Month: April 2019

THE IMPORTANT RODENT

heidi08 Who's saving beavers now? April 5, 2019

Let’s start the weekend off right with a fantastic letter to the editor from Moscow. Idaho that is! Where I know there happens to be some fine support for beavers and a recent effort to bring Ben Goldfarb out for a discussion of his book.

Looks like his reputation and information precedes him.

An important rodent

In spite of all the snow this past winter, dry conditions and little moisture are predicted for spring and summer in the Pacific Northwest. One way to slow runoff and conserve water is to reintroduce beaver, North America’s largest rodent. Beaver dams, comprised of willows, brush, mud and gravel, are so closely interwoven that little water escapes from the upstream pond. Weight of the water is sometimes pressed deep in the ground, recharging aquifers for use by farms and homes downstream. More water is often channeled to the water table below the surface than above it.

Isn’t that an amazing start to a letter to the editor? I mean no “stop sign needed on geary street” or “too many potholes” for Moscow. Just straight in for one of the BEST beaver letters ever written. Shhh, there’s more.

1. Beaver are identified as a keystone species, an animal on which other species largely depend, such that if it were removed the ecosystem would drastically change. Beaver shape the landscape, create wetlands and alter the physical, chemical and biological condition of running water. This rodent enables the existence of many other species to include aquatic plants and invertebrates, amphibians and wetland-dependent birds and mammals. Remove this keystone and the ecosystem collapses.

Wow, what a paragraph. Something tells me the author has a book of his own that needs writing. Idaho isn’t exactly the ecological capital of the world either, so it means something to read these words coming from one of its citizens.

Beaver also provide habitat for fish. In a study of beaver ponds in southwest Colorado, large numbers of small brook trout occurred in ponds having a stream inlet where gravel beds enabled the fish to successfully spawn and reproduce. In time, overpopulation of these fish reduced available food items so the individual trout grew poorly. In a few older, seepage ponds, abandoned by the beaver, gravel beds became silted over. Unable to spawn under these conditions, ample food existed for a few larger fish. Based on this research, the Colorado Game and Fish Department set a liberal bag limit of 50 brook trout for headwater stream beaver ponds containing this species.

The beaver deserves respect for its role in slowing runoff and conserving water, creating habitat for a multitude of other species and providing a site used by recreational fishermen.

Fred W. Rabe

Great letter Fred! Enos Mills himself would be impressed by this letter! The author Fred W Rabe is such a succinct advocate I had to look him up. Turns out he’s a retired biology professor from the University of Idaho, and after retiring wrote a few books of his own.

Retired UI prof still teaching through photos, books

While Fred Rabe has been retired for more than a decade, his work ethic as a University of Idaho professor in ecology, invertebrate zoology and biology has remained.

“After I retired I thought I was sort of bored, and I had done my Ph.D. work on high mountain lakes, so I thought why not just start off in northern Idaho and go all the way to New Mexico and do some work on the ecology of high lakes,” Rabe said.

So Fred went from teaching biology to preaching beaver benefits. Makes perfect sense to me. He’s a natural naturalist and destined to become a friend of ours. I’m sure Ben Goldfarb will want to meet you and share a beer when he comes to Moscow. Like minds deserve companions.

I admit the headline of this letter made me snork a bit. An important rodent. It doesn’t exactly raise expectations of grandeur. That might not be Fred’s title, but I suppose the editor knows his readers.

And the beaver is, in fact, an important – no, THE most important – rodent.

Oh and guess what was spotted yesterday morning headed up the creek below the arch bridge at the Marina?

THERE ARE LIES, THEIR ARE DAM LIES, AND THERE ARE BEAVER LIES

heidi08 What's killing beavers now? April 4, 2019

Just three days ago I wrote that Nevers park was “bringing in the calvary” and hiring Mike Callahan rather than trapping beavers. I said that because Steve Straight told me that because he had been relieved to hear it from councilwoman Brittany Poster said to him. But it turns out that both Steve and Brittany were lied to. Mike was never contacted and a trapper came and dispatched three beavers the next day. The whole thing was on local news last night and in the local papers this morning.

Beavers trapped, possibly killed after causing issues at South Windsor park

If you’ve been following at home for a while you might remember that the most egregious beaver lies – the real whopper -, are always handed down by the city administrator. Maybe because he’s hired and not elected and will never have to face voter outrage. In Martinez the beavers lead to our cycling through three city administrators. The first famously said that a flow device couldn’t work in our creek AFTER he first said he’d never heard of them. The second asked what “John Muir would have to say about planting trees for beavers” when the eagle scout asked for permission to plant willow, And the third – well, we’ll let you know.

It looks like the South Windsor city manager got stuck delivering some doozies. Beavers, apparently attack people in parks. Didn’t you know? Matthew Galligan is just doing his job to protect the community (and the mayor).

Beavers removed from SWindsor park over community protests

When beavers are trapped, the trappers licensed through the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection determine their fate, Town Manager Matthew Galligan said. They may be relocated, but will more likely be euthanized, since beavers are overpopulating the state, Galligan said.

“There were too many factors that affect public health, safety, and property in place to allow for the beavers to coexist” with Nevers Park activity, town officials said in a written statement Tuesday. Another concern is the possibility of beavers attacking humans who come too close to their young.

Mosquitoes, fish, disease, drinking water. You know the drill. At this stage the city council just throws every possible concern at the all and sees what’s going to stick. At our big November meeting Mike Mensini talked for a half an hour about salmon even though there never were salmon in Alhambra Creek. Because when you’re in charge you get to say ridiculous un-examined things until you run out of breath and never get interrupted with questions.

At least concerned residents did their part.

Many residents who wished to leave the beavers to their business continue to disagree that removal was the best option, however, and criticized Galligan on social media.

One resident, Stephen Straight of Abbe Road, maintains that town officials were wrong to trap the beavers before bringing in an expert to reassess other options, including methods of tree protection and controlling water levels. The beavers did not pose any threats, he said, calling the yellow tape closure of the trail “a stunt.”

Straight and another resident spoke up at Monday’s Town Council meeting to urge officials to reassess the situation. Both residents and council members were unaware that the beavers had already been removed until Galligan informed them that night.

Good for you Stephen. You gave it your all and these beavers deserved better, As we learned in Martinez it takes every last voice to save beavers, and even then it might fail. Here’s what turned out to be our game-changing meeting. but we didn’t know what would happen at the time. It was part luck and part circumstance and part sheer stubbornness. Without councilwoman Janet Kennedy going on vacation at the time. It all could have ended very differently.

Instead of the Middlechild Productions Documentary “Beavers Las Vegas“.

OH COME LET US ADORE HIM

heidi08 Beaver Rehabilitation, Beavers April 3, 2019

This week has been bizarrely kind to beavers. First a glorious end-of-trapping article and now this? Someone up there must like us. Prepare to issue high-pithed squeal in 3-2-1:

Now I’m not surprised there are plenty of beaver orphans in Oklahoma, but it’s rather surprising that 1) some pipeline workers would stop and rescue her on their way home, 2) that someone is on hand with enough education to care for her so well and 3) that the news story correctly reports that the beaver is “Too buoyant to dive” instead of saying wrongly as they usually do that she can’t swim,

Orphaned baby beaver getting nursed back to health at Noble rescue

Wildcare Oklahoma needs lots of thank yous for taking on this little patient. Especially for the next couple of years. Also that’s seriously the cutest baby beaver footage I have ever seen, and believe me, that’s saying something.

Oklahoma’s native wildlife needs your support! WildCare is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization dedicated to the rehabilitation of injured and orphaned native Oklahoma wildlife. Without any government funding, everything that we provide for our patients including food, medication, housing, and professional caretakers, is funded through donations from caring individuals like you. WildCare is also a Combined Federated Charity #57195. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation today in support of our mission. Every contribution makes a difference to our wild neighbors who receive a second chance at freedom, and a new life. Thank you for your support!

You can donate to them here:

And for the grownups in the room, there’s more a more thoughtful discussion of beavers On Utah public radio, who revisited their earlier interview with Ben Goldfarb this winter. It’s one of his best because Utah asks all the right questions.

Revisiting The Surprising, Secret Life Of Beavers & Why They Matter With Ben Goldfarb On Access Utah

THE GOLDEN STATE TRAPPERS LAMENT

heidi08 Who's Killing Beavers Now? April 2, 2019

There are two pieces of great news that make this morning seem luxurious. The first is that I got my “W” key back – it had stopped working entirely and I as forced to paste it in or find another way to say the words work, wonder and why. The vast internet(s) helped me find out how to reprogram my keyboard and now my F2 key is behaving like a w, so I’m THRILLED. (Now if I can just reprogram my finger to remember that we’re in business.)

The second is this delightfully guilty pleasure I think you will share reading this article about the end of trapping in California – I imagine for many, many people it’s producing a thrill akin to watching porn. As a woman whose written about the ‘dying noble trapper‘ articles that appear religiously from Nebraska to Alberta every single winter, it is truly wonderful. Get your popcorn or your donut and settle in because honestly it’s that good.

As anti-fur sentiment grows, California’s oldest trappers are calling it quits

After a lifetime spent trapping animals in California’s western Sierra Nevada, Tim Wion traveled to Oregon recently to make one big, final sale at the annual Klamath Falls fur auction.

Unlike his fellow woodsmen, however, Wion wasn’t hawking the luxuriant pelts of wolves, bobcats, otters, coyotes, foxes and muskrat. Instead, the 75-year-old was selling off the many foothold traps and fur-stretchers that once provided him a livelihood.

“I’ve got no use for them,” Wion told a reporter. “Trapping is dead in California.”

See what I mean? That kind of start to an article right away makes you want to lean back on one elbow in bed and smoke a cigarette. Savor it all. It gets better.

A San Francisco ban on fur sales took effect in January, while two bills in the state Legislature seek to ban trapping for commercial purposes and outlaw the sale of fur products statewide. At the same time, a coalition of animal rights activists called Direct Action Everywhere is stepping up demonstrations at fashion shows and department stores.

“I’ve been on the front lines of this battle since the 1990s,” Aiton said. “But there will be no fighting this time. I’m 77 and … my health won’t allow me to fight one more minute.”

“They won. We lost,” Aiton said.

“My association is not fighting back because trapping is a dead horse in California,” Aiton said, “and there isn’t a dad gum thing we can do about it.”

Oh that’s sweet. The reporter who wrote this must know it’s sweet, right? I mean Mr. Louis Sahagun couldn’t be thinking readers would be sad or wistful when they read this, right? He’s got to know he’s giving a lot of people a lot of cheap thrills.

One of the bills slated for a final vote this summer was introduced by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego), who argues that there are so few active trappers in the state that their license fees no longer cover the expense of regulating the industry.

A total of 68 trappers reported killing 1,568 animals statewide in 2017, according to the most recent data available from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Among the 10 species reported taken were coyote, gray fox, beaver, badger and mink.

The revenue received by the Department of Fish and Wildlife for the sale of their trapping licenses was $15,544 and $709 for the sale of fur dealer licenses, officials said. Many of those trapping licenses were held by pest control companies.

The costs of regulating trappers doesn’t even pay for itself anymore! Mind you, I’m enjoying this too much to even begin to talk about the unregulated free-for-all that is depredation. Apparently California is just fine with killing animals as long as you don’t wear them afterwards, but that’s a fight for another day. Let’s just enjoy this for now shall we?

“What’s happening in California is too bad,” Nichols said. “We see the problem there as a movement of people who regard wild animals as almost human-like.”

Ahh, I can’t believe this article is going to make us all climax again so soon, but shh, here’s my favorite part.

Trapping advocate Nick Catrina, who runs a pest control business in Stockton, offers a less politically correct reason for trapping’s demise in the Golden State.

“Animal rights activists are terrorist groups, mostly led by lesbians, who destroy property and burn down animal research facilities for their cause,” Catrina said. “And progressives, in their march toward communism, are trying to ban trapping. They’ll get rid of hunting too after they take over the government of the United States.”

Communist lesbian terrorists! The indigo girls perform Karl Marx with pipe bombs?

Lions and tigers and bears! Oh my goodness this article is so delicious it should be fattening. I just want to stash it in a brown paper bag and place it under the bed so I can read my favorite parts over and over again every night. I just can’t think of anything better that he forgot to mention. The funny part is that I recognize Mr. Catrina’s name from reading years of beaver depredation permits. I guess sometimes he moonlights in pest control. Next time I’ll say hi!

Today, trappers who were taught the secrets of their trade before their teens by older friends and relatives are feeling isolated.

“Old trappers are dying off,” Aiton said, “and not being replaced by younger ones.”

He realized that trapping was in trouble in California when, he said, “I ran out of world — the places I used to trap were covered with new homes and tough laws.”

The article ends with the wistful mention of his placing a live trap on his front porch to catch the occasional opossum or raccoon and watching them walk off merrily into the sunrise as he whispers goodbye, but it’s too late.

By then we are already lost in the the glorious sunrise of our own.

MICKEY MOUSE CANNOT COMPETE

heidi08 Flow Device Installed, History April 1, 2019

Mondays are hard. Everyone knows that. So what we really need is some kind of enthusiasm-booster chair, to help us see over the dreary week’s work ahead. Okay, you deserve it. Here’s just the thing.

Mickey the Beaver

Mickey the Beaver came into the life of Doris Forbes and her parents in 1939. High school student Jean Yuill found the kit on a sidewalk in Red Deer, Alberta, and happened to bring him to the nearby Forbes home.

The family nursed the injured kit back to health, raising him from when he was only twenty-five centimetres long until he was more than a metre in length.

Can you imagine Mikey’s life? Dressed in doll clothes or pushed in a stroller to a tea party here all the other children ooh and ahh over his curious tail? Doris’ unique pet has been discussed on this site before. There is even a statue dedicated to her in Red Deer Park. Mickey must have been a kind of cash monkey. In this photo he’s posing with a “Dainty white loaf” Beavers, by the way, do not eat bread. It makes them constipated I have heard.

Mickey would come when called by name and would go for swims in the nearby creek, always following the family home. He’d even make dams out of slippers in their home — after the family trained him to stop gnawing at the furniture.

When Doris Forbes was sick, Mickey would go to her bedroom every day to visit — the beaver even caught whooping cough from the young girl. The two were inseparable; Mickey was Doris’s best friend.

“He’s the best pet I ever had, and I love him with all my heart,” she said.

Now that I completely believe. Beavers are very social and personable and a pet orphan is likely to be very demonstrative of affection, because he is missing any. No word yet on what all the trappers of the day, who love to describe beavers as vicious and aggressive, thought of this sweet story. They surely must of heard it because Doris and Mickey were big news.

When “The Tale of Mickey the Beaver” (The Beaver, December 1941) was published, the Forbes had been raising Mickey for more than two years. This is just one of the stories you’ll find in our online archive of The Beaver, Canada’s History, and Kayak magazines. Using the new online search function, search “Mickey the Beaver” to see even more photos of Doris and her furry friend.

Ahh Mickey I hope you life ended kindly and you got to live in someones pond or something. Searching the Canadian archives looks like fun. Thanks for the rainy day suggestion! There’s even a section just on Voyageurs and lots of info about the fur trade. Just in case readers need to learn more about this story, here’s a short video of her story and statue by a recent visitor.