Month: July 2020

BEAVER PEST DETECTIVE

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers July 31, 2020

Some days I wake up. check the news feeds and the beaver ticker tape and there is nothing, sadly NOTHING to write about. But some days the world is just bursting with beavers news. Really fun stories that I cannot wait to share and must not delay telling you about. This is a bursting day. And we have to start with this awesome film made by an alternative kindergarten in Canada.

And stay tuned until the bloopers real. It’s priceless.

[wonderplugin_video iframe=”https://youtu.be/V-hpV_zIWHk” lightbox=0 lightboxsize=1 lightboxwidth=960 lightboxheight=540 autoopen=0 autoopendelay=0 autoclose=0 lightboxtitle=”” lightboxgroup=”” lightboxshownavigation=0 showimage=”” lightboxoptions=”” videowidth=600 videoheight=400 keepaspectratio=1 autoplay=0 loop=0 videocss=”position:relative;display:block;background-color:#000;overflow:hidden;max-width:100%;margin:0 auto;” playbutton=”https://www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wonderplugin-video-embed/engine/playvideo-64-64-0.png”]

Now wasn’t that precious? And Powerful?

I can just imagine mayor Schroeder right now breathing in relief as he closes the door behind him and glances back at the racing threat. He barely escaped this. If a video message from children trying to understand his logic had hit channel 7 it would have been ALL over the airways in a matter of minutes. And ours would have been even better of course. It still might be.

He is sooooo lucky. Teacher Anna Pye is a genius, but we have plenty of local geniuses too.

I think you will also enjoy this slightly more mature look at the “Zen” of beavers from two fairly groovy hikers who encountered some amazing beaver habitat on the Colorado trail. The podcast is called Groundshots and the beaver discussion starts around the 1:09 mark. They are VERY languid podcasters but you have to listen to their surprise at a real beaver complex.

MP3•Episode home

By Kelly Moody : Herbalist, Philosopher, Photographer and Writer and Kelly Moody.

Kelly and Gabe reflect on the first six segments of their Plant-a-go on the Colorado Trail

WHERE HAS ALL THE WATER GONE?

heidi08 BDA's, Beavers and water July 30, 2020

I mean, as long as we understand these things. That’s what really matters. These researchers at Syracuse University are making sure we leave nothing to chance.

Where Does the Water Go?

Beavers play an important role in maintaining the habitat around streams throughout the United States. Beaver dams slow water velocity, preventing stream banks from eroding. Without these dams, the rushing water and sediment cuts the stream channel deeper into the ground, dropping the water table. If the water table drops too far below neighboring plants and shrubs, native vegetation dies off resulting in a barren landscape and a loss of biodiversity, further upsetting an area’s ecological balance.

To replicate the effects of beaver dams, a modern stream restoration technique known as “beaver dam analogues” (BDAs) has been developed. These artificial structures consist of wooden posts woven with vegetation to slow water velocity. The intention behind BDAs are to raise the water table in order to restore or maintain native vegetation and to slow water velocities to reduce erosion.

As populations of beavers have declined, municipalities, state agencies and private landowners in the western U.S. have installed BDAs, but have not necessarily monitored their effects, according to Christa Kelleher, assistant professor from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. As a result, little is known about how these structures function in their surrounding landscape.

Yes yes,no one is researching the BDAs they are so excited about putting in but we’re here to change all that! Ladies and gentleman, may I present to you the amazing BDA researcher!

Through a grant from the National Science Foundation and in partnership with The Nature Conservancy Wyoming, Kelleher and collaborator Philippe Vidon, professor in the Department of Forest and Natural Resources at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, will investigate how BDAs affect the storage and flux of water along stream corridors. The team will look to answer the question: Where does the water go?

Topics Kelleher and her team will investigate include: if water in the stream primarily leaves as evaporation because the dams generate a large pond upstream; if water moves from the stream to recharge the groundwater aquifer (underground rock or sediment that holds groundwater); or if water simply moves around the BDAs into the surrounding land and then re-enters the stream through groundwater-surface water interactions.

“We will accomplish this by field observations and modeling to try to get at not just individual processes, but their interactions,” says Kelleher. “What we learn around these beaver dam analogues will be compared to similar observations and analysis along stretches of river that do not have these structures, to contrast our findings.”

Allow me to say that your important research of whether water in BDA’s get evaporated or hypoheic exchanges itself into groundwater, is the perfect foundation for MY RESEARCH. Which is what the fuck would happen to all that water if we didn’t kill beavers in the first place.

Please stay tuned or our dynamic conclusion.

[wonderplugin_video iframe=”https://youtu.be/QmBLSGy6g58″ lightbox=0 lightboxsize=1 lightboxwidth=960 lightboxheight=540 autoopen=0 autoopendelay=0 autoclose=0 lightboxtitle=”” lightboxgroup=”” lightboxshownavigation=0 showimage=”” lightboxoptions=”” videowidth=600 videoheight=400 keepaspectratio=1 autoplay=0 loop=0 videocss=”position:relative;display:block;background-color:#000;overflow:hidden;max-width:100%;margin:0 auto;” playbutton=”https://www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wonderplugin-video-embed/engine/playvideo-64-64-0.png”]

BEAVER HANDMAIDENS

heidi08 Beavers July 29, 2020

Do you know that feeling when you are always the one asked to help move the scenery but never the one asked to understudy the starring role? I think it’s summed up with the saying “Always a bridesmaid but never a bride.” Sometimes people want things from Worth A Dam archives, photographs or video or graphics, but they don’t want to let us tell the story of urban beavers or talk about all the tragedies that befall them. Because who wants to read about that?

And I know its good for people to see local beavers and it’s good for people to be reminded of them in the waterways. And it’s good that people remember our beavers enough to ask and visit our website so they can pick what they want.

But sometimes it just bugs me, ya know?

‘GETTING IN GOOD TROUBLE’ FOR BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers and Flooding, What's killing beavers now? July 28, 2020

“Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.”

John Lewis speaking atop the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama

It occurred to me watching the profound tribute to his life over the past few days that what happened in Martinez – what happened to my life in particular in the cataclysmic 2007 was that I got into some “Good Trouble“. Through no planning of my own I found myself scrambling to slow down the massive machinery of extermination and stop the fast moving train of reactive fear. At the time everyone acted like it was such an affront. Such a challenge to the way things were done. I can remember being lectured by the female clergy at the Rotary meeting I presented and was was scolded by council member Janet Kennedy. Why wasn’t I more patient and appreciative? I remember how scary and difficult everything was. I remember how it felt like I was weighing my responses more carefully than I had for any single thing I had ever done in my life before or since.

Mind you, I’m not saying it’s anywhere near as brave or important as what he spent his life doing. But battling to redeem the waterways of America’s is a little brave. And a little important. And its the kind of good trouble I seem to be equipped for, so I think I’ll keep doing it a while longer

I’d like to cause some “Good Trouble” in Sturgeon at the moment.

Sturgeon County offers beaver bounty to combat flooding issues

Sturgeon County will offer a beaver bounty to address flooding issues affecting the area north of Edmonton. The beaver control incentive policy, a first for the county, was approved by council last week and will start in August.

The program will pay $20 to property owners in the area in exchange for a beaver tail, along with the signing of an affidavit stating the beaver was found on private property within the county.

That means that if you kill an entire family you might make a cool hundred bucks! Gosh that will come in handy with the pandemic and all. Mind you this is Alberta. And you have the smartest researcher in all of Canada about 45 minutes away. And hey Glynnis is training a team of students to install flow devices for free, but heck. Blame the beaver. How bad can it get?

“Beavers are an important part of the ecosystem,” he said.

“When the population is balanced they can absolutely assist in some of the areas, but right now what we do find is that they end up plugging up culverts, they create dams that redirect water flow to areas that then end up flooding out roads, create washouts, damage infrastructure and flood agriculture lands so they end up being a pest in that area.”

So we know that sometimes, hypothetically speaking they are good. But now not so much. They are just using all this water to make more water! And we need our farms and roads! But the article must be written by a friend. Because it ends of a very positive note.

Glynnis Hood, a professor with the U of A’s Augustana campus in Camrose was recently awarded a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada to build a model to test the claim that beaver habitats lead to flooding

She’s studied the animals for the past 20 years.

“Beavers often get blamed for flood events, especially the major ones,” Hood wrote in an article on the U of A’s website.

“Some believe that beaver dams store so much water that big rains add to the volume and cause flooding. Others say that beaver dams actually help hold back water that would have otherwise flooded property.

“You end up with this two-sided view of whether or not dams upstream are good, or if they’re creating even worse floods that you would have expected.”

The research project is expected to continue over the next five years.

GO GLYNNIS! She’s a very serious researcher with years of academia behind her title. She is Interested in science and relying on peer review. She would never describe herself as causing “Good trouble” on behalf of beavers.

But she is.

WATCHING BEAVERS CHANGES HEARTS AND MINDS

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers July 27, 2020

One of the things I enjoy about my vantage point as a former beaver watcher and current guardian is that I get to hear the stories of other beaver watchers and remember what it felt like for that world to unfold before me. This latest post from Jenny Mann of the Beaver Trust in the UK brings it all back to me.

Beaver Watch

A few years ago, I had the pleasure of working at Loch of the Lowes Nature Reserve as a Beaver Interpretation Officer. The beaver population here was growing, and as many may know, this population was not part of the official Scottish reintroduction project. Therefore, in order to alleviate the concerns that many local people had, I delivered ‘Beaver Watch’ events. During these sessions we discussed everything from the beavers’ brutal history, to the behavioural differences between Eurasian and American beavers, and of course the positive impact that these amazing animals can have on the environment.

The evening event, hosted in a special “Crannog” wildlife hide, culminated in a spotting session looking over the loch. Each night we watched mesmerising sunsets with Ospreys overhead and red squirrels in the trees around us; only a beaver could top this truly wild experience.

I have many fond memories from this time, not least of all the way my volunteers treated spotting the beavers like an undercover operation. Fuelled with tea and biscuits, they donned their radios and binoculars and made sure every single visitor caught sight of a beaver during our sessions.

Ahhh that’s fun. Of course we didn’t need secret agent maneuvers in Martinez but I certainly understand your excitement. It’s fun to hunt beavers, but even funner to find them. Or better yet, let them find you.

It’s a magical experience to watch any animal in the wild, but considering their 400-year local extinction, spotting a wild beaver in the UK is A BIG DEAL. You won’t forget the sight of a beaver swimming easily… alright, you might be fooled by the odd duck, but there’s really nothing that compares to the smooth and purposeful wake made by a Best Dadbeaver heading for an evening feed.

I can remember the excitement building each night and my failed attempts to contain the oh’s and ah’s of my visitors as they caught sight of their first wild beaver. Occasionally our subject would dive down (and they can stay underwater for up to 15 minutes), but this would only make the group more determined to see another. Being able to help them connect with their local nature was a true privilege, and I know that I ignited a love for these wonderful animals in many people throughout our Beaver Watches.

Here you might be thinking, A love? Really? Is that exaggerating? And I will show you something precious and you let me know the answer. Tell me what your heart feels after watching this moment of dad beaver and his newest son in Martinez in 2010 after he just lost his partner of many years.

[wonderplugin_video iframe=”https://www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Best-Dad.mov” lightbox=0 lightboxsize=1 lightboxwidth=960 lightboxheight=540 autoopen=0 autoopendelay=0 autoclose=0 lightboxtitle=”” lightboxgroup=”” lightboxshownavigation=0 showimage=”” lightboxoptions=”” videowidth=600 videoheight=400 keepaspectratio=1 autoplay=0 loop=0 videocss=”position:relative;display:block;background-color:#000;overflow:hidden;max-width:100%;margin:0 auto;” playbutton=”https://www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wonderplugin-video-embed/engine/playvideo-64-64-0.png”]

Well, is that love? Did the earth move for you, too?