Month: April 2020

APHIS KEEPS THE BEAVERS AWAY

Well well well. It’s nice to know that APHIS is still getting paid work. With all the bad news they’ve seen some better days in California. Apparently Minnesota isn’t phased.

Minneapolis Parks: We didn’t put out a ‘killing contract’ on beavers and coyotes

This week, Ralph Sievert, the Minneapolis Park Board’s director of forestry, is answering a lot of voicemails about beavers.

That’s because last week, the board met (distantly) and approved a new wildlife management contract with the United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. It’s an unwieldly name for a government organization that, among other things, helps solve “conflicts” between people and wildlife.

Some of those conflicts, the board said, could include particularly aggressive urban coyotes, or maybe beavers doing beaver stuff in the wrong place at the wrong time. Commissioners gave the example of a few specimens that had been chewing up the trees in Sumner Field Park. Neighbors had called the Park Board’s forestry division to complain about the mess.

Did you ever notice how beavers and coyotes tend to get lumped together as ‘nuisance’ animals? I sure did. I’ve always said I’m honestly not sure which is harder to defend. But no one wants to sit by a ‘coyote pond’.

According to Sievert, you legally cannot shoot animals within city limits. That’s just language the USDA keeps in its contracts in case it needs to, for example, shoot a nuisance animal out in rural Montana. So that’s not going to happen.

There are no plans yet to kill any Minneapolis animals. Apparently, beaver activity at Sumner Field has calmed down this spring. Park staff think the pond water was probably a little too shallow for the beavers to comfortably winter there.

There haven’t been any catastrophes involving coyotes yet, either, although they’re a growing presence within city limits. Those were just some “examples,” Sievert says, of the type of situation that could merit the USDA’s attention.

There is also bad news for the beavers, and that’s that this contract, on a practical level, changes very little. The parks system already arranges for the killing of beavers on a semi-regular basis.

We will kill beavers on an as-needed basis. And now we don’t have to go thru the hassle of having a public meeting about it or hiring a trapper. Isn’t that great? It sounds air tight to me.

By the way, speaking of beaver ponds, here’s an excellent look at what Minnesota just prevented itself from having any of. If you need a little peace today save time to watch this video. It’s a mesmerizing look at the very best place to be.

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BEAVER CHAMPIONS ON THE PACIFIC COAST

heidi08 Beavers and Fire Prevention, Beavers and salmon, Flow Device Installed April 29, 2020

I’m not sure this has ever happened before. There are THREE very important beaver stories this morning meaning very good things about beavers and I cannot pick between the three. I’m going to have to profile each thing and you have to promise to come back and read the whole thing. I’m sorry to assign homework, but it’s necessary. They’re that good.

The first and most startling news is a profile piece about Emily Fairfax in the UC agriculture and natural resources blog.

From being an engineer to researching nature’s engineers

“When I came face to face with beaver dams for the first time, I had what can only be described as a transformative experience,” says Emily Fairfax, an assistant professor of environmental science and resource management at California State University, Channel Islands. While leading a canoe trip through the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota, she encountered what she describes as “just these enormous, impressive features” – created by beavers. “You truly realize how sturdy beaver dams are while dragging your canoe over them,” she adds, laughing. “They are incredible from an engineering perspective.”

Despite being taken by the handiwork of beavers in that initial encounter, Fairfax says “I just put that experience in my back pocket for a long time.” After majoring in chemistry and physics in college, she went on to work as an engineer. “But, I kept going fishing, visiting wetlands and creeks, and realized I wanted to be out in these places in my day to day life.”

“Then, I watched the documentary Leave it to Beavers. It was about how beavers fundamentally alter landscapes. I was reminded of the beavers I’d seen in Minnesota and was like, I want to study this. On a bit of a whim, I applied to graduate school, and haven’t looked back. Now it’s all beavers, all day, and they make me so happy. It turns out rather than being an engineer, I was called to study nature’s engineers.”

I had NO idea that Emily was inspired by Jari’s documentary! WOW! The world might have been stuck with another engineer if it weren’t for that! I’m so touched and my mind is a little bit blown. I had just assumed she got involved because her thesis chair was interested or something. The article goes on to talk about her viral video and ends in her interest in California.

Working in California, Fairfax’s biggest task now is locating beavers. She notes that before beaver trapping there were likely upwards of 400 million beavers in North America, meaning they were everywhere. “Trapping took them down to 100,000, and now estimates put them back up to 10 or 20 million. They are prevalent in certain areas like the Colorado Rockies and the Sierra Nevada, but we still don’t see them often in many downstream areas that provide great habitat.”

For now, she says, “I’ve got students hiking streams just looking for signs of them, and when I give public talks, people will sometimes tell me about how they used to see them on a creek in the 70’s. That might not seem relevant, but that kind of information is so valuable. So now I’m basically saying to people, if you see a beaver dam anywhere in California, please tell me about it!”

I’ll make sure we all tell you when we see them! Ohh you are the hope of a new beaver generation Dr. Emily Fairfax. Make sure you read the Work to protect Sonoma beaver lodge begins

To prevent flooding and manage water levels in a Sonoma creek, a pond leveler will be installed where a family of beavers is living, Sonoma County Water Agency officials said.

The pond leveler will help water transfer through the beaver dam so that the pond doesn’t cause flooding. It will also assist with maintaining the habitat for the beavers, said David Cook, senior environmental specialist at Sonoma County Water Agency.

There was even an insert about my timing concerns, because the reporter was included in the email thread where I learned of it.

Heidi Perryman, of urban-beaver protection group Martinez Beavers, asked the agency to wait until kit — or, baby beaver — season is over, which is mid-to-late May. But Brock Dolman, program director of Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, which is partnering with the water agency and Swift Water Designs in the project, said they also would prefer to do the work outside of kit season and were prepared to do the install in March, but then COVID-19 got in the way.

Isn’t that just like Heidi, always poking her nose in and mucking around. Well I also heard from a neighbor that the beavers were busy that night trying to plug the outflow of the pipe so you may not have heard the last of this story. It’s good that a flow device was used. Hopefully the beavers can make it work. Fingers crossed.

The last piece of really OUTSTANDING news comes from Port Moody, B.C. See a lot of the challenges to the beavers have come from the fish hatchery folk which are saying that beaver dams stop chum. Jim and Judy have been doing their home work AND the city’s homework and heard from famous Fisheries Biologist Dr. Marvin Rosenau. that their stream supported coho salmon. The real kind not the hatchery frankensteins. And there’s all this data saying beavers are good for coho and no data at all saying they’re good for chum. Which stinks.

But they got a go pro camera and have been using it to shoot underwater and GUESS WHAT THEY FILMED and Dr. Marvin Rosenau. identified right away in the beaver pond???

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It’s hard to see but unmistakable. Around the 55 second mark you can see it best on the upper left hand corner. Look for the while glint of its eye and then the wiggle of its tail as it moves forward. That would be coho fry. As in the real deal. As in proof of a beaver pond doing what it should. As in pass the coho birthday cake and lets have a party!

“A PASSIONATE, ECLECTIC GROUP OF BEAVER BELIEVERS”

heidi08 Beaver Book, Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? April 28, 2020

Someday it’s a great day to be a beaver-believer. This article combining Ben Golfarb’s excellent book with the recent struggles at Warner Park in Madison Wisconsin makes me proud to be a member of the club.

‘Dam It! WI Is a Backward Beaver State’

In April 2017, a quiet war was being waged over Warner Park’s resident beavers. Apart from a handful of local news articles, the dispute came and went free from the public eye.

Beavers — not exactly known to fit the human definition of orderly — made their presence evident at the park by damaging and felling trees. The city’s Parks Division contracted a trapper, reasoning the flooding risk posed by the beavers’ dam outweighed their benefits.

Unaware of the city’s plan and outraged at the prospect of beavers being removed, citizens decided to take traps into their own hands. The safety risk posed to those doing so forced the Madison Parks Division to remove the remaining traps.

While the traps are gone, whether or not the issue has been resolved is subject to debate. The positives and negatives of living with, or without, beavers have not been discussed on a city-wide scale.

However, Ben Goldfarb, the author of “Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter,” has offered a framework for doing so.

Ta-daa! Hi Ben, I am SO happy your book was written and you are willing to trot about the countryside and remind people why beavers matter.

Goldfarb, an award-winning environmental journalist, visited Madison’s Olbrich Botanical Gardens on Feb. 20 to speak about beavers and their ability to solve a range of environmental issues.

The problems Madison lakes face are products of land management and infrastructure choices, UW-Limnology wrote. Chemical run-off, chiefly nitrogen and phosphorus, is creating “unsightly and unsafe” lake conditions.

Beavers are the “landscape Swiss Army knives,” as Goldfarb refers to them, that can fix all of the above. Their dams slow water — creating wetlands — which can sequester pollution, prevent erosion and slow flooding.

Goldfarb and other self-proclaimed “Beaver Believers” not only trust in the rodents’ capacity to “tackle just about any ecological dilemma” but recognize compromise may be a part of doing so. The passionate, eclectic group supports coexistence efforts rather than removal.

Flow devices are one of the many tools being used to moderate conflicts between humans and their paddle-tailed neighbors, Goldfarb said. Most flow devices — including Skip Lisle’s Beaver Deceiver and Mike Callahan’s Pond Leveler system — consist of a water outlet and fencing.

“A passionate, eclectic group.” Aww shucks, you’ll make me blush. Yup that’s us. It takes a village. We’re a mixed bag, A heterogeneous bunch of grapes if you will.

Goldfarb concluded with the words of fellow Beaver Believer Kent Woodruff, which capture the essence of beaver belief.

“We’re not smart enough to know what a fully functional ecosystem looks like. But they are.”

Ohh be still my heart! I just love this beaver club we’re in. Don’t you? Excellent work, Ben. Sometimes I get the feeling a tide is turning.

The gentleman from South Carolina who wrote me about the beaver living under his house noticed that it had an injury so I suggested taking it to rehab. Yesterday Carolina Wildlife Care came and trapped and took it away . Maybe you have some pocket change you can send their way to thank them and help pay for its treatment and board?

BEAVERS AND CLIMATE: BEAVERS AND CLIMATE

heidi08 Beavers and climate change April 27, 2020

I think we should start our day with a little beaver listen from Yale. Can’t embed it but this is close.
Don’t you feel 90 seconds smarter? I sure do. Today is the day that Kevin Swift of OAEC will be installing a flow device in that beaver habitat behind the stream in Sonoma we talked about a while ago. Yeah for flow device! Not quite a yeah for the timing, as it is smack dab in the middle of kit bearing. I gave my usual alarm bell but others were less concerned. Fingers crossed the beavers won’t be either.

Meanwhile there’s more beaver and climate new from our favorite science friend

Dramatic loss of food plants for insects

by University of Bonn

“Over the past 100 years, there has been a general decline in food plants for all kinds of insects in the canton of Zurich,” says Dr. Stefan Abrahamczyk from the Nees Institute for Biodiversity of Plants at the University of Bonn. The homogenization of the originally diverse landscape has resulted in the disappearance of many habitats, especially the wetlands, which have shrunk by around 90 percent. Human settlements have spread more and more at the expense of cultivated land, and the general intensification of pasture and arable farming has led to a widespread depletion of meadows and arable habitats. The researchers compared the abundance of food plants of different insect groups, based on current mapping for the years 2012 to 2017, with data-based estimates from the years 1900 to 1930 in the canton of Zurich (Switzerland).

The food plants of specialized groups of flower visitors are particularly affected by the decline. For instance, the Greater Knapweed (Centaurea scabiosa) is pollinated by bumblebees, bees and butterflies, as their tongues are long enough to reach the nectar. The decline is particularly dramatic for plant species that can only be pollinated by a single group of insects. In the case of Aconite (Aconitum napellus), for example, this can only be done by bumblebees because the plant’s toxin evidently does not affect them.

Gosh those darn disappearing wetlands! If only there were some kind of cheap and easy way to make wetlands all over Europe and North America so that the essential insect population could be saved.

MY FAVORITE KIND OF BEAVER TALE

heidi08 Beavers and Culvert Protection, Who's saving beavers now? April 26, 2020

Finally we have come upon a day chock full of beaver news. It must be Sunday, because everyone knows the papers save up their flat-tailed animal stories for the weekends. That’s good news though, because you’ll especially enjoy this one.

Battle of the beaver: Hamilton backs off plan to kill beavers causing a dam mess in Ancaster

The battle of the beaver has raged for two years in rural Ancaster.

Every year, an industrious rodent blocks a culvert under Mineral Springs Road with gnawed-off trees and mud to stop the flow of water. Inevitably, a city roads crew comes out to clean out the dam mess before the low-lying dirt road floods — only to see the culvert fill up with sticks days or even hours later.

This spring the battle took a deadly turn, with the city hiring a trapper to snare and “humanely” kill the beaver — or maybe a family of beavers? — over concerns the clogged drain is a danger to road safety.

But Castor Canadensis is winning again — this time thanks to outraged neighbours who won the beavers a stay of execution.

HURRAY! Public outcry saving beavers and stopping a city from taking the easy way out! This is my very favorite kind of story. Yours too. Grab a second cup and settle in for a nice fun read. Ancaster is in Ontario at the end of Lake Eerie and New York. Not a huge commute for Mike Or Skip if city leaders decide they wanted to solve this the right way.

Adrian Firth learned about the “beaver-drowning plan” from a trapper setting snares in the pond near her home a week ago. The nurse — who admits she already has enough on her plate in the midst of pandemic chaos — has nonetheless feverishly organized resistance for days.

“I think it is just crazy. Killing these animals is really best solution they could come up with?” asked Firth, who walked around the pond with about a dozen neighbours Friday simultaneously planning a petition while trying to maintain physical distancing.

“I haven’t seen any real road flooding. But if it’s a problem, maybe just build it up and give us a real road,” she suggested, noting the low-lying gravel thoroughfare is typically pockmarked with potholes.

Ahh Adrian! We like you a lot. And you’re a nurse which makes you TWICE as popular. And it is crazy, I agree. Although there’s an easier way to fix it than building another road and its called a beaver deceiver. Maybe I’ll send a note.

Firth noted much of the area green space, including the pond, is on environmentally protected Hamilton Conservation Authority land. “If you’re a beaver, is this not the place to be? And look around — there are beavers all over the frickin’ area. How many of them do you plan to kill, exactly?”

All of them? I mean think about it. When there are ants in your kitchen you don’t just want to discourage one or two. And if your job depends on unplugged culverts, beavers are ants. Right?

“We’ve tried many things to dissuade this beaver,” said roads superintendent Sarah Poole, who listed protective cages and iron-bar catchbasin lids as examples of failed experiments.

“Everything gets destroyed,” she said, adding the culvert is currently stuffed “six solid feet” with sticks. “This beaver is very good at what he does.”

Unlike all the other beavers. Which are such slackers. Too bad Sarah didn’t get one of those.

Trapping and relocating problem wildlife is also possible — but the law forbids moving an animal further than one kilometre. It’s rare, but not unheard of, for the city to kill beavers when roads are threatened, said Poole. “For us, road safety is something we can’t ignore.”

But it turns out angry residents are also hard to ignore.

They certainly all. Just ask Martinez. And ask Port Moody. And ask yourself, is it worth it? By the way, this is some pretty nice reporting from Matthew Van Dongen. Good work.

It’s not a total win — at least one beaver was killed before the traps were removed, say neighbours. But the city estimates there are at least 10 other beavers living in the vicinity, said Ferguson — and for now, they get a “reprieve.”

Ferguson, who also chairs the conservation authority board, said watershed agency officials will meet by teleconference with city roads managers in the coming days to brainstorm a “more humane” solution.

Something tell me a more humane solution might just be on its way. Get ready for an email.