. It’s wrapped up in packaging that pretends to be about something else entirely. But if you hold it to the faintest light source you can see the beaver outline clearly between the lines. We call these “secret beaver articles”. And yesterday’s was a doozy.

What the world needs now to fight climate change: More swamps

“Drain the swamp” has long meant getting rid of something distasteful. Actually, the world needs more swamps – and bogs, fens, marshes and other types of wetlands.

These are some of the most diverse and productive ecosystems on Earth. They also are underrated but irreplaceable tools for slowing the pace of climate change and protecting our communities from storms and flooding.

Scientists widely recognize that wetlands are extremely efficient at pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and converting it into living plants and carbon-rich soil. As part of a transdisciplinary team of nine wetland and climate scientists, we published a paper earlier this year that documents the multiple climate benefits provided by all types of wetlands, and their need for protection.

You can see where I’m going with this, right?

Wetlands continuously remove and store atmospheric carbon. Plants take it out of the atmosphere and convert it into plant tissue, and ultimately into soil when they die and decompose. At the same time, microbes in wetland soils release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as they consume organic matter.

Natural wetlands typically absorb more carbon than they release. But as the climate warms wetland soils, microbial metabolism increases, releasing additional greenhouse gases. In addition, draining or disturbing wetlands can release soil carbon very rapidly.

For these reasons, it is essential to protect natural, undisturbed wetlands. Wetland soil carbon, accumulated over millennia and now being released to the atmosphere at an accelerating pace, cannot be regained within the next few decades, which are a critical window for addressing climate change. In some types of wetlands, it can take decades to millennia to develop soil conditions that support net carbon accumulation. Other types, such as new saltwater wetlands, can rapidly start accumulating carbon.

Or put another way, any UN-TRAPPED beaver TRAPS CARBON. How’s that for incentive? Certainly it’s easier to do than riding your bicycle to the office or giving up your iPhone. When are people going to realize that the list of problems beavers can help solve is quite a bit longer than the list of problems they might cause?

BEAVERS MAKE HEADLINES

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beavers and trout September 12, 2018

Don’t you wish folks everywhere were so excited about beavers building dams that it was in the news every day? I can see it now. “Our top story tonight, Dad beaver starts another secondary dam on Wilson creek. Will he use poplar or Willow? Turn in at ten to see our exclusive report!”

Well a girl can dream can’t she? Until that day arrives we can just enjoy headlines like this.

Forest of Dean beavers build their first dams

Excitement has been growing in the Forest of Dean and across Defra, the Forestry Commission and our partners as the beavers introduced during July have completed construction on their first dams in the Greathough Brook!

Evidence from the trail cameras positioned around the enclosure shows that beavers have set up home close to the release point, in a burrow in the bank of the brook, and this is the area where the most significant evidence of feeding is in terms of gnawed willow trees and feeding debris on site.

Further downstream from this point three significant dams have been created from woody debris lying around the site but ingeniously engineered through packing with a variety of material including vegetation and mud to create permeable dams that are already holding back large volumes of water.

Before the release, the brook could be easily crossed in wellies – now the water is thigh deep in places, simply as a result of the beavers’ dam-building actions.

Oh my goodness! Beavers saving water! It should be in the news EVERYwhere!

Camera evidence shows that the beavers have explored the whole site and created smaller exploratory dams in other areas further up and down stream.

Trails through fool’s water cress beds lower down the site also provide evidence that they are not simply remaining within one spot – allowing people visiting the site good views of their activities.

The public are backing this project and there is a voluntary group of fence checkers and positive interest from numerous visitors to see the beavers.

As it should be. Beavers being beavers should make headlines EVERYwhere. They are amazing and we’re lucky to have them. Defra sure has changed their tune. Amazing what an election and a little flooding can do. Beavers are wonderful.

Even Trout unlimited thinks so.

The Beaver Believers

Throughout North America beavers play a significant role in creating ideal salmonid habitat. They are the perfect example of an ecosystem engineer, which is an organism that creates and modifies entire environments. Beavers construct dams using trees, mud, stones, and just about anything they can get their paws on. Woody debris helps to roughen a stream channel. Ponds provide protection from predators and sustain water supplies during dry summer months. Riparian vegetation and bird habitat are also improved by the increased water storage in beaver ponds.

Unfortunately, the ecological benefits of beavers were not always understood. Before European settlement, as many as 400 million beavers are estimated to have lived in North America. Demand for hats made of felted beaver fur started a boom of beaver trapping. By the end of the 1800s, beaver populations were decimated.

Today, beavers and humans do not always engineer ecosystems with the same goals in mind. These rodents have a reputation for damming culverts, flooding properties and chopping down trees. When conflict arises, beavers often end up with the short end of the stick and are lethally removed.

But there is a growing movement to coexist with beavers so we may reap the ecosystem services they provide. This summer, Trout Unlimited joined the group of beaver believers and started a new fisheries habitat enhancement program in north-central Washington. The Wenatchee Beaver Project relocates nuisance beavers from developed areas and agricultural lands to remote tributary streams. Relocation sites are selected based on beaver habitat suitability, high fish-enhancement potential, and minimal risk of human conflict. We also install beaver dam analogs, offer tools to landowners struggling with beaver problems, and engage the community about the many benefits of beavers.

Ahhh! Nice article Megan Euclide. Of course I’d rather you were installing a flow device than taking a beaver away from his chosen pond, but this is nothing but good news as far as I can see. I can’t wait for the day when all trout fishermen, salmon fishermen and duck hunters argue vehemently for beavers. Their voices will motivate the politicians and bureaucrats better than ours do. Don’t ask me why. But they will. Just put them at the head of the line for now.

Shhh after the revolution we can talk about the value of letting things live afterwards

BEAVER FIRE-BREAK

heidi08 Beavers and Fire Prevention September 11, 2018

Today’s post is brought to you by Dr. Joe Wheaton’s twitter feed. Please share it with every Californian you know. At least all those that live in flammable areas. (Meaning all of them in oxygen-based areas.)

This is Baugh Creek (a tributary to the Little Wood in Idaho) and this is part of the Sharps Fire.

The Sharps fire in Idaho was started by an accidental spark from target practice and has now burned more than 65,000 acres and was finally contained by crews at the end of August. I’m hoping there’s more water upstream that we can see in this photo where some beavers can go shopping because otherwise those are going to be some mighty hungry dam-builders.