Month: October 2019

IS BEAVER FICTION NEXT?

heidi08 Beaver Book October 26, 2019

Now we all know Ben Goldfarb is a great writer. But did we know he writes fiction? Apparently it’s his second love and we can all look forward to new offerings soon! A tail of two beavers. Great Beaver Expectations. The Brother’s Beavermozov. The case of the tail that never slapped. I could go on.

The Wild Writing of Ben Goldfarb

For Ben Goldfarb, a map of North America looks very different depending on where the beavers are allowed to live. The nature journalist’s 2018 nonfiction book Eager: The Surprising Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter charts the rise, fall, and other rise of this engineering animal, which helped shape the continent — both by its presence and its absence.

The story of the beaver isn’t the only one Goldfarb is adept at telling. He’s a featured author at this year’s Bedtime Stories Spokane, with novelists Sharma Shields and Jess Walter, reading new fiction. His next book project is more wildlife journalism, though — about the effect of human-made roads on the natural world.

Bedtime for beaver stories! I honestly can’t wait. I can see Ben as kind of a Norman Mailer of fiction. Ruggedly standing to one side and watching the story unfold. Even if it’s one of his own making.

Humanities Washington: Did essays and nonfiction come first for you, or fiction?

Ben Goldfarb: Before I became a journalist, my dream was really to be a professional conservationist. After college, I had a number of fieldwork jobs — I worked for the National Park Service in Yellowstone doing invasive trout control, I worked for the New York City Parks Department, I tagged sea turtles in North Carolina. I really envisioned going to work for some large conservation nonprofit. But the whole time I was doing those jobs, I was blogging, doing a little bit of freelancing, and always loved to write. While I was in graduate school I started writing for campus publications, and realized I really loved writing more than anything else. And going into nonfiction was a way to tackle those issues that were really close to my heart.

Okay. You can write about road ecology if you must. But I’m going to imagine you penning a fine tail about a brave city deciding to live with beavers against incredible odds and the wonderful cast of wildlife characters it grew because of it. Ahh.

Humanities Washington: You’ve moved into studying the effects of roads on ecosystems. What have you found?

Ben Goldfarb: I think the thing that’s been striking for me, and the reason the next book is going to be a really rich, interesting and maybe challenging one to write, is the diversity of the impacts that roads have. We drive around and everybody sees the roadkill deer or possum by the side of the highway, but what you don’t see is that road acting as a barrier to movement for wildlife. Our vast road network really fragments landscapes and cuts off migration, and cuts off animals from accessing the habitat they need to find food and mates and rearing ground for juveniles. You can’t see that, but it’s very real, and in its own way more destructive than roadkill. We also tend to build roads along riverways, and we’ve cut off a lot of rivers from their floodplain. You’ve got stormwater runoff from all this impervious surface we’ve created. You’ve got roads functioning as corridors for invasive species introduction and movement. For me, the story of beavers is the story of this animal that shaped North America in ways that we fail to recognize, and the elimination of beavers profoundly changed North American landscapes as well. I think that roads are similar.

ALL THOSE DAMS AREN’T GOING TO BUILD THEMSELVES

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beaver relocation, Beavers October 25, 2019

More good news about beavers from our friends in Wyoming which is turning out to be a very beavery state. Even if they aren’t quite ready to declare their love in public.

Problem beaver family relocated to Absaroka Mountains in hopes of improving habitat

In back was a 40-pound female beaver, taken from private property where she and her family’s work were flooding a road and farm field. They were needed elsewhere — where flooding would be welcome. This was a special individual. The matriarch for a beaver family of five, her partner and three of her young had already been moved, but she was the first to be released at their new home with a radio transmitter.

Beaver had previously lived on the stream, located in an isolated drainage on the Absaroka front, but mysteriously disappeared about a decade ago. The habitat suffered when the beaver went away.

“It’s not so much about the beaver as it is beaver dams,” Altermatt said.

Um, which repair and build themselves year after year? I think its about the beavers, buddy. You need them to do what humans can’t be relied upon to do. Sheesh!

There are many benefits having beavers doing what they do best. When water is slowed, sediment drops out, increasing the water quality. And when the water level rises, so does the water table surrounding a creek, enabling vegetation to grow. Expanding the wetland area around the creek “is the biggest benefit for terrestrial wildlife,” Altermatt said.

Fish thrive in streams with ponds created by beaver dams and waterfowl are attracted to those areas. In places void of beaver habitat, biologists are forced to do what they can to recreate dams called “beaver dam analogs.” The man-made structures “are intended to make the area more attractive for beavers and increase riparian-dependent, woody vegetation such as willow,” said Travis Cundy, aquatic habitat biologist for the Game and Fish’s Sheridan Region.

Yes they do. You got the idea. And beavers make it possible and keep it happening.

They’re monogamous. They mate for life for the most part,” he said. “They do much better if you move them as a family.”

If a male beaver is caught and relocated before the rest of the family is trapped, he may move on from the new area in search of his mate. And that’s where Altermatt’s beaver trailer comes into play: He can keep the first trapped beaver healthy and relatively happy in the trailer while trying to capture the rest of the family.

“The first beaver is always the easiest to catch. Almost every time I trap I get one the first night; I call it the dumb one,” he said. “The smart one might take a week or two to get.”

And what did sherri tippie teach us? That the first beaver is USUALLY the male and the last beaver is USUALLY the female. Because, well, you get the idea.

At the release site on Sept. 27, Game and Fish Information and Education Specialist Tara Hodges accompanied Altermatt to help negotiate the steep banks to a good release point.

As Altermatt opened the gates to freedom, it took a while before the beaver realized her luck. The pretty gal stuck her nose out, then ducked back in. Then slowly she stuck her whole head out, her eyes starting at Altermatt’s feet and moving toward the sky. As much as Altermatt had done to protect her and her colony, no human is to be trusted.

While they’re usually docile creatures, Altermatt has been rushed by an angry beaver before. They’re not quite as ferocious as a charging grizzly — which Altermatt has also experienced — but encounters with any wild animal can be dangerous.

In this case, however, the tagged beaver slowly waddled to the edge of the creek, dived in nose first and disappeared under the edge of the grassy banks.

Well of course she did. Sheesh.

Did I mention Fro was dropping off the curtains yesterday? I was hardly prepared for the glory of seeing them in person. How awesome will these look framing the stage? Jon was kind enough to give us an idea of scale.Now I just have to figure out how to hang them! Fro is such an amazing combination of talent,

patience and vision. She made sure every child’s work stayed true, and still managed to turn the whole thing into a masterpiece. Rumor is she might be joining us again for Earth day, when we start the amazing prayer flags that hopefully can hang at the festival. Something like this, only much much cooler.

The idea came from a friends visit to a Croatia Children’s festival that inspired it, but I can’t wait to see a line of beaver flags made by children at the festival! We can do some at Earth day and more at the beaver festival itself and end up with several strands which can zigzag all around the park.

ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS FOR BEAVERS

heidi08 Dispersal October 24, 2019

This article appeared at the beginning of the month but I liked it so much I always planned to get to it. I am going to call that photo the “Winsome” beaver. I’ve never seen credit for it and I don’t think that photo is castor fiber but Isn’t s/he adorable?

Awww, gnaw! Plucky the beaver dammed to a lonely life on the loch after epic trek

A beaver has been filmed living on Loch Lomond for the first time after embarking on a cross-country trek. But the animal’s solo relocation, hailed by experts as a big step in the development of Scotland’s wild beaver population, could mean a lonely life.

Ben Ross, beaver project manager for the wildlife agency Scottish Natural Heritage, says the animal is thought to be a singleton and probably made its way 14 miles across country. Beavers, which last lived in Scotland more than 400 years ago, were reintroduced to the Tay illegally in the early 2000s, and by the last count in 2017 were thought to number more than 400.

Now don’t you just love how the article automatically assumes that this pioneer beaver is a male looking for his honey? Dietland Muller-Swarze pointed out that the research shows female young beaver dispersers are likely to GO FARTHER looking for a mate than their male counterparts. In fact the only other species known where that irony happens is with porcupines! (And yes I have a weird brain that can remember I was on an airplane flying back from a shrink conference in San Diego when I read that fact and it stuck me so dramatically I remembered it.) The conference is over, the shrink days are over, but of course I’m not forgetting that fact of odd beaver feminism any time soon.

Workers at Loch Lomond National Nature Reserve near the mouth of the Endrick were first alerted when they saw beaver-gnawed willow branches. As a result, they set up a night-vision camera trap and captured the beaver on film.

He said: “It is quite a big deal that it has crossed to the west but it is what we expected What we want is good robust populations that are spreading and spreading away from those areas where there is greater conflict.”

He pointed out there were still many potential territories to fill around the Forth and Tay, saying: “It could very well be many years until another male or female comes over, then they’ve got to pair up.

“This is well within the range which these animals might be expected to travel. The hop-over from the Tay to the Forth was significant, and this is the start of another significant step.”

“I think it’s just a waiting game for this animal, he or she might be twiddling their thumbs for a while.”

If she had thumbs, that is. What will she twiddle instead? Beavers are fairly practical. They don’t do a lot of thinking about the future. They live in a room full of “right-nows”. So they fix the dam “right-now” and they chew a branch “right-now” and they look for a mate “right-now”. But the unlike humans, the ‘nows’ don’t seem to add up to any dissatisfaction or frustration. There are no beaver tally marks on the trunks of chewed trees or lonely beaver journals saying

“Day 170, The nights are getting cooler and there was frost on the dam this morning. I haven’t yet seen or scented any sign of chewing. I’m giving up hope of ever meeting another beaver on this godforsaken landscape. This is Ripley. Signing off.”

Which is good, because waiting through a series of “right-nows” is by far the best way of all to wait for anything. You should try it sometime.

The Lomond beaver is thought to have come from a group on the Forth at Kippen, 14 miles away. It may have been forced out when its parents had new kits. While beavers will cross open country in search of a territory, tributaries of the Forth run up to Balfron, potentially giving a beaver watery cover to take it to within six miles of Loch Lomond.

A few hundred yards of open country at Balfron Station separate one small tributary of the Forth from another burn that flows into the Endrick Water, which enters Loch Lomond just south of Balmaha. This could be the route the Lomond beaver took.

I’m sure she’s coping just fine. There’s lots to eat and no competition for the best places and she’s just making scent mounds and dams to her hearts content.

A kind of ‘Isle of the blue dolphins for beavers’ if you will
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ARE BEAVER DAMS REALLY DAMS AT ALL?

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beavers and Nitrates, Beavers and Nitrogen removal October 23, 2019

Do you remember the beaver festival? Yes, I know it was a long, long time ago. But for the last two festivals artist Frogard Schmidt has been working with children on some lovely painted curtains that will ultimately go behind the stage, Well I hard from her the other day that their finished touching up and weatherizing and she’s dropping them off tomorrow. She sent a little snap shot that I knew you’d want to appreciate.

Isn’t that awesome? Doesn’t Martinez have the best child artists and the most gently repairing art instructor in the entire world? I just love the “Enter” and “exit” reminders on the lodge. (Because you wouldn’t want to forget and have beavers bumping into each other.) It’s going to look FANTASTIC on stage. I can’t wait to see them in person.

Time again for another fabulous article on beavers that doesn’t know its about beavers from our friends at Phys.org. Apparently the University of Delaware in for a big surprise.

Antiquated dams hold key to water quality

All over the eastern part of the United States, thousands of small dams block the flow of water in streams and rivers, harkening back to colonial times. Originally constructed for energy and milling operations by settlers or companies, most of the milldams no longer serve human purposes. Now, many of these inactive dams are being removed by government and private agencies—driven by a need or hope of increasing public safety, reducing liability and improving aquatic habitats.

However, less attention is being paid to whether removing the dams will harm water quality, which is precisely what University of Delaware Professor Shreeram Inamdar is investigating. As the researcher explains, blocking the water unintentionally provides a valuable benefit. Soil upstream of the dam becomes richer in carbon, which acts as an important filter of nitrogen, a key pollutant in our nation’s waterways.

Of course this article is talking about the importance of “Mill Dams” and you know we’re thinking of another kind of small dam entirely. I guess I’m going to need one of the many graduate students working on this research to sit down and explain to me why a beaver dam is any fucking different. And why they aren’t broadening their research to include the removal and destruction of the tens of thousands of beaver dams that are taken out every year by responsible cities and landowners just “Doing the right thing” for their property.

“This natural filtering service reduces stream water nitrogen concentrations, improves water quality and saves limited conservation resources,” said Inamdar, who serves as director of UD’s Water Science and Policy Graduate Program.

The rapid response grant focuses on the effects of milldam removal on riparian (riverside) groundwater and stream water quality in Pennsylvania, which has the highest dam removal rate of any state. Dam removals could potentially undermine this filtering service, which is valuable to ecosystems, and increase the cost of cleaning up waterways. On the other hand, removal of dams could introduce a more dynamic groundwater regime—like greater fluctuations of water levels in stream-side soils leading to potentially greater processing and removal of nitrogen. Determining which of these two scenarios happen is the focus of the study.

So removing dams is bad in many ways, And thank goodness we’re here with a crack team of researchers to tell you which is worse. I mean it would be one thing if there were skilled teams on hand responsible for all these dams and making repairs every time one faltered night after night and costing us nothing. But that’s impossible. Of course progress and human infrastructure demands that we keep on ripping out beaver dams anyway.

I guess it’s nice of you to admit it matters.

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YOGA FOR BEAVERS

heidi08 Beaver Art October 22, 2019

Yesterday was an odd flurry of fortuitous. It started when Amy Hall (the chalk artist at the festival) asked about a pdf on beavers that she could direct folks on her website towards. Seems she and her husband are doing a yoga class for thanksgiving and she wanted to ask for donations for beavers and educate attendees about their importance.

Did I mention what a truly amazing woman she is? As if she hasn’t easily already done more than humanly possible! So I spent yesterday struggling to put something together for her to distribute and was fairly happy with the result. I guess she was too. Last night her website “Went Live” with this post:

Join Napa Valley Yoga Center owners Peter & Amy Hall for a special Thanksgiving morning all-levels 75-minute yoga class at 8:00am. Cost is a love offering, all proceeds will go to Worth a Dam, an amazing Bay Area organization that works to protect and promote beavers. Yes, beavers! These incredible aquatic mammals do so much, increasing diversity of wildlife, protecting watersheds, reducing flooding and fires. Beavers are coming back in a big way throughout Napa Valley and the entire Bay Area…come support their hard work!

Amy! You are sooo kind to think about us and beavers for the holidays! Don’t you wish you could get up early and join them for 75 minutes of morning yoga for beavers? Plus it prompted me to put this together and I’m pretty happy with how it came out. Click at the center to expand and flip it over.

I will leave this on the website sidebar because I like how easy it is to understand at a glance, Maybe I missed my calling. I should have been a middle ages pub sign maker! You know how they were always called something like “The barking dog” or “The three legged cat” because no one could read so they’d just a have an image to tell folks the name? I always liked that.