Month: August 2020

BEAVER HABITAT CREATES FUEL BREAKS

The first time the “Bioneers” conference appeared on this website was 2010. In 2009 Brock Dolman had presented and mentioned the importance of beavers. It was surprising news at the time. But it is mainstream today. Because that’s the way change happens, slowly at first, and then all at once.

Fire and Water: Land and Watershed Management in the Age of Climate Change

California is a biodiversity hotspot, but its complex ecosystems are some of the first to model the consequences of a warming atmosphere. Wildfires are currently raging throughout California, burning through hundreds of thousands of acres and spreading rapidly. Climate change is fueling these wildfires — a problem that will only continue to escalate as the environment becomes drier and hotter.

Fire ecology experts are leading the search for solutions, as they seek to restore the healthy and natural role of fire in ecosystems, while combating the poor land and watershed management practices that have led us to this crisis. In this panel discussion from the 2016 Bioneers Conference, four leading fire ecologists discuss one burning question: How can modern society renew our relationship with the land to stop the wildfire crisis?

Ooh ooh I know, call on me! Or, hey maybe Brock can take this one.

And then there is one very special critter in the riparian part of our watersheds, and that’s our beaver. Right now many of our watersheds have been damaged in all sorts of ways, including by being overharvested and eroded by roads and off-road vehicles. We’ve reduced the complexity of those systems and their capacity to support diverse life, especially aquatic life, but really all life that depends on water. But beavers are forest farmers. They slow, spread and sink water, and they increase the wetted width of their habitats to grow the food that they eat because they’re herbivores. They eat bark and cambium and cattail roots and grasses. They need to slow water down to grow riparian forests and wetlands, which happen to be then sequestering carbon and creating other habitat. They are great hydrological engineers, and we should hire as many of them as possible.

Right now in California we have a decreasing snow pack in many of our high elevation systems, but runoff volumes are increasing in mountain meadows and systems lower down. Our natural water storage capacity and distribution system is out of balance. If we can we work with beavers as a keystone species, they can interface with these processes and play an important role in re-establishing a healthy hydrologic cycle. And there’s some good science on beaver habitat mitigating the intensity of fire by creating fuel breaks in the bottom ends of these systems. Beavers rehydrate the valley bottoms and increase the wetted width of these linear corridors that then act as natural firebreak systems. So bring back the beaver in California!

Excellent work! Especially the last part about beavers mitigating fire by providing fuel breaks. That’s pretty much what we need in the west. Damper soil that’s less flammable. Go Beavers. I’ve been thinking that our ecosystem poster might work in an hourglass shape, with the creatures underwater at the bottom and the ones above at the top. Of course the beaver dam would be the middle, giving both sides what they need. I played around with the notion yesterday. What do you think?

JUST THE FACTS, MA’AM

Well, we survived yesterday’s smoke bomb and thunder threat. The inside of my house doesn’t smell quite as bad this morning. That’s a kind of progress, right? And I learned how to backup my ipad. That’s something. And this happened at the Winnepeg humane society:

Your Phone Call Can Help Save Winnipeg’s Beavers

Can you help us save beavers from being cruelly killed within our city?

Beavers are an integral part of Canada’s waterways, and are commonly associated with our country. However, when beavers choose to reside in populated areas, they can damage property, or pose a risk for flooding to occur. Currently, the City of Winnipeg is using lethal methods as a form of urban beaver management. Problem beavers are killed with firearms, or through trapping via conibear trap systems. The Winnipeg Humane Society opposes this type of wildlife animal management and we need YOU to help us get the City to use alternative approaches for this issue.

Well you got my attention, yes. Why is killing beavers a problem?

Though relocation is not a viable solution, research shows that lethal methods only make way for neighbouring beavers to move into the killed animal’s territory. In fact, removing beavers increases population growth, by stimulating beavers to become sexually mature earlier in life. Beavers are not only a wilderness staple, they are also crucial for keeping ecosystems running smoothly. Beavers play a critical role in keeping wetland ecosystems symbiotic, by improving water quality and availability, ultimately resulting in large levels of local biodiversity.

Now that’s a new one. I never heard that. I don’t even think it can be true. It’s probably one of those facts that has been applied from other species, like rabbits, to beavers without thinking. Doesn’t that mean that every beaver in rehab raised alone would be ‘triggered’ to mature earlier? I really hate efforts to save beavers with the wrong science. Then when it fails we ALL pay the price. But that’s what happens when your whole point is not to kill things, you get a little careless with the facts.

For these reasons, the Winnipeg Humane Society is urging supporters to phone their city councilors, and ask that the City of Winnipeg stop killing beavers. And yes, we need you to CALL, not email or message on social media, because a phone call is the most powerful way to show our elected officials that this issue matters. Join the Winnipeg Humane Society in asking the City of Winnipeg to adopt a beaver management plan similar to countless other municipalities, where humane pond leveler systems, wire mesh, and culvert protectors are utilized, which allow for beavers and humans to co-exist peacefully. We are providing a list of phone numbers for you to call in support of our request to start using humane methods to manage beavers in Winnipeg.

Here’s the thing. If you don’t know what your talking about and you call the city who also doesn’t know what they’re talking about then they just make things up and hope you’ll go away. One of things I really respected about Martinez is that enough of the people really paid attention and did their homework. Not all, but enough.

If there are a handful of you the city just tells you to go away or waits it out. But if there are enough to scare them with volume they might give you something like this. A bizarre mechanical engineering that makes everyone feel better, is not based on any science, but just looks like effort. Then wait a while for it to fail and then kill the beavers anyway. Next time they can say “We tried your humane solution and it failed, now we need to do it our way.”

Believe us in Martinez when we say, saving beavers is really serious business. Pottery Barn “you break it you buy it” stuff. The rewards are enormous, but the costs are pretty enormous too. The mistakes you make will last decades. But the success can dissolve in a heartbeat and has to be carefully guarded every day.

Just remember what playwright Tom Stoppard said;

“There are no commitments, only bargains. And they have to be made again every day.

INTRODUCING THE BEAVER COALITION

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver ecological impact, Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? August 24, 2020

Happy birthday to a new beaver nonprofit on the block, I asked Jakob to introduce it himself and I’ll be turning the reins over to him. Let me say as an aside that his new logo wins the award for the VERY BEST BEAVER LOGO I have ever seen. The designer, Gregg Payne, even got the teeth right. So of course I had to congratulate him too. Jakob and friends have burst on the scene this year and is going to make a huge difference to our friends in the beaver state.

So without further ado…

Guest post by Jakob Shockey, Cofounder and Executive Director

Back when “novel coronavirus” was a phrase most of us had yet to hear, Rob Walton and I ate lunch in a dingy bar in Portland, Oregon. Earlier that day we’d spent hours in a windowless conference room deep in a grey cinderblock building, talking beaver policy. Rob had recently retired as a senior policy advisor with NOAA Fisheries, where he was the primary author of the Oregon Coast Coho Salmon Recovery Plan. After 5 years of installing nonlethal beaver coexistence devices with my business Beaver State Wildlife Solutions, I was suddenly mired in new permitting challenges. We were tired, we were frustrated, we were driven, and we needed lunch. The beer was thin, the fries were clammy, but we were hooked by the thin tendrils of an idea that would become The Beaver Coalition.

The valley I grew up in, where I now raise my children, was called “Sbink,” or “place of the Beaver” by the Takelma People. And it was a place of beaver, until Peter Skene Ogden led his Hudson’s Bay Company trappers through on his quest to create a fur desert. Even when the fur was gone, the valleys of the Siskiyous still bore treasure. Waves of men would straighten the braided streams into single channels, moving them back and forth across the narrow valleys as they sluiced out the gold that had settled over thousands of years, captured in the complexity of a “beavered” landscape. While the gold is gone a few beaver remain, but their families now occupy the banks of incised riverbanks, the remnants of their past kingdom. As our late season snowpack slips into memory, each summer my children play with dry, powdery stones where I used swim in deep pools. Healing the land, paying back and paying forward, this is why I am focused on partnering with beaver.

While each of us on The Beaver Coalition team came to our work from different backgrounds, we are united by a drive to empower humans in partnering with beaver for abundant water and resilient, functioning streams. Rob brings an expertise in salmon recovery, an understanding of policy and a mastery of bureaucracy. Sarah Koenigsberg, producer/director of the award winning film The Beaver Believers, brought an awareness of these humble ecosystem engineers to tens of thousands of people as her film screened in film festivals worldwide. She brings the ability to unite people of different walks of life with a compelling story and a knack for helping scientists remember to talk like normal people. Andrew Schwarz brings his skills and passion as a restoration practitioner. Jason Strauss brings a lifelong commitment to wildlife and a background in business. Mike Rockett brings a deep dedication to the environment, a skillset in the law and a history setting up nonprofits. Chris Jordan brings the tools of scientific inquiry, including his work in the team that developed the Beaver Dam Analog and the Beaver Restoration Guidebook to this effort as the chair of our Science and Technical Information Committee. We live throughout the dark shadow of the Hudson’s Bay Company “fur desert” and have formed this partnership to leverage each other’s skills and passion.

Why The Beaver Coalition? Simply put, this is our effort to carry forward the legacies of those we have learned from in a strategic bid to help beaver change the world. Our mission is to empower humans to partner with beaver through education, science, advocacy, and process-based restoration. To borrow a term from biology geek-speak, we will address the “limiting factors” that prevent beaver from doing what they do within our landscape. Through a strategic focus on building an effective coalition, clarifying and advancing policies, promoting the best available science, developing education and outreach, and implementing beaver-based restoration, we will help beaver repair our planet. As with so many in this community of “beaver believers,” we are simultaneously pragmatic and dreamers, facilitating a paradigm shift in society’s relationship with beaver. We hope that by building The Beaver Coalition as a resilient nonprofit organization that works with and supports others, our community will have another useful tool in advancing this vision.

Please visit our newly launched website at www.beavercoalition.org to read more about our approach and sign up for our mailing list to stay abreast of what we’re up to. We’re excited about our upcoming projects and will be announcing them soon through that list. Perhaps most importantly, we want engage in conversations about how we can best be of service in this effort. Please let us know what opportunities The Beaver Coalition should consider to empower humans in partnering with beaver. What important lessons have you learned that you think we might benefit from? Please reach out to us or leave us a comment on our blog or social media platforms.

We take inspiration and have sought advice from the scientists and biologists working in federal, state and local agencies, tribes, and the people behind organizations including: Beaver Solutions LLC, Worth a Dam, Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife, The Beaver Institute, Methow Beaver Project, The Beaver Ecology and Relocation Center, Anabranch Solutions, The Beaver Advocacy Committee of the South Umpqua Rural Community Partnership, Beaver Deceivers LLC, Cows and Fish, the Miistakis Institute , Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, Beavers Northwest, National Wildlife Federation’s Montana Beaver Working Group, Beaver Works Oregon, Muse Ecology Podcast, Sierra Wildlife Coalition, Defenders of Wildlife and Ecotone Inc. as well as so many key individuals including Glynnis Hood, Michael Runtz, Sherri Tippie, Suzanne Fouty, Mary O’Brien, Ben Goldfarb, Derek Gow, Gerhard Schwab, Duncan Haley and Valer Austin. This effort is only possible because of the foundational and continued work of these people and organizations. As 4H youth across rural America have pledged for generations, we’re eager to continuing to work together and be of service, with our heads, hearts and hands for a better community, country, and world.

Welcome to the beaver-hood Jakob and friends! I’m so happy that you are on the scene, Go check out their swanky new website designed by Sarah Koenigsberg herself. Something tells me your going to like it.

MAKING DEALS WITH BEAVERS

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver Rehabilitation, Flow Device Installed August 23, 2020

Just about 15 miles south of our friends in Port Moody, another flow device has been installed to keep the beavers and allow them to continue helping the salmon. frogs and wildlife. This one is is in the Delta Nature Reserve.

Beaver pond leveller to reduce Cougar Creek flooding in Delta Nature Reserve

Delta Nature Reserve walkers and cyclists may notice a strange new contraption in Lower Cougar Creek, alongside the trail between the second and third boardwalk entrances. It’s called a beaver pond leveller, and it’s a joint pilot project of Cougar Creek Streamkeepers, Burns Bog Conservation Society, City of Delta, EBB Consulting and Pacific Salmon Foundation.

Hopefully the beavers won’t notice the contraption, but will happily continue building their dam, unaware that the leveller limits their pond to a safe height that doesn’t flood the trail.

Of course the beavers will notice. They’re water accountants that spend every day re-enumerating their essentials. The question of course is whether they can live with the fact that their pond has a hole in it that can never be fixed. Is the water level still deep enough or should they start over some where else? That’s what the beavers are deciding now in their little beaver meetings. Is it livable or Not livable. And that depends on you.

Though beavers are a nuisance, with their tree-cutting and dam-building, they are also a keystone species for healthy wetlands and salmon streams. A pond leveller is not maintenance-free, but it’s hoped this one will reduce the amount of effort the City of Delta has to spend on dismantling beaver dams to prevent flooding.

Hmm. Don’t sugar coat it was flattery. I think someone didn’t educate the press enough, or the participants. I’m reminded of that memorable scene in Alice through the Looking Glass.

“I don’t like the look of it at all,” said the King: “however, it may kiss my hand if it likes.”

Not only is the natural floodplain a safety-valve for protecting built areas from floodwaters, it’s also a vibrant and healthy wetland habitat that nurtures fish, amphibians, birds and – yes — those industrious beavers.

Well yes. Beavers will make your wetlands beautiful. And you have given yourself a chance of improving them. I’m not exactly sure how hopeful to be about the effort, but it looks like you gave it a good try anyway.

Our little beaver patient at Suisun Wildlife was on their Facebook page yesterday, along with a nice shoutout to us for consulting. They are working on a funding campaign for him and need your help. Go here to donate and make sure you mention we sent you!

Last week we received this baby Beaver, estimated at 1-2 weeks old, for care. An attempt was made to reunite it with the parents, but they could not be found. We reached out to our friends the beaver specialists at Worth A Dam in Martinez, who assisted us with their years of experience with beavers – we thank them. They put us in touch with an expert on beaver care in New York state, who advised against another attempt to reunite.

Our wildlife veterinarian, Dr. Jackie Gai, is checking the beaver’s condition and performing tests to determine its health. Of course, it is unusual for one so young to be out of the den and away from the parents, so we are concerned about how this may have happened.

The baby is eating, eliminating, and swimming well. We are having special beaver formula overnighted to feed it, and if you would like to donate toward the testing and formula, we would greatly appreciate your help! We will keep you posted on the progress of this adorable and special animal – wish us well!

Donate to Suisun Marsh Natural History Assoction

US 501(c)(3) Nonprofit Organization
Thanks for helping this little beaver along the way. Stay safe out there if you’re near fires or anywhere below the sky today.

WE NEED SOMETHING TO SING ABOUT

heidi08 Beavers August 22, 2020

The whole of California is literally on fire, family and friends are evacuated, our oldest state park burned to the ground last night, and no one knows it what remains of Big Basin’s giant redwoods. Plus there is supposedly another lightening storm on the way.

Thank God for some sweet good news relief.

Wolverines return to Mount Rainier National Park after 100-year absence

WASHINGTON — Mount Rainier National Park has some rare new residents this summer. For the first time in over a century, scientists said they discovered the first reproductive female wolverine and her two offspring, called kits, in the park.

That’s one powerful trail cam. Notice how they run, almost like raccoons with arms and legs of different lengths. I used to have an old english calendar with a tear of word of the day. One of my favorites was “Hurple” which is kind of like a like a variation of a limp. To walk in an ungainly way when your limbs are different sizes. Raccoons hurple. And so do wolverines but they hurple powerfully. Just look at that foot.

When researchers are looking for wolverine they famously nail a little of its favorite food to a tree by a camera and wait. Of course you can guess what it’s favorite food is and why it is being featured on a beaver website. Wolverines are the definition of wild.

I hope the fact that there are more of them mean there’s more of their favorite food to go around.