Month: March 2020

BEAVER TRAPPER HAD THE O.J. TRIAL OF HIS DAY

heidi08 beavers and otters, History February 3, 2023

Our beautiful website has a virus. Nothing fatal don’t worry. But the lovely colored background that used to offset the text disappeared yesterday and no one from BlueHost was in the office to help us get it back. I tried, I won’t say valiantly, but desperately to get it back, and am able to set the deep blue again and match frame it for a moment but alas, I cannot ‘save’ it. It can’t be done by the likes of me. So for now we will have white space.

Sigh.

Let’s hope its not just the beginning. There’s plenty more mischief to be had where that came from I can assure you. And lets be cheered with this lovely video from Roxanne Gunn new to the Beaver Management Forum from Massachusetts. I especially like the camera angle.

Looking for distractions I’ve been playing researcher looking for historic reference to beaver in the San Luis Obispo, where they are still claiming beavers don’t belong. Well I got started reading about Isaac Graham. the beaver trapper of great fame who settled in the region and was famously the subject of what is called ‘the first trial’ of California. Seems Graham lead the ‘coup’ that over threw the Mexican Governor at the time. His subsequent capture, trial and imprisonment were said to be the thing that drove Washington to annex California in the first place.

Graham was a curmudgeon who took two wives and started a distillery in Monterey and another in Santa Cruz. He was by all accounts a greedy and difficult man. And not likely the kind of man to make a fortune from a single species and then decide to settle in the one lone region of the state where that species didn’t exist.

One of Graham’s buds was father Luis Martinez who ran the local mission that everything seemed to hinged on in those days. It is so fascinating to spend any time at all among historians, but two things especially jumped out out me. Always history teaches us dismissively that the Spanish/Mexicans who owned our state before we did weren’t interested in the fur trade. And didn’t partake of the quest for pelts. That always sounded odd to me because honestly, who isn’t ‘interested’ in money? And pelts were basically 20 dollar bills lying around just waiting to be picked up.

So father Luiz taught his indian flock to trap otter and ran a trade up and down the coast from SLO to Santa Barbara. He even deal with HBC. And you might be thinking yes for SEA OTTER not beaver, but what we have seen over and over again is that the names used for pelts were pretty interchangeable. Russians were famously trapping what they called ‘sea beaver’ in Russian River. And we all know there were references to river otter described as beaver and visa versa.

Beaver just meant I want that fur. So the term ‘otter’ may not mean strictly otter as we know it. Remember that the word ‘Nutria’ is spanish for ‘otter’. It’s a tangled mess out there.

Anyway, since Isaac had the OJ Trial of his day there is LOTS written about him, both at the time and since. I will keep sniffing and let you know what I find.

WHO’S DECEIVING WHOM?

heidi08 Beavers and Culvert Protection March 20, 2020

Well, it looks like all of California has now gone the way of the Bay Area. From Sacramento to Santa Barbara people are being asked to shelter-in-place. Hello! Good time to read about beavers, I say.

We are all adapting. Yesterday I heard from Michael Pollock who is still doing well even at ground zero. And I heard from our artist Amy Hall who has now created a virtual Yoga Studio where people can log in to follow their favorite teachers. Mike Callahan sent some photos of the speaker dinner at BeaverCon 2020 and I thought you’d like to see them. I recognize about 30% of their familiar faces. Maybe you can spot some too. Click on a photo for a closer look.

Meanwhile, a park in Vancouver thinks they are installing a Beaver Deceiver and I for one am dying to learn what it actually looks like.

New ‘beaver deceiver’ designed to protect Beaver Lake from beavers

Park planners are hoping a “beaver deceiver” will counter the busyness of beavers in the lake named after them in Stanley Park. Chad Townsend, senior planner for Environment and Sustainability, said four to six resident beavers regularly work to block the grated culvert that leads to Beaver Creek and Burrard Inlet. Every two days or so, they gather enough logs and plant material to block the culvert, which park board staff have to remove to keep water flowing.

They hate this sound,” he said, referring to how beavers regard the sound of flowing water.“They dam it, we pull it out, they dam it, we pull it out.”

He called the new culvert a “beaver deceiver” because of the way it will be designed to allow water to flow but stop beavers from being able to dam it.

Now call me crazy, but I’ve read more than one article where people say proudly they are going to install a beaver deceiver with no consultation and no expert and it actually turns out to be a PEOPLE DECEIVER because it convinces folks officials are “trying” to coexist when in fact it’s almost surely going to fail and justify trapping very soon. That’s the point.

Maybe I’m wrong. Stanley park has been doing some pretty smart beaver management over the years. They are famous for their urban beavers, and not that far from Ben Dittbrenner if they need consultation. Hmm. I’ll cross my fingers for now.

Maybe you should too.

CELEBRATING ‘BAD’ BRITISH NEWS

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, Devon Beavers March 19, 2020

I tend to be a glass-half-full kind of girl. And who can blame me? I’ve always been comforted by air bubbles underwater. Hear me out. It strikes me as kind of advice from the universe that says “when things look bleak, and you’re completely turned around, follow the bubble UPWARDS. Not Downwards. That little ball of floating oxygen will tell you exactly the direction you need to go to find the surface and fill your lungs with sweet air. Follow it closely and do what it does.

So remember to keep the glass half full when you see this headline,

England’s beavers move from ‘extinct’ to ‘critically endangered’

The reintroduction of beavers to parts of England has led to the species being formally recognised as ‘critically endangered’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, where previously they had been classified as extinct.

Well sure, it’s no heartfelt wedding vows or national anthem. But we’ll take it. I’d rather be endangered than extinct, wouldn’t you? In these dark days we have to take our good news where we find it.

Following research commissioned by wildlife regulators Natural England, Natural Resources Wales and Scottish Natural Heritage, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) last week accepted the presence of beavers in Britain.

According to the study’s lead, professor of environmental biology at Sussex University Fiona Mathews, shifting the IUCN’s status has been “highly controversial”.

“There are lots of people who would rather not see them have any sort of listing, because once you start recognising that something is threatened, then there is an obligation to actually start doing something about that,” said Mathews.

The new status puts an onus on the international community to see these species restored, according to Mathews. In England and Scotland, introduced beaver populations are doing well, but remain small and very fragmented.

Isn’t that great news? Sing it with me now. “

I once was lost, but now am found. Was extinct, but now I’m threatened!“

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NRDC AND THE BEAVERCON

heidi08 Beaver Conference, Beaver ecological impact March 18, 2020

A while ago, I have no idea how long now because time has become a giant soupy mass with no beginning and no end, I was contacted by Dr. Jennifer Sherry a wildlife advocate at Montana office of the National Resources Defense Council, who wanted to have a discussion about beavers and beaver experts in the West. I got very excited. Allow me to repeat that. VERY EXCITED. Because they are usually all about the big sexy predators like polar bears, orcas and wolves, and I hoped it had something to do with the Trump administration’s expansion of nonlethal wildlife control and might make life better for beavers. Alas, it turned out that funding was tightly controlled for carnivore’s and she just wanted to learn more. Which is still good news for beavers. She had just finished Ben’s book.

I introduced her to Jakob Shockey who as it happened was just forming the Beaver Coalition and recommended she go to BeaverCon to learn more. Turned out she was already registered because her boss was very interested in beavers and the good things they do. So then I introduced her to Mike Callahan and privately wrote him to be very nice to her because NRDC is the big kahuna of wildlife and would make a huge difference for beavers.

So the conference happened and was wonderful as you know and yesterday she released this:

BeaverCon: Convening the Beaver Believers

A group of around 200 impassioned scientists, practitioners and advocates came together in early March to discuss a rodent of great importance: the beaver. “BeaverCon” was a fitting name for the gathering—it’s hard to avoid puns and playful descriptors when discussing this oddly charismatic animal. But the discussions at BeaverCon were not to be taken lightly. Beavers’ ability to transform their environment through dam-building can lead to such an array of ecosystem benefits, it’s almost hard to believe. From reducing climate change through the capture of carbon; to creating habitat for sensitive species like salmon and sage grouse; to mitigating hazards like fire, flood and drought; to water storage and pollution filtration, presenters praised beavers as the unsung heroes of ecosystem health and resilience.

Hurray! Beavers make the big leagues! What a fantastic way to broadcast why beavers matter!

Across more than 30 presentations at BeaverCon, one theme consistently emerged: We humans need a major re-education on the place of beavers in our landscape (with the exception of many Indigenous peoples who have maintained traditional ecological knowledge). Western society needs more beaver believers, which is to say, we need to rethink the path towards healthy watersheds.

Her summary goes on to talk about the presentations, for example Frances Backhouse and the history of the fur trade, and ends with a reminder to pay attention to the good things beavers can do. And she asked if it was okay to end with our beautiful Ecosystem poster. And a magical link to our website!

The science has caught up with beavers and the consensus is clear: these animals are a powerful partner in protecting ecosystem and human health. We can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to all that we destroy when we kill beavers. Where there are fewer beavers, there is less resilience, less diversity and most notably, less water. The critical importance of water is intuitively obvious, but we often overlook the connection between beavers and water. Addressing this disconnect will require confronting the perceptual and political barriers to accelerating beaver coexistence and restoration across North America.

Long-time beaver advocate Heidi Perryman created this graphic to portray the keystone role beavers play and the many animals that benefit from beaver-created habitat.

Graphic credit: Worth a Dam

Isn’t it amazing how something goes from an idea to a conversation to a discussion in Montana? I guess good things really do happen to beavers! Thanks Jenny.

ACCOLADES ACROSS THE BEAVER POND

heidi08 Devon Beavers March 17, 2020

I know it is wet and the sun is not sunny,
but we can have lots of good fun that is funny.

Dr.Seuss

Oh sure 7 million Californians have just been ordered to shelter in place but there is still lots of fun to be had if you’re us. Heck, who knows, beaver readership might go UP in this crisis! There’s no great loss without some small gain.

In the UK at least, beaver comeback has been greeted with good cheer in some quarters. They even grace the new National Geographic which celebrates the return of several lost species.

Welcome home: the lost English species making a comeback

The reintroduction of native species, lost for decades or even centuries from the British countryside, is at the heart of the Government’s 25-year Environment Plan. Alongside the recovery and restoration of wildlife-friendly habitats, the plan explicitly states that the reintroduction of native species is key to nature’s recovery.

A tiny corner of Cornwall is showcasing the huge potential benefits that could stem from the reintroduction of beavers to the south west of England. Hunted to extinction for their valuable fur, beavers are a keystone species with the power to transform local landscapes and provide natural solutions to major problems, such as flooding, water quality and declining biodiversity. A series of trials are currently assessing the impact of reinstating the tree-munching animals to areas of the south west, including Somerset, Devon and Cornwall.

A lactating female beaver in the Cornwall project gorges on some brambles. Photograph by David Parkyn

Hurray! The comeback kid! That’s a great photo but honestly I can’t look at it without thinking that the photographer saw Cheryl’s iconic tree carrying photo and decided he needed to take his own. Of course this is slightly better because it proudly displays the renewable generations to come.

Carefully fenced in a two-hectare (five-acre) enclosure of plantation woodland alongside Nankilly water, near Ladock, three Cornish beavers have built effective flood and drought prevention infrastructure, cleaned water, and recreated wetland habitats rich in biodiversity. Their dams, for example, have reduced the peak flow of the stream by 30% after heavy rainfall, says Cheryl Marriott, head of nature conservation at Cornwall Wildlife Trust.

With climate change leading to more frequent extreme weather events, the opportunity to trap water upstream in areas where flooding is less of an issue, rather than let it accelerate downstream to areas where flooding is a major issue, is a huge win. Elsewhere in England, a pair of beavers reintroduced to Yorkshire’s Cropton Forest in 2019 have been suggested as a factor in preventing local flooding during Storm Dennis last month.

Yes beavers can do a whole lot of good things for you, and I’m glad England is recording every step of the way. Chris Jones really became a legendary pioneer when he agreed to try offering his farm up for beavers.

Three years into the five-year trial, Chris Jones, the farmer hosting the Cornwall beavers, said that his farm had recorded six new bird species, including water rail and green sandpiper, and three new mammals (water shrews, harvest mice and polecats).

“This has all happened on a stretch of land that is just 200 metres long, which begs the question of what would happen if we had 2,000km of beaver habitat in the south west,” he says. Jones would be delighted to see the beavers freely released, arguing that on land like his, and along the banks of many rivers and streams, the animals cause precious little, if any, loss of productive land.

Aren’t you proud of every single one of these brave pioneers pushing the beaver conversation forward? Chris Jones and Mark Elliot, Alan Puttock and Derek Gow and Paul Ramsay. They forced this into being and we are all the better for it.

And the advantages of stripping the energy out of rivers and streams brings other advantages too, adds Marriott. “Scientists have been really surprised at the reduction in agricultural pollutants in the water, such as phosphates and nitrates, as the stream leaves the beaver enclosure,” she says.

Water backed up in ponds behind beaver dams slows to such an extent that its pollutants can sink and percolate into the soil, rather than float downstream. These ponds are also creating an environment where algae thrive, kickstarting a food chain that rises through invertebrates to birds and mammals.

Oh yes, beavers kickstart it all. They are the original catalyst. We couldn’t agree more.