Month: October 2019

WHERE HAVE ALL THE BEAVERS GONE?

heidi08 BDA's, Beaver Book, Beaver relocation, Beavers and climate change October 6, 2019

Years ago, and I mean more than a decade, I befriended filmmaker Mike Foster who was following the beavers of the San Pedro River. He was one of the few folks I knew at the time who had spent as much time as I had watching beavers. Our correspondence eventually tricked off as I got more involved in the beaver community and apparently the beaver population did too. Because this morning I came upon this headline:

Dam shame: Beavers face second extinction on San Pedro River

Twenty years after their triumphant return, beavers have nearly vanished once again from the San Pedro River.

No beaver dams have been recorded within the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area for the past three years, and only a few individual animals have been spotted along the river 85 miles southeast of Tucson. Experts fear the remaining population is now too small to sustain itself.

“There are beaver down there. We don’t know how many, but there has been a decline,” said Scott Feldhausen, local district manager for the BLM. Officials from the Bureau of Land Management and the Arizona Game and Fish Department said they simply don’t know why the animals are disappearing or how many of them might be left, because they long ago stopped monitoring the population.

And stopped paying Mike to film them. It’s hard to imagine beaver not being hardy enough to survive, but maybe they’re being killed? Or maybe climate change made their lives harder? And maybe they would have preferred BDAs along that river to help them get a foothold on a landscape that has been without them for 300 years?

The bad beaver news comes as state and federal wildlife officials are studying whether to introduce beavers into another Southern Arizona watershed, Las Cienegas National Conservation Area near Sonoita.

An early version of the plan reportedly called for as many as nine beavers to be turned loose along Cienega Creek, within the 45,000-acre conservation area.

An environmental assessment of the proposed release was on track for completion late this year or early next, but Feldhausen said he is considering shelving the project as a result of questions raised by the Arizona Daily Star about the status of the San Pedro population.

He said his agency has not followed through the way he thinks it should have when it comes to monitoring beavers on the San Pedro, and he doesn’t want to see that happen again.

“If we are going to do these efforts in the future, we are just going to have to make sure the time and effort are worth it,” Feldhausen said. “It’s incumbent on us to find out if it was successful or not, and if not, why not.”

Maybe from a bureaucratic point of view you need to monitor your project, but from a beaver point of view you most likely don’t. They’re going to survive or die off whether you count them or not. I definately thin BDA’s would improve their odds, though.

A growing number of ecologists and environmentalists now celebrate the animal for its role as a keystone species and a restoration specialist for damaged landscapes. Simply by doing what comes naturally to them, these furry engineers improve the overall health of watersheds and create new habitat for a host of other species, beaver backers say.

The beaver’s contributions to nature were chronicled last year in Ben Goldfarb’s award-winning book, “Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter.”

Now the animals and their advocates are the subject of a documentary called “The Beaver Believers,” which premiered in Tucson late last month at a fundraiser for the Watershed Management Group.

About 250 people turned out for the Sept. 27 screening. The beaver-themed event raised roughly $15,000 for the conservation group’s riparian restoration work in and around Tucson.

Watershed Management Group Executive Director Lisa Shipek said she didn’t know anything about the plight of the beavers on the San Pedro until someone mentioned it during a panel discussion before the movie was shown.

“It was surprising for sure,” Shipek said. “There have been positive impacts from (the beaver’s) reintroduction … but I think we’re still learning. That’s why we need to keep tabs on how they’re doing in the watershed.”

I don’t have a lot of tolerance in my heart for people who say they didn’t know how good things were until someone came in and told them they were valuable, BUT I’m glad Ben and Sarah are making an impression. I guess sometimes you need to “antique road show” your environment to find out that that river left to you by your great great grandfather is actually worth something!

“Oh that old thing is valuable? We’ve been using it for years to keep cans in!

Mark Hart, spokesman for the Arizona Game and Fish Department in Tucson, said the agency followed the beavers for the first five years or so, but it is not a species they generally track. Once the population seemed to be established, they turned their attention elsewhere, he said. “As far as we were concerned, the reintroduction had taken.”

So where have all the beavers gone since then?

It’s a question Feldhausen said the BLM hasn’t even tried to answer at this point.

Some speculate that drought and groundwater pumping have reduced the river’s flow, leaving the mostly aquatic creatures with little more than stagnant puddles of warm, dirty water during the summer months.

Others suspect the beavers are being wiped out by mountain lions or even poachers.

Ironically, perhaps, the BLM just approved a new resource management plan for the national conservation area that opens much of the San Pedro to beaver trapping under Arizona Game and Fish regulations, though Feldhausen said he doubts there are enough animals left to attract serious trappers.

GEE YOU THINK THAT MIGHT HAVE HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH IT? I mean, in addition to the fact that you drained their watertable and that probably affected the riparian tree diet, and without food or shelter my population would decline too.

Filmmaker and naturalist Mike Foster thinks what’s happening to the beavers could be part of a normal population cycle and that the numbers will rebound on their own.

“They’re pretty tenacious. I would be surprised if they’re gone completely,” he said.

AGREED! Wonderful to hear from Mike. People who spend time actually watching beavers know a lot more than we give them credit for.

Foster has decided to take matters into his own hands. He said he’s going to start walking the river again, and he’s taking his camera with him.

If there are beavers still out there, Foster aims to find them.

HURRAY FOR MIKE! HURRAY FOR BEAVERS! I agree that the odds of a total wipe out are small. Beavers have a way of making things work unless people get involved and start mucking it up.

I really like everything about this article, holding the BLM accountable for followup and finding the heroes, and this line. I especially like this one line.

Where have all the beavers gone?

Where have all the beavers gone, Long time, passing.
Where have all the beavers gone, Long time ago.
Where have all the beavers gone. Gone to trappers everyone.
When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?

GO AHEAD. I DARE YOU. SEE IF YOU CAN SPOT THE BEAVER WISDOM.

heidi08 Beaver Art, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? October 5, 2019

Today Worth A Dam is off to Wild Birds Unlimited for their fall nature event. It is the first such event since Gary Bogue’s death and likely to be tinged with rememberence. Last night I received word that his widow was hoping I’d come to the memorial. It startled me in an echoing kind of empty-corridor way to learn that I and the beavers were ever a topic of discussion in Gary’s home or personal life.

One life touches so many others.

Enough of this reflection. Off to Havre Montana where there is much debate over what to do with some namesakes that have interfered in Beaver Park. Havre is about half an inch from the Canadian border and I guess they’re getting some urgent messages their neighbors that trapping may not be the solution.

Is trapping the right way to manage beaver in Beaver Creek Park?

The Hill County Park Board for several months has been hearing proposals for alternative ways to control the beaver population in Beaver Creek Park, but one user of the park says the best way is how it has been done for decades – trapping.

“The (Hill County Park Board) has managed the park for decades,” Fran Buell said. “They did it right.”

Buell, a long-time trapper herself and member of the National Trappers Hall of Fame, added that the park has healthy wildlife and the only thing detrimental to the park is the beavers cutting down trees and causing flooding.

Sure, any solution you have to repeat over and over again is the best solution right? Like how when your tire has a leak and you keep refilling it with every day so you can get to work. There’s no single better way than to just keep repeating what was done before is there? I mean you can’t fix the leak right?

Park board member Renelle Braaten said that she is trying to put together a natural resource committee to look at wildlife management because the issue is larger than just beavers – it’s overall management of the park.

“It’s not all about trapping beavers,” she said. “It’s about the ecosystem and the need to get someone who knows what they are going to see what needs to happen.”

Braaten said the park board and the members of the community have a responsibility for promoting, preserving and protecting the park for future generations and she disagrees with trapping as a method of wildlife management.

“You can learn to work with them,” she said. “… I’d like to see us work with Mother Nature, not against her.”

Well, well, well. Ranelle has the right ideas although the article says that she read on “facebook” that trapping was inhumane and beaver deceivers are easy to install. Who quotes facebook as a source for anything? Okay she’s not the best witness on the stand, but her opponent isn’t great either.

Buell said that trapping is the best method for wildlife management and is a human way to control the population of beavers. Trappers, also do have the ability to target specific animals by altering the triggers and a number of different methods, although it is not always 100 percent accurate. She added that trapping is also generally human and even if another animal, such as a pet, was caught in a foothold trap the animal will not be terribly harmed.

????

She said that Beaver Creek Park has a large population of beavers. One pair of beavers can repopulate from 80 to 150 beavers within four years, with one pair of beavers possibly producing three to five kits, infant beavers, every year. She added that if the park has an overpopulation of beavers, the park could be changed drastically, with the beavers cutting down most of the trees and making the park a large wetland area. Having an overpopulation of beavers also raises the risk of beavers contracting diseases, which could be spread to humans and other animals, and starvation from not having enough food and resources available to sustain the population. An overpopulation could also cause the beavers to migrate to other areas.

????

Science is such a poor substitute for custom. Why use it? Never mind that 80 percent of beavers don’t breed until their third year and never mind that you will disperse and find their own territory and never MIND that an adult beaver enters estrus once a year. It’s true if I say so. I’m a trapper!!!!

“Trapping is recognized by the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks as one of the most ethical, human and responsible ways to harvest an animal,” she said.

The article then goes into a description of the many different kinds of traps that could be used because it’s such a complex science. But I think we should pause and just comment on the reporters habit of using the word HUMAN when he obviously means HUMANE. What’s ip up with that? I certainly agree that trapping is human. An animal would never do something like that. But I’m not sure that drowning an animal that can hold its breath 15 minutes is anywhere close to humane.

Braaten said that trapping does the opposite of controlling the population, instead encouraging more beavers to breed.

“If you stop trapping them and stop killing them, the population would level out,” she said. “Killing off their offspring is making them breed more, so you’re not accomplishing anything. How many years have we been trapping out of Beaver Creek Park? And we still have a problem. So why don’t we try some of these other things.”

????? I’m getting a sense Havre isn’t the apex of public learning. The reporter seems uneducated. The Trapper seems uneducated and the beaver defender seems darn uneducated. Maybe I’m a cynic. Did we ever sound that foolish once? Or is Martinez just a city of beaver Elites?

Humane Society expert Dave Pauli said that the best way to manage any property and any program is generally not one specific way and the park board could use a number of different methods and tools to manage the park.

Pauli said that for the past 10 years, according to park records, the park has trapped about 180 beavers a year, but the park still has a flooding issue.

“So maybe that method doesn’t work,” he said.

???? 180 beavers a year? 180 beavers a year? There would have to be miles and miles of streams and rivers to get to that number. And how would you learn a figure like that. Surely there is no park officer who keeps a record of the numbers of beavers killed that year. Maybe there’s a primitive tally on some trappers fireplace?

He added that trapping also has some negative effects and disrupts the population. But tools, such as beaver deceivers, are effective and may be able to reach mutually acceptable results.

“Generally speaking, with wildlife, you cannot kill your way to success,” he said.

Pauli said he is not totally opposed to trapping although the park needs to have other tools it can use and turn to.

“I am not suggesting that it’s off the table, but it should be a tool that is used in a situation where it actually solves something,” he said.

He added that the beaver deceivers are generally successful, and although the beavers work to plug them up, if the beaver deceiver is maintained and regularly cleared out, the beavers will become discouraged and either learn how to live with it or move.

Welp. Everyone deserves a pat on the back for this one. It’s good to spend time talking about beavers instead of just trapping them. It’s good to consider the use of beaver deceivers and good to acknowledge that sometimes trapping can be necessary. Now I sure wish all off you had spent some time reading this website or any other reputable source on beaver management, and I wish you had any idea of the numbers of beavers you have or any understanding of population dynamics, but heck.

Not every town is Martinez you know.

ENVIRONMENTAL ‘OOPS’ FOR WHISTLER

heidi08 Beavers and Roadways October 4, 2019

You start to realize you’re literally “not in Kansas anymore” when not only do people know about their local beaver habitat, but they get upset when city road work interferes with it. Case in point, Whistler BC.

Work on Alta Vista road results in removal of beaver habitat

Recent work by the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) to prevent damage to a road in Alta Vista, which resulted in the removal of a beaver dam from a nearby pond, is “a textbook example” of the RMOW putting infrastructure over wildlife habitat, according to a longtime local conservationist.

Last month, the municipality began work in the neighbourhood to ensure the integrity of the road on Hillcrest Drive after a beaver dam had caused the water of the pond to rise “to a level that it was seeping underneath the road,” which was “at risk of failure,” explained Whistler Mayor Jack Crompton.

As a result, the RMOW removed one of two beaver dams at the site and drained approximately 1.5 metres from the secondary pond. The RMOW confirmed staff has observed “fresh beaver activity” at the pond since the work was completed.

Dave Williamson, principal at Cascade Environmental Resource Group, the firm contracted by the municipality to deal with the issue, said the removal of beaver habitat was done as a last resort after previous mitigation efforts had failed.

“I think it was necessary. We’re talking about, basically, protecting infrastructure. You can’t put the sewer line at risk,” he said, referring to Whistler’s main sewer line, which runs under the road.

Come on people. It was a choice between your beloved road and your beloved beavers! Which are you going to choose? I mean its not like there are a 100 cities within a 50 mile radius of us that have used culvert protection or installed a beaver deceiver. That’s certainly nothing that would occur to you,

Beavers have been an “on-and-off problem for years” at the site, Williamson said, noting “a beaver deceiver,” a fence that is designed to protect the upstream opening of a culvert, had been installed at various points but ultimately proved ineffective.

“We were getting to the point where we were having to clear the dam almost on an annual basis because they were damming right at the front of the culvert,” added Williamson.

“This is kind of a valley-wide problem. We have a growing beaver population, I believe, in town, and they go wherever the wood and the water is and start making dams.”

We tried open heart surgery with some tweezers and a can of hairspray and it didn’t work. So we know that never works. Much better to kill them six times in the next seven years and deal with whatever political fallout that comes.

But Bob Brett, a biologist who has been monitoring the local beaver population since 2007, said the animal is a keystone species that not only creates habitat for other wildlife, but also provides a barometer of the health of local wetlands.

“If you build any infrastructure in beaver habitat that will be damaged by beaver activity, then beavers are a problem. But beavers actually aren’t a problem; they’re essential to our ecosystem,” Brett said, noting that there are approximately 100 beavers in Whistler.

“We’ve lost 75 per cent of our wetlands in Whistler and it’s very important that we retain the ones that are still around. Beavers mean wetlands.”

Brett believes the recent work at Alta Vista is “a textbook example of people doing a job well but not within the overall framework of protecting the environment first,” he said. “I don’t fault RMOW staff for protecting infrastructure, per se, because that’s their mandate. But why is that their mandate? Why isn’t their mandate within an overall framework of protecting wildlife habitat?”

Whoa Brett! We like you! You are our brother from another mother! You tell em’!

“Whistler is built in what was originally massive beaver habitat. There were well over 100 beavers, no doubt. So if infrastructure were built to be beaver-safe—that is to say it allows for that sort of flooding, then it wouldn’t be a problem in the first place,” added Brett. “Secondly, in that case, where it’s possible to retrofit, did they look at lining the pond at one end? Did they look at any sort of waterproofing of the infrastructure versus destroying beaver habitat?”

According to the RMOW’s Beaver Management Policy, the goal is “to encourage coexistence between humans and beavers through management techniques that limit habitat alteration and provide long-term solutions.” Brett would like to see that commitment put into action more effectively.

“I would like this to be a case study of how the municipality can do things better in the future, so that they actually walk the talk of protecting wildlife habitat,” he said.

Me too! I think that’s a great idea and I’m going to bet every single voice on this website agrees with me! Go and try harder, Whistler, The closest Canadian out your way that can help with this is Adrien Nelson, but if that doesn’t work out try Beavers NorthWest in Seattle. It’s a four hour drive but completely doable in the fall. And i bet very pretty. Call Ben Dittbrenner or Adrien Nelson, will you?

And let’s take valuable space for Show and Tell now. I was looking recently at an issue of Ranger RIck magazine and thinking how cool the bubble letter on the cover was and wishing I could do it. And LO and behold I figured it out! This is very helpful because it means I can make a work show up on any photo without putting a shape behind it. The possibilities are endless.

BEAVERS ARE MOVERS AND SHAKERS

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and soil, Beavers and water October 3, 2019

Are beavers good for streams? Dam straight they are. Very, very good. Don’t take my word for it. Check out this excellent new paper from the Methow Project.

Reintroduced Beavers Rapidly Influence the Storage and Biogeochemistry of Sediments in Headwater Streams (Methow River, Washington)

Rita K. McCreesh , Kena Fox-Dobbs , Peter Wimberger , Kent Woodruff , Gordon Holtgrieve , Thomas K. Pool

Abstract

North American beavers (Castor canadensis) were targeted within North American headwater landscapes by European loggers and fur traders in the 19th century, reducing beaver populations to near extinction by 1900. The extirpation of beavers from river networks has had profound effects on riparian zones, including channel geomorphology, temperature regimes, sediment storage, channel-floodplain connectivity, carbon storage and nutrient dynamics. i

Consequently, reintroducing beavers has been provisionally implemented as a restoration approach within some watersheds. We characterized how reintroduced beavers influence the short-term dynamics of organic material accumulation within the sediments of 1st and 2nd order streams within the Methow River watershed of Washington State. In collaboration with the Methow Beaver Project, we identified four creeks where they had reintroduced beavers within the past five years, as well as a control non-beaver pond. At each site, we collected shallow sediment cores from upstream, downstream, and within beaver ponds, and then measured organic material via elemental analyses of sediment carbon (%C) and nitrogen (%N) content. We compared those samples to sediments accumulated in local pond areas not created by beaver activity.

Our results show greater organic C and N content of sediments in beaver ponds than non-beaver ponds. C/N ratios indicate elevated accumulation of allochthonous organic material in beaver impoundment sediments that would otherwise not be integrated into headwater streams from the terrestrial landscape. These findings suggest that the reintroduction of beavers could be an effective means to promote restoration of whole ecosystem function.

Allochthonous means appearing other than where it originated, so material moved by the beaver and then by the stream the beaver influenced. Basically this article is saying that moving things around is one of the essential ecosystem services that beavers provide because these materials and nutrients are integrated into headwater streams in ways that couldn’t have happened without them.

I really really believe that.

JUMPIN’ FRIJOLES, BATMAN!

heidi08 Beaver relocation October 2, 2019

My father, like many fathers of a certain era, had several jokes he liked to tell over and over. I remember some of them fondly but am especially partial to his tale of the ‘city slicker who moved to the country’ to live a more natural life. He started off at the feed store to purchase two dozen baby chicks thinking of all those farm-fresh eggs he’d soon be enjoying.

A week after his purchase he was back again, complaining that the first batch had all died. The manager of the feedbarn was concerned and asked about the details of their care. Prompting the city slicker to observe,

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m planting them too deep?”

Cue the groaning laughter, because as we all know baby chicks shouldn’t be planted. Which you will understand right away why I thought of this joke when you read this curious beaver relocation article from New Mexico.

Beaver Reintroduced In To Rito De Los Frijoles At Bandelier National Monument

During the past week, three beavers were reintroduced in to Rito de los Frijoles at Bandelier National Monument marking the first time beaver have been above Upper Falls since the 1950’s. Beaver are a keystone species meaning that many other species and the ecosystem as a whole are reliant on their presence. Beaver raise the water table, modulate stream flow, improve water quality, and increase biodiversity. We have high hopes that our new residents will help increase water storage, control vegetation, reduce water temperatures, and improve wildlife habitat within Frijoles. Photo Courtesy NPS

Okay, so far so good right? I mean it’s a little comical to name a national park after beans, but it’s good they think highly of beavers right?

All three beaver came from the Taos area where their activity was conflicting with humans and without relocation the beaver would have been euthanized. The beaver all survived the reintroduction which is rare as the stress of relocation is commonly lethal.

Relocation is usually lethal? Now you know why I heard my dad’s joke echoing in my brain. What do you usually do to them? The entire National Park system of the United States, with all their research, vibrant staff and history, is saying that beaver relocation is usually lethal?

And they tried it anyway?

The mind reels. The jaw drops. Even when the Methow Project was reporting terrible numbers with beaver relocation the success rate was stil 50 percent! Hell, even when they tossed beavers out of the frickin’ airplane they reported only one death

Prompting the very serious question, what on EARTH does New Mexico do to its beavers?

Speaking of beaver hardiness the Sierra Wildlife Coalition recently posted this heart-melting video, which proves to me that Beavers are much cooler than anything you can imagine and work way harder than people which are lazy toads by comparison.

Don’t you just Love them? And yes that’s the first snow in the Sierras at the end of September, and since you asked neither rain or snow or dark of night shall prevent a beaver from his important work. Post office be dammed.