Month: November 2018

PIEGAN BEAVER RETURNS FOR TOBACCO

heidi08 Beavers and Roadways November 30, 2018

Maybe they’re right. Maybe the beaver population is recovering.

This was all over the news last night in Massachusetts. Fitchburg Crombys is liks a seven-eleven for the east coast.

No word on why that stunned employee blocked the door so that the mother or older sibling couldn’t escape too. But I’m hoping that they reunited safely on the other side – like we all hope I guess. I do like the idea of the beaver weight triggering the door – and them figuring it out. Sometimes I’ve seen that birds have discovered that if they fly past the censor the doors open and they could get in an out a big home depot to roost, which of course a beaver could never do.

I’m imagining that this store is near the water or on the way to the pond? But its hard to imagine why a beaver would enter. Since the beaver has a younger beaver in tow its obviously not dispersal. Maybe something happened to their home? I doubt the temperatures are cold enough yet for them to be frozen out of the water. Of course everyone is having fun saying he just stopped off for some cigarettes, but we know better.

Beavers would never smoke.

Well, except in the Piegan (Blookfoot) story where the chief of all the beavers is the one that first gives tobacco to the tribe. He kindly teaches the refugee to smoke, perform medicine, sing and dance for the first time and presents him with the most precious beaver bundle.

But other than that, never.

Ahh memories. I was just a slip of a beaver-believing girl when I made that video. Sigh. So long ago. While I was looking for it I found this, which explains so much about our destiny and I just wish it finished telling more of the story.

I guess this has turned out to be video day. So I’m going to share one last glimpse shown to me by our friends at the Beavers in the Netherlands facebook page. Even thought life is full of surprises, beavers are pretty dam mellow.

Our friend Willy De Koning posted this with the following translated message.

You will not believe this; it seems an unlikely story from a children’s book. But it really is! A young fox comes to see what that beaver is all about! Too bad, of the vague quality.

I love that the beaver looks at the stranger and then unflappably gets back to chewing. Beavers are so cool.

BEAVER TRIFECTA IN THE NORTH

Yesterday was a beaver madness day. I can’t possibly hope to catch up with all the important developments but easily the biggest was the launch of Frances Backhouse huge CBC ideas program. There are so many really fascinating parts to this well rounded hour, including the man who fed beavers so they would build him a skating rink, and Glynnis Hood summary of why we need the animals I hope you’ll make time for it all.

Rethinking the Beaver: Why beavers and humans have to learn to get along”

Four centuries of fur-trade trapping nearly wiped beavers off the North American map. Now they’re back, big time, and we’re discovering that sharing the landscape with such tenacious ecosystem engineers isn’t always easy. We’re also learning that there are compelling reasons to try to coexist with this iconic species. Contributor Frances Backhouse explores how two control freaks — humans and beavers — can get along.

Listen to this excellent report, staring Glynnis Hood, Mike Callahan, our own Judy Atkinson, The account of public response in Port Moody so parallels our Martinez story that it melts my heart. Make time for this or bookmark it and listen later.. Meanwhile there’s a huge article about beavers recolonizing the tundra in Science News which spawned a dozen headlines around the globe. Believe me when I saw I’m typing as fast as I can.

Beavers are engineering a new Alaskan tundra

In a broad swath of northwestern Alaska, small groups of recent immigrants are hard at work. Like many residents of this remote area, they’re living off the land. But these industrious foreigners are neither prospecting for gold nor trapping animals for their pelts. In fact, their own luxurious fur was once a hot commodity. Say hello to Castor canadensis, the American beaver.

Much like humans, beavers can have an oversized effect on the landscape (SN: 8/4/18, p. 28). People who live near beaver habitat complain of downed trees and flooded land. But in areas populated mostly by critters, the effects can be positive. Beaver dams broaden and deepen small streams, forming new ponds and warming up local waters. Those beaver-built enhancements create or expand habitats hospitable to many other species — one of the main reasons that researchers refer to beavers as ecosystem engineers.

I especially enjoyed the description of the way beavers benefit for moose and wolves and smaller animals.

The beavers are not only persisting on the tundra, they’re thriving. The moderately sized streams and flat terrain provide ideal habitat. And once they gain a foothold, these industrious creatures set about making improvements that are probably an overall plus for myriad other species, Tape says.

For instance, frigid conditions in the region cause shallow streams to freeze solid in winter. But when a beaver builds a dam, the water that gathers upstream of the structure becomes deep enough to remain liquid below a sheet of ice that provides insulation from the chilly winter air.

Pay special attention to the detailed list of how beaver are making a difference in this previously frozen area. Much better than when the beavers were just described as hastening climate change.

Meanwhile, in Port Moody the flow device installation has merited an news story. Perfect timing for a beaver trifecta of the North.

Flow device makes beavers feel at home

As the city of Port Moody works to create a strategy to manage beavers that take up residence in its waterways, a group of advocates for the industrious rodents is helping make one furry family feel right at home.

Volunteers from The Fur-Bearers along with local supporters like Jim Atkinson and his partner, Judy Taylor-Atkinson, were immersed in Suter Brook Creek last Friday, installing a device that regulates the level of water in the pond that has been created by a family of beavers between city hall and the public works yard. The beavers moved there after they were displaced from their previous home in nearby Pigeon Creek when an attempt by the city to evict them from a drainage pipe went awry and a young kit was drowned.

Perfect timing because Judy tells me that this afternoon is the occasion of the FIRST beaver management plan meeting. It can’t hurt that Judy and Jim are all over the Canadian press.

Always best to argue from a position of strength.

BEAVER BENEFITS IN THE SUBURBS

heidi08 Urban beavers November 28, 2018

There are precious few things I enjoy more than the trickle down from a fine beaver story. Ben Goldfarb’s book has stolen the show entirely (and even made it’s way into a Raging Grannies Christmas Carol – sharing soon) but the other Ben (Dittbrenner) and his colleagues published a splash with their urban restoration paper, Reintegrating the North American beaver (Castor canadensis) in the urban landscape. Even wires thinks so.

Who Gives A Dam About Beavers?

North American beaver (Castor canadensis) populations are on the rise as they continue to recover from the historic pelt-trapping era, which left many areas devoid of beavers by the 20^th century. Their recolonization of historical habitats is increasing in urban streams and green spaces, which can often bring benefits to these areas. Dam building creates ponds and wetlands that store water, improves fish and wildlife habitats, and can provide ecosystem services, such as erosion reduction, sediment removal, and water filtration. Beavers also provoke controversy, however, due to their ability to cut down trees and flood areas, which can conflict with human activities and infrastructure.

Yup. It’s true. All those things are true.

Previously, the field of landscape architecture primarily focused on design elements aimed at aesthetic purposes and human values. Only recently has design begun to consider ecological restoration, habitat corridors, and ecological processes to improve local ecosystem functions. Some of the design principles that have recently shifted to incorporating and optimizing water-related ecosystem services and ecological benefits, such as constructed wetlands, are outlined in a WIREs Water article Reintegrating the North American Beaver in the Urban Landscape. A pivotal point to note is that some ecological and hydrological processes cannot be reproduced solely by intentional design actions, and require integration of keystone species and ecosystem engineers, such as beavers, to better mimic natural systems.

Are you with me? Some things you want in an urban stream can’t be made by human engineers. They can only be made by BEAVERS. Be still my heart.

The outcome of this study is to encourage designers to minimize site constraints, anticipate and manage beaver impacts, and utilize ecosystem engineers for ecosystem services. Features such as pinch points and variable elevation terrains in riparian zones could be created to achieve this. If these urban beaver management strategies and design action recommendations are followed, the ways that designers can leverage beavers when designing future urban and suburban green spaces could be improved.

Did I swoon? I think I just swooned. “Minimize sight constraints and let beavers bring their ecosystem services to the water table.” Is there a more perfectly tailored argument to make me happy? No, there is not. That is ALL I’ve wanted to see for the past decade.

Sure it would be nice to be mentioned as a test case, but hey, I’m not looking this gift horse in the mouth any time soon.

Since we’re all in holiday spirits now, I’ll share long time reader Gail’s expert lyrics to “Oh hear we come a’Wassailing”all You may remember 2009 when Gail and her fellow ‘raging grannies’ came to sing at the beaver festival. Ahh good times.

Here come all the beaver dams to help to deal with climate change
Mend the water tables all in their historic range
Love and joy come to you
Managed water levels too
Read the book by ben go-old farb
You’ll see that it is true
You may laugh but you’ll find that it is true.

LOOK WHAT THE CLIMATE CHANGE REPORT DRAGGED IN!

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beavers and Fire Prevention, Beavers and Forests November 27, 2018

Today’s beaver news is brought to you by “RELOCATION” because for some crazy reason people think letting beavers make their own decisions usually doesn’t work out. We’ll start with relocation for the Tulalip tribe.

To fix salmon streams, leave it to beavers

The Tulalip Tribes came up with a a plan to relocate aquatic troublemakers to rivers in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. Now, these brilliant ecosystem engineers are doing more than just finding a new home: They’re mitigating some of the impacts of climate change for Washington’s threatened salmon. Relocated beavers dam up natural streams with such efficiency that they create the deep, cool pools salmon need to thrive.

Join us to watch how scientists trap, rehabilitate and relocate beavers from suburban pond to mountain stream — and discover the strange technique used to tell a male beaver from a female.

Now if you’ve been here before you’ve probably heard my usual riff about moving beavers – while it’s dimly better than killing them it still fails to recognize the basic challenge which is we need to change the humans, not the animals. Especially since new beavers will just move back soon anyway and do the whole thing all over again.

But still, its a step in the right direction to say that beavers have some good points and are worth keeping around for those reasons. And its a nice film.

It’s good to see folks working hard to fix what we’re breaking at a great rate. Speaking of breaking things, Ben pointed out something really astonishing yesterday. We all heard something about the horrific climate change report released Friday, but since he’s a real journalist and scholar he actually read it. Which lead to his finding something very, very interesting in the section 6 on forests.

The upshot of the report is that we’re fucked, and your children, (if you were fool-hardy enough to have them) are really, really fucked. The report does a good job of stressing how expensive the changes already are to the economy – showing how changes causing drought, the pine beetle epidemic, a smaller snow pack and terrible hotter fires, And I guess when things are already ruined and hopeless they are ready to try any crazy scheme to fix the problem. Ergo this:

Well, well, well. Will you look at that, The stone which has been rejected shall become the corner stone indeed!

I always knew that when beavers benefits finally got a voice in the federal government it would come from the Forest Service. Of course I had assumed it would have happened years ago, or be a full five pages in the chapter not a few lines in a random inset, but still. Still. Some how, some way, the right people got the right message. Baby steps? I guess we just had to be so screwed that folks were ready to try even the craziest idea they could think of and then they’d finally believe it!

Yay?

Which is a lovely video about relocation, and mighty inspiring. I was surprised when I hunted for it on you tube to find this one. I don’t even remember making it. And I obviously didn’t even know yet that the offer was to move TWO family members only and kill the rest. You can see why I was never a fan.

WINTER IS COMING

heidi08 Beavers and weather November 26, 2018

It’s pretty darned rare that someone says to me “beavers are great at this” and I scratch my head and say, “if you says so” with a disbelieving tone. I think beavers are great at pretty much everything, Except maybe this.

Beavers predict shorter, milder winter for northeast

Predicting the climate is tricky business, and this is my sixth attempt. There are four parts to the winter prediction. First, contact was made with David Phillips from Environment Canada. He has been a climatologist for 50 years, a longitudinal study in himself.

The most important thing, Phillips says, is related to climate change.

“For more winters looking ahead, it will not be so much about the amount of snow, but the increase in the frequencies of freezing rain with milder trends,” he explains. Hudson Bay is the second largest inland sea in the world and since the mid-1990s ice cover is so much thinner than it once was as winter nights are getting warmer.

Well now that we finally found some winter ourselves I guess I’ll pay attention. What else tells you what to expect?

A local void in climatic prediction was created in March 14, 2013, when longtime weather prognosticator Gord Restoule of Dokis passed away. He was regarded as a wealth of what he would call “common sense,” but what scientists now refer to as “traditional knowledge.

Restoule used the simple beliefs of his ancestors who lived and survived through a relationship with their changing environment. I learned a great deal from my mentor.

Like homebuilding contractors, there are good and bad beaver lodge builders.

You have to examine many beaver lodges to make a seasonal prediction. But the feed beds seem smaller when compared to other years and so does the amount of mud on the lodges – signs of a shorter and milder winter.

My my my. What would it take for a beaver to ‘sense’ a milder or colder winter back when that beaver is building the food cache and lodge in the fall. Any reliable sign that the beaver could be aware of would likely be something we could tell too. Unless it was something that mostly only beavers know, like colder water temperatures or drier willow leaves.

I can’t imagine that even the brightest beavers have much inclination before the freeze hits how long it’s going to last. They do their best to store food and mud the lodge and then they role the dice and take their chances just like we do driving to work or getting on an elevator.

If food and fat reserves last longer than the winter, they win to play another round next year. And if the freeze last longer then their food supply they lose: significant weight, a family member, or even their own lives.

A very harsh winter produces few survivors and teaches little.

Yesterday Devon farmer Chris Jones posted a facebook photo I thought you would enjoy seeing. It’s of the beaver “Trevor” whom he introduced with “his name is Trevor. He lived in Bavaria before becoming an educational exhibit. He likes going into schools and visiting community halls where he can meet local people who are beaver-curious.”

Now as a general rule I’m not a fan of ‘display beavers‘. I think it’s too stressful for the animal and too overwhelming for the audience to be strictly educational. But the photo reminds me that on June 26 of 2010 we lifted mom beaver out of the water when she was ill and drove her in my green subaru to the wildlife hospital. After all the mornings we had spent together over the past three years, it made perfect sense to see her in the rear view mirror sitting peacefully in my car.