Month: August 2020

“A COMPLEX MOSAIC OF MICROHABITATS”

Finally there is a little pause in the fire and beaver excitement to let us talk about something that’s been tapping on our window since it dropped a few days ago. Rob Rich’s excellent article in the News Letter of the North American Plant Society. It is a fantastic 3-page tightly written article written well above it’s station. Rob and used to write for High Country News, but the demands of life required him to move east and take a real job. This article reminds us that he’s just biding his time with swans until he can swoop back on the scene.

Beaver Made: The Botany of a Keystone Species

If we are indeed what we eat, the North American beaver (Castor canadensis) is one of the most miraculous plants around. Contrary to what Mr. and Mrs. Beaver in the Chronicles of Narnia have led readers to believe, beavers do not eat fish or anything else with animal flesh. As unwavering herbivores, beavers have marched an evolutionary path with plants that has become increasingly specialized. A whopping 33 genera of prehistoric beavers roamed the Earth in previous millennia, exhibiting different lifestyles than we see today.

Isn’t that an excellent beginning to an article? Aren’t you intrigued? Go get that cup of coffee and settle in for one of those reads that feel like the best kind of scalp massage = one that leaves you smarter and more energized.

It may not be possible to answer why modern beavers co-evolved so closely with plants, but the beaver’s tools for herbivory help us appreciate how they persist with such impact. Robust incisors are a hallmark of every rodent; since rodents must gnaw to keep these constantly growing teeth short and harp, most have evolved horticultural habits. But only the beaver, North America’s largest rodent, is so completely built for forestry. Iron minerals in wood harden the enamel on the outside of a beaver’s incisors to a deep red-orange; these teeth are honed into chisels as they wear against the soft white dentine on the inner sides of lower teeth. Thick zygomatic arches (cheekbones) support large masseter muscles that, when coupled with stout molars, aid the beaver in grinding wood to pulp. Dexterous front paws allow versatility in digging, hauling and nimble weaving, while flippered hind feet with thick-boned hind legs offer aquatic propulsion and heavy-duty support. The beaver is masticator, feller-buncher, skidder and forwarder all in one – and a whole lot lighter on the land than most forestry equipment.

I just love the idea of the beaver being a whole forestry team. It takes so many men and equipment to bring down trees, I learned that when we took down the huge beetled-slain ponderosas from my parents property a few years ago. Hours and hours of noise and machines. Beavers do it alone.

Other than the porcupine, the beaver is the only mammal that is truly xylophagous (wood-eating), a term typically reserved for insects like termites or bark beetles. Stretched out, a human’s intestine will be about four times as long as his or her body, but a beaver’s intestine spans six times its body length, given its role in digesting complex plant compounds with elaborate molecular chemistry. From phenols like 4-ethyphenol to ketones like 3-hydroxyacetophenone, beavers concentrate at least 24 aromatic compounds into castoreum, a unique secretion that is useful in olfactory communication among fellow beavers.

This got my attention. I had never thought of how unique wood-eating was. or how specialized beaver equipment had to be to subsist on it. Honestly the entire article is facinating. I’ll embed it here and you have to promise to go read it. It’s only a matter of time before Rob is back on the beaver beat. Mark my words.

It is crucial to note that the dam is not merely a product, but a work-inprogress that catalyzes plant succession. In the right place and time, felling trees for dams floods more trees; these efforts open access to more trees for more dams and more flooding. All this work affirms the tight social units of beaver families and provides a model that two-yearold beavers take with them when they disperse. But, of course, this process is not as linear as it sounds. Inevitably, dams will need patching when topographical constraints intervene or streams in spring runoff change course. Partly by choice and partly by chance, these imperfections mean that beavers make and remake a complex mosaic of microhabitats, supporting life that would not otherwise exist. Research has found that beavers are keystone species in part because they create and engineer wetlands, and wetlands are hotspots of biodiversity. In upstate New York, beaver-shaped wetlands contribute as much as 25% of the total herbaceous plant species richness in the riparian zone

I love the sentence in blue beyond all the others, and I love the others a lot. It so amazing that not only do beavers create wetlands, but their constant maintenance and recreation improve and expand the territories of so very many other plants and animals. The impact beavers have an fish and frogs is talked about a great deal, it’s really valuable to have such a powerful writer documenting their impact on plants as well.

But here in North America, where beavers are a native, necessary force of nature, we should be thankful for all the ways they have conditioned the hydrated lands we call livable, arable, diverse and beautiful…People increasingly accept that live beavers are worth far more in the ecosystem services they provide. In various collaborative efforts across the continent, restoration is underway. Some people are reintroducing beavers to old haunts. Others are planting native shrubs and trees or building “beaver dam analogues” to restore degraded habitat and induce beavers to return.

Still others are improving tools for non-lethal conflict prevention to increase landowner tolerance. And the growing movement couldn’t have come sooner because, now more than ever, we need the beavers’ water-storing, fire-buffering, habitat-diversifying feats to reverse species loss and adapt to a rapidly changing climate. No other animal can so masterfully make use of plants to inspire hope for our planet. If you’re lucky enough to find a scat or see this live rodent in action, you might just become a Beaver Believer.

You see why I’ve been chomping at the bit waiting to share this. I’ve already sent to everyone I can think of. It’s beyond exciting to think about some dedicated horticulturists thumbing through their issue and thinking, hey that’s interesting. Maybe beavers are good?

Here’s the whole thing for you to peruse. Rob did an amazing job. But beavers inspire greatness, we have learned that over the years.

Beavers in Native Plants

FIRE, FRIENDS AND BEAVERS

heidi08 Environmental, Why We Care August 20, 2020

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When I first joined the John Muir Association there a handsome, slender well spoken great grandson of John Muir served as well, Michael, was an impressive member. Having lived with multiple sclerosis since he was 15, he knew how dramatic its impact could be and how it could separate people from being in nature and feeling their own power. He started the nonprofit Access Adventure using the strength and motility of powerful horses to bring the disabled back into the world. He remains an inspiration to everyone that meets him, and I treasured those days he worked with us.

Yesterday I saw on facebook that his home and sanctuary in Vacaville/fairfield burned to the ground. He and his horses got to safety, but there was nothing left of the home and retreat he had built from the ground up. All the carriages and personal treasures, all the paddocks and fields, embers and ashes, I heard from a fellow board member that he is understandably devastated. I can’t imagine what it is like to lose the world you built in a moment.

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

Slip away to something dire

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in a fire

The fire yesterday ravaged more and more places and people we care about. The air is heavy with smoke, ash, and bitter dreams. You can taste it even indoors There are going to be a million stories like Michael’s. The town of Vacaville, the very home that little rescued beaver lived in, burned out of control. The freeway was closed because of all the smoke, and who knows whether that beavers family even survived. Fire doesn’t play favorites. The homes of heroes burn along side the homes of villains.

Like cancer, multiple sclerosis, and even lace we get fire whether we deserve it or not.

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BEAVER FRIENDS TO THE NORTH

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver Rehabilitation August 19, 2020

Last evening I heard from Amy Hall our chalk artist at the festival that she was on standby for evacuation. This morning Napa and Sonoma are burning out of control. There are so many fires so close together they’re just calling them the lightening complex fires. The entire area from Fort Ross to the Russian River has been evacuated. Think about that for a moment. That means Monte Rio, Jenner, Guerneville, All those windy river roads. Our own volunteers Leslie and Rick and the stalwart beaver defenders Kate Lundquist and Brock Dolman. They are all evacuated. At a time when it barely feels safe to stay in a hotel for fear of touching the wrong doorknob, Californian’s are left with shelters like fairgrounds and high schools. And if they escape the flames they might not escape the virus.

It’s hard to imagine what there is let to burn after the big fires in 2017. I hope our friends at Safari West are safe. I know they’re on tenterhooks.

It’s hard to remember, but before I got Amy’s email last evening I was in a state of beaver rapture because Suisun Wildlife (that also burned this year) called me after getting a tiny baby beaver patient from Vacaville. A dog apparently found and retrieved him at the off leash part of lagoon park. A friend brought him in for care on Saturday and he was subsisting on squirrel formulae while they wait for their express order of beaver formulae.

He weighs in at around 600 grams which is about 1.3 lbs and probably a few weeks old. She says 7 inches from nose to tail. Amazingly, given their location, it is the first time they have had a baby beaver in 40 years. They tried going back to the site and looking for its family, but gave up on that idea after talking with our advisor Cher Button-Dobemeir of NY. While we chatted about next steps the rehab director said to me, “Could he be any cuter? He’s just smiling all the time.”

To which I said, very reasonably, No. No they could not.

Cheryl called later and talked strategy with them and I think the plan is now to build an enclosure and at least keep him until he is big enough to hang out with the three older kits currently being rehabbed in Sonoma. He will need to be 2 years old and gave a buddy before he can be released on his own and in the meantime it’s good to know that he is in good hands.

I’m sorry that he’s spent a few strange nights alone though. We have a beaver fur coat someone donated and may try and get it to them so they can snuggle. Check your couch cushions right now and donate any spare change to Suisun Wildlife Recue Center which is talking on a pretty big job. Monique the director write me yesterday and said. cheerfully.

“I can tell you I’ve been doing this for 40 years and that is the cutest animal I have ever seen. We really appreciate your and Cheryl’s help, this is one to get right!”

To which we could only reply. Yup.

FINE WORDS FROM VERMONT

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? August 18, 2020

Oh my, there may not be a vaccine for the virus yet, but last night was an innoculation against despair. Which we all need. Anna Kolosky of Vermont has another big helping this morning. Enjoy.

The beaver – our ally in fighting the effects of a warming planet

As a student who has an interest in environmental justice, I wanted to learn more about beaver management in Vermont, given that they are a keystone species that are crucial to the health of many types of wildlife. After viewing a June 2020 beaver webinar presented by Vermont Fish & Wildlife, I was left with outstanding questions about some of the information presented.

We can all agree that beavers are a keystone species that are crucial to the health of many types of wildlife. Beaver-created wetlands serve as diverse ecosystems and habitats for threatened and endangered species. With our planet facing the very real effects of climate change, including drought, we should be protecting beavers, not trapping them for “recreation” and “tradition.” Beaver created habitat reduces erosion, removes harmful pollutants, and moderates stream flow during times of flooding and drought. Tragically, these ecosystem engineers are trapped throughout Vermont in unlimited numbers. Trappers can’t claim they do it for money, since beaver pelts are worthless on the fur market.

Excellent letter Anna! She is using these arguments to combat some negative press about how Massachusetts failed when it banned beaver trapping. But that’s okay. We can enjoy her letter for our own selfish purposes.

Twenty years ago, the town of Billerica, Mass. addressed beaver concerns by employing Beaver Solution LLC to develop and implement non-lethal, humane, long-lasting, and cost-effective plans. As of 2019, the town has a total of 55 beaver management sites; 43 managed with humane flow devices and 12 managed by trapping. Non-lethal management has allowed 38 beaver colonies to create over 380 acres of wetland area and has subsequently provided Billerica with approximately $2 million in ecological services annually. There are easy ways to prevent other types of beaver damage, such as the felling of trees, by wrapping the base of trees with wire mesh or painting them with a gritty paint mixture.

In addition to Billerica’s efforts, the town of Templeton, Mass. implemented five flow devices that have an annualized cost of $163.25 distributed over a 20-year life space. Templeton’s animal inspector has found that “the flow devices are a very cost-effective way for towns to deal with beavers,” “they save towns a lot of money” and “they are very effective in keeping down the cost for the DPW.” By correctly installing non-lethal methods of management, living alongside beavers has proven to be ecologically and economically beneficial.

The way I see it, I don’t much care whether beavers are trapped or depredated, which is a matter of semantics. I want everyone in the country to understand that a dead beaver is an uncashed check: an unused resource. It is theoretically possible that there are checks it is in your interest not to cash, like that birthday card from your uncle the mobster, but the vast majority of them have work to do.

And, by golly, we should let them do it.

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LITTLE BEAVERS ATE TREES AND GIANT BEAVERS ATE POND WEED.

heidi08 Beaver Anatomy, castoroides August 17, 2020

The castoides skull copy is one our most prized beaver exhibit items. For years we’ve been answering questions about this dinosaur beaver, reporting the slightly incredible research based on isotope analysis that they didn’t eat trees but survived on very small pond weed. People always scoff at that, and say then what are those big teeth for? Which I can never explain.

But Castorides wasn’t the only beaver.

The family of castorids used to contain many members all evolved into their own niche and constrictions. Dipoides was actually smaller than our beaver and some brand new research indicates it miraculously cut trees for food. Wait, what? A beaver the size of a bear lived on pondweed and a beaver the size of a lapdog cut down trees? Well yes. Little trees. Do not ask me why on earth the giant beaver didn’t cut trees and the small beaver did. But that’s evolution for you, Apparently they cut the trees first, because they were hungry, and then when things started freezing their cousins thought, hey maybe there’s a value in building up the water and saving some unfrozen food.

Maybe being the midsized beaver that could do it all made sense in the long run.

Ancient Arctic beavers were cutting down trees for food at least four million years ago – long before they started building dams, study shows

By studying the wood-cutting behaviour of ancient beavers that once roamed the Canadian high Arctic, an international team of scientists has discovered that tree predation – feeding on trees and harvesting wood – evolved in these now-extinct rodents long before dam-building.

This is an important discovery as woodcutting is a key behaviour for modern-day beavers’ capacity to modify, create and maintain habitats.

This new research suggests that tree predation has existed for more than 20 million years, enough time that might have allowed beavers to affect the evolution of certain trees species.

The ancient beavers, belonging to the fossil lineage Dipoides, lived four million years ago and were approximately two-thirds the size of today’s Canadian beavers. They gnawed trees with rounded front teeth, not squared teeth like their modern relatives, and researchers believe this woodcutting behaviour originated for harvesting food, not from a compulsion for building dams.

The study, published today in Scientific Reports, is first-authored by Tessa Plint, a former Western University graduate student currently pursuing a PhD at Heriot-Watt University (UK).

“Ancient animals and ecosystems that thrived in the high Arctic during warmer times in geological history show us a glimpse of what this biome could look like in the future under the effects of global warming in polar regions,” said Plint.

“Today, the beaver has a profound impact on the landscape and is known to increase the biodiversity of the local ecosystem through tree-harvesting and dam building. It’s fascinating to look back in time and figure out how this hyper-specialized toolkit of behaviours came to be.”

At Western’s Laboratory for Stable Isotope Science, researchers examined chemical signatures preserved in ancient beaver bones to figure out what exactly they were eating four million years ago –and, surprisingly to them, it included trees.

So there you have it. Sometimes it looks like you’re suited for one purpose and it turns out you do something completely different and blow them all away. And sometimes you have the perfect seeming qualities, and everyone treats you as a “RINGER” for sure, and you fizzle out and eat pond weed.

Go Figure.