Month: February 2019

SOMETHING TO CHEW OVER

heidi08 Beaver Chewing, castoroides February 13, 2019

Winter tends to be a good time to think nice things about beavers, especially once the rain turns to snow and things are too frozen to cause a problem for a while. I really enjoyed reading this appreciative column from master naturalist Shannon Brennan in Virginia.

For Love of Nature: Beavers busy sculpting along James River

On a recent warm winter’s day, Michael and I headed for our favorite local trail at Matt’s Creek, across the James River Foot Bridge on U.S. 501. We were soon greeted by an amazing wooden sculpture, with shavings all around the base of a tree that would soon topple to the ground.

Other trees had already been felled, telltale signs that beavers had been busily gnawing along the banks of the James River, both to eat the bark and potentially use the tree for a dam, though there was no sign of a dam or lodge in the vicinity.

Beavers munch on small saplings and very large trees, leaving many people to decry the damage, but the damage humans inflict on trees pales in comparison. I prefer to call it beaver art.

We couldn’t agree more Shannon! In fact there are two beaver chews by my hearthside right now! I personally know several people who collect and take photos of them. The one I shared yesterday still happens to be my favorite.

While it’s true that damming creeks in urban areas, like Blackwater Creek, can interfere with water and sewer lines and exacerbate flooding, beavers are important parts of natural ecosystems.

Early residents of this continent considered beavers sacred because they create wetlands, the key to life for many species. Almost half of endangered and threatened species in North America rely upon wetlands, which also soak up floodwaters, alleviate droughts and floods, lessen erosion, raise the water table and purify water.

Although I’ve seen signs of beavers for years, I’ve yet to spot one. They are largely nocturnal and stealthy.

I wish you had come to Martinez a decade ago and been able to watch entire families gathered together on the bridge to watch our beavers working and playing with each other. You would have been so happy.

Beavers rarely overpopulate because they breed only once a year and defend large streamside territories from other beavers. Trapping beavers often fails because removal stimulates larger litters among those left behind.

For me, it’s always a thrill to see where beavers have been busily chomping or sliding into a creek or river. I don’t have to see the animals to know that they are alive and well and doing their sacred duty.

I’m with you, Shannon. i think beaver sign is a wonderful secret handshake that tells people in the know that something dramatic is going right with that creek or waterway. Thank you so much for being happy about beavers. It doesn’t happen very often but it’s always a wonderful thing to behold.

Speaking of friendly words about beavers. since October I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet of the folks who contact me thru the website to ask about their beavers or how to save/introduce/or advocate for them. I’m always surprised how far afield these contacts come from, and I thought you’d be interested in the visual.

Not bad visibility for three months.

THE AMAZING BEAVER SHOW

heidi08 Beavers and food caches February 12, 2019

Beavers in the snow and ice fascinate us. This photo was posted on the Norwegian beaver site yesterday with the explanation that a progressive freeze and thaw made it possible. i myself like to imagine an entire family chewing on the trunk should to shoulder – dad, mom. yearling, and kit with descending heights all represented. They wrote:

We received this photo last week from Troy Sweeney of an American beaver who has made this practical stairway. We have heard that similar beaver-made stairways have been observed in ice-covered river banks. Anyone heard of that?

isn’t that lovely? When you think of the very cold freeze across America this year, and the places that don’t usually get ice and snow suddenly filled with frozen lakes and streams, I wonder how beavers are faring in Georgia or Alabama. They never expected this weather either, so its not hard to imagine they were unprepared for it. I’d be curious if the ones that survive suddenly start to food cache next year?

It would certainly teach us something about beaver ability to plan for the future based on new data. Which, if you think about it, would actually make them smarter than lots of humans.

Dee Cavasina of the Finger Lake Times in New York wrote about beaver in the snow in this recent column.

BEYOND THE FENCE: Architects of nature

New York’s official state mammal, beavers average 40-45 pounds with lengths up to 36 inches, of which their tail adds another 12-14. Even though this semi-aquatic, nocturnal creature is rarely spotted, this does not deter us from knowing of their presence. If you venture on an early morning or near dusk tour, you might be fortunate enough to witness a beaver or two gliding through the pond their dam has created. Remain inconspicuous, though, as beavers are shy, and although they will defend their territory with a vengeance from other beavers, they would rather not interact with humankind.

Nonetheless, the beaver is an amazing creature with ability to visualize, manipulate and craft their environment for living that stands second only to that of humans. They will assess areas for running water as well as surrounding environment in order to sustain a developed water depth, via their dam, which will provide safety and enable travel to and from their lodge even after winter’s freeze.

The beaver … true visionaries, perfecting their environment to meet their needs while inadvertently providing further habitat for fish and waterfowl; an amazing feat that can be witnessed while visiting beyond the fence.

Nice praise of beavers, but you stopped before you started to get to the good stuff! If you think those paragraphs describe what beavers do as amazing then wait until I tell you how their dams change the entire ecosystem! You’ll be flabbergasted!

BEST HEADLINE EVER?

heidi08 Beavers and Wetlands February 11, 2019

Of course I was surprised when I opened my news feed this morning to come across this article from Lisbon, CT which makes it sound like doing something that bothers beavers is actually a bad thing. Of course we know it is, but most of the word doesn’t usually share our wisdom.

Lisbon landowner fears Eversource project is bothering beavers

LISBON — Travelers heading south on Interstate 395 may have noticed in the past few months that land has been cleared on the side of the highway and a gravel road has been built just south of Exit 21.

The clearing and the road are part of a maintenance project being done by Eversource Energy, replacing 121 wooden poles carrying electrical transmission lines with new ones made of steel. The new poles are up to 85 feet tall, but are limited to being no more than 10 feet taller than the wooden ones they’re replacing.

Randy Wildowsky, a dairy farmer who owns land in Lisbon on both sides of I-395 that Eversource’s lines run across, is complaining that the utility has caused damage to wetlands there that won’t be easily fixed.

“Anything that irritates the beavers bothers me,” Wildowsky said.

Randy!

A Daniel come to judgment, yea, a Daniel!—

O wise young judge, how I do honor thee!

In 12 years of reporting beaver stories I will say that Randy’s objection is a true first – some one who actually proclaims that what’s he’s personally against a thing if it’s bad for beavers. i mean sometimes there are folks who want to SAVE beavers, but the idea of using beavers as a weather vane to see what is good or ill for a landscape, that’s brand new!

Usually things that are bad for beavers are more of a ‘feature’ not a ‘bug’.

The Siting Council approved the project in March 2017, ruling that “this proposal would not have a substantial adverse environmental effect.” The state agency is responsible for overseeing the construction and operation of power plants and transmission lines throughout the state. Eversource has promised that when the work is done, “all disturbed/exposed areas would be stabilized and revegetated.”

“Anything that irritates the beavers bothers me,” Wildowsky said.

I’m sure the beavers would like you to replant the area with willow and cottonwood. Keep an eye out to make sure that really happens because they’ll need that most of all. I know they appreciate Randy’s help but they can fix the wetlands after eversource is done mucking around in it. I know for a fact it’s true because ours survived the installation of a wall of sheetpile right in their front yard.

SITW AND BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers February 10, 2019

Semester in the west is the Whitman college program that we learned about when the students came to film the beaver festival for the climate change documentary. Sarah Koenigsberg and Suzanne Fouty were teaching there that year, Students spend 90 days in the field, camping under the stars each night. i got to meet an amazing array of enrollees the year i went to utah to speak at their beaver festival. It’s a huge operation and undertaking, almost like a military base, jon and i waited in line for our plates of – that night jumbalaya – cooked outdoors by students and sat under the stars in folding chairs around the fire in a huge ring of future congresswomen or scientists who were camping in little tents spread around the rocky terrain.

Whitman College’s Semester in the West is an interdisciplinary field program focusing on public lands conservation and rural life in the interior American West. Our objective is to know the West in its many dimensions, including its diverse ecosystems, its social and political communities, and the many ways these ecosystems and communities find expression in regional environmental writing and public policy. The program first ran in 2002, and is scheduled for the fall semester every other year in even years.

i mention that now because their recent podcast is about our favorite subject. Young Eliza Van Wetter conducts the interview and our good friend Ben is a bright spot in the middle. Just so you know i can personally attest that every single one of the SITW students, women and men, look just like some variation of Eliza; Bursting with wholesome energy, living out of a backpack, and requiring neither showers nor running water to make their eager difference in the world. For the life of me I cannot figure out how to link directly to the audio, but if you click on the sound bar you’ll be brought to their page where you can listen directly. Its worth the effort.

i’m sharing this great photo from Quonquont farms Massachusetts. The wrote on their facebook page ‘Beach weather—Melting ice gave the Quonquont beavers a chance to get out of the lodge and enjoy some sunshine this afternoon’. i just love how luxurious that fur looks.

BEAVER UPDATE

heidi08 Beaver Rehabilitation, Beavers February 9, 2019

in less than a month now i will be presenting at Mount Diablo Audubon. it’s a great group of people and a great time to talk about the importance of beavers to birds, fish and wildlife. (With an honorarium!) There is plenty to prepare to get ready. from a tailored presentation to the right collection of bird and beaver photos. i should be fine as long as things like this stop happening.

Yesterday i received a call from Leslie Brinkley of channel 7. They were filming a little story on the beaver at Lindsey and wanted me to do an interview. They came over to the house and we chatted about the likely possibilities about where that beaver came from and whether he was ‘ours’. The interview took about a half hour but you can see the entire clip takes about 2 minutes. I’m happy it happened though because nearly everything that you hear the news reporter say came out of my mouth. So we know its all accurate.

Media Library

The more i think about it the less convinced i am that patient is one of our three known family members. But who ever it was i can’t imagine a beaver walks all that way on a street away from water without having neurological damage already. lindsey also shared this photo of its tail fracture. Ouch!

The tip of that tail does not look good. i brought a slide of a healthy beaver to compare. Not to get too Castor CSI on you or anything but here’s what a tail should look like on the left. You can see she’s young and thin with a fracture right at the 5th from the end. And what maybe looks like a chip farther up. Poor little gal.

i can’t tell if that little bending 4th toe on each side is damaged or not. i mean they both look the same. That definitely looks like their grooming claw though, and could explain why she’s supposedly not grooming. Ther seems to be a little notch missing in her vertibrae right there, but her other toes look good, so it’s hard to imagine a car hit just those toes and nothing else.

Any one silver lining of this injured beaver is that Leslie asked about the beaver festival and was interested in it. When I told her about Amy coming and drawing the giant beaver pond in the middle of the park she said they would like to film that and gave me her email and cell numbers. Hopefully that means we’ll get some air time this year, which would be great if it happens.

Now i just have to concentrate on birds.