Month: August 2020

GERMANY AND CANADA CELEBRATE BEAVERS

I count it as quite a morning to wake up with two countries praising both species of Castor in an unexpected double whammy. And the thunder and lighting show just makes everything more exciting. First the German with our friend Gerhard Schwab, Google translate helps me with the following rendition:

Nager mit Biss

Rodents with a bite

The beaver is a misunderstood eco-genius: studies show that its dams increase biodiversity and improve water quality. But when the dammed water causes crop failures, there is trouble. Beaver managers settle conflicts on site.

Click on the link for a lovely short and unembeddable film about the beaver conflict resolution offered by Gerhard and why cooperating with beavers is such a very good idea. There’s a wonderful graphic about pond complexity and nice footage of the wildlife that enjoys the pond. It’s wonderful but Gerhard says it hasn’t been released in English yet. Just get the visuals for now.

And when you’re done visiting Germany, why not visit Canada. The home of Whistler’s mother, to be precise.

FORK IN THE ROAD: Canada’s largest rodent is a joy in more ways than one

So where do I finally see a giant one, out of the water, trundling along, minding her own business before gnawing down two willow saplings twice as tall as me faster than you can say Lord Beaverbrook? In Vancouver’s Stanley Park—the lovely Ceperley Meadow now so wisely allowed to naturalize into a wetland, along with beavers’ help.

Luckily, a volunteer from the Stanley Park Ecological Society just happened to be there, so he filled us in. First, she was a she, since it’s hard to tell a male from a female by sight alone as they’re about the same size and rich, glossy brown colour. Madam Beaver is eight years old, middle-aged for a wild beaver, though reports regarding average lifespan vary widely, to as much as 20 to 24 years.

Not only are they instrumental in rebuilding the wetlands of Stanley Park, as biologist Bob Brett of Whistler Naturalists points out how useful beavers are in Whistler. “Protecting beavers is the best way to protect Whistler’s wetlands,” he says, three-quarters of which have been lost to development. See all those migrating Western toads Lost Lake Road has been closed to protect? The wetland habitats beavers create increase breeding opportunities for them, too.

As Bob and I can tell you, seeing a beaver in the wild is a joy. And it’s not hard in Whistler.

I can’t tell you how happy I get when people enjoy seeing beavers. Although he talks about an 8 year old being middle aged, which I think is very ambitious for a wild beaver.

“We’ve documented about 25 active beaver lodges in Whistler Valley last year,” he reports, about two-thirds of them on the River of Golden Dreams and adjacent wetlands in the Wildlife Refuge and Rainbow Wetlands, and in the Millar Creek Wetlands. Two obvious places to see active lodges are in Alta Vista Pond, just north of Nordic, and upstream of the Valley Trail Bridge over the River of Golden Dreams.

Go and watch, but watch respectfully. That includes not plowing your orange Explorer inflatables through an important dam that beavers so skillfully built.

Plus I’m always happy when anyone advises people now to plow over a dam. People act like its the easiest thing in the world to fix the damage they cause when they canoe or hike over a dam. We know otherwise.

SOLANO COUNTY BEAVERS

heidi08 Who's saving beavers now? August 15, 2020

The city of Fairfield has the dubious distinction of being the birthplace of 3 generations of Perrymans. My maternal great grandmother was born there to a father that migrated from the Azores to be a sheepherder in Suisun. He had 11 children and died of the Spanish flu in 1918. His third son, my grandfather went to school and is buried there. When he married their eldest daughter was born there. Fairfield is big in our family history.

So you can imagine how happy I was to meet Virginia and hear her story,

Double Dam in Fairfield; Virginia Holsworth

It seems about the time that Covid made everyone stay home, she started to notice some interesting wood obstacles in her local creek. And when she walked in the mornings on the path along side the creek she noticed the dark rodents who tended them. Movie filmed by Virginia Hosworth.

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She kept looking and watching and noticed there were a number of dams running up the creek from the elementary school up to the canal. She came to enjoy watching the family antics in the morning and walked there frequently to see them. She talked to her friends and took movies of them with her phone. We met in the hallways on facebook and she asked me poignantly, “How do I keep them safe?”

Ohh if I only knew the magic formula! Solano is the county that kills the most beavers around these parts and fairield in particular and shown up in our depredation searches three times before. Usually right around when she was seeing them. But just because it hasn’t worked before doesn’t mean it can never work, right? Filmed by Virginia Holsworth.

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So Cheryl went to walk the area with her on Tuesday and learn what she could and I sent our new buddy Patrick Page out last night with the promise of beavers that wanted their picture taken. he sent this from one of the little dams in the middle.

The way I’m thinking is that first you get some photos, then you build some community, then you get some media attention, then you have a chat with the city. Fingers crossed we are inching along our way. The good news is that nobody will pay much attention to the creek until October so we have a little time. Expect more on this story soon.

NATURE HEALING ITSELF WITH BEAVERS

heidi08 Beaver Book, Beaver ecological impact August 14, 2020

Yesterday I listened to a very interesting webinar by WGBH in Boston which was basically author Ben Goldfarb interviewing author Judith D. Schwartz about her concept of nature using nature to heal itself. “Reindeer, Beaver, and Healing Nature With Nature”.

He of course became a Judith fan reading “Water in plain sight” which included a section on beavers and a conversation with Brock Dolman. It was interesting to think about the role nature plays in fixing itself, even nature we’ve interfered with like Reindeer. It was even more fun seeing Ben treated like the ‘help’ instead of the famous author we all know he is. At the end the host asked them what books they were currently working and before Ben got to answer the host directed him to ask HER what she was working on.

Ben of course was a good sport and did a lot of beaver praising when he was allowed. It’s wild to think that Nature might be using wildlife to combat climate change. From the beavers that show up in cities to the herded reindeer that stomp down the permafrost with their hooves.

Anyway it was a pretty fun listen. I don’t see a link to it but I’ll let you know if its online, Meanwhile there’s plenty of ordinary beaver headlines to keep us busy.

This headline in particular from a resource company made me snort my orange juice.

How Dangerous Is the Beaver?

With their oversized front teeth, beady little eyes and funny flat tails, beavers look less like crazed killers and more like the goofballs of the woods. Yet with their distinctive orange-colored incisors, these furry wonders can slash through a finger-sized tree branch with just a single chomp. So that begs the question: Are beavers dangerous to humans?

It turns out that yes, in certain circumstances, beavers might harm people and pets. But the truth is that beaver attacks make great headlines for one reason — they are incredibly rare.

“Beavers in the wild are not considered dangerous,” emails Michael Callahan, president of the Beaver Institute, which works to reduce beaver-human conflicts using non-lethal methods. “Unless they are threatened, the most aggressive behavior beavers will exhibit is slapping their paddle tail on the water to create a loud noise.”

I’ve been talking to reporters about beavers a while now, Mike. But I have to ask, how does one land such a prodigious beaver interview?

REMEMBERING A BEAVER IN THE BRONX

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beavers, Urban beavers August 13, 2020

So the birthday bash was fun yesterday, and this is what I couldn’t show. A few months ago I was alerted to the art of Joan White in Wisconsin by a reader from Pennsylvania who had commissioned a piece. I talked with Joan and sent her some of Cheryl’s awesome photos. And this is what she produced. It is painted on a slab of cedar that was taken down by a beaver near her home. The photo does not do it justice. In person it;s so luminous that it looks like the beaver is going to come right out of the water into our living room. Up in the corner on the left are two tiny and beautifully detailed frogs and a snail, with some lovely sparrows and fish at the bottom. At the bottom it is signed with the title we chose, “Amik”.

In addition to being an amazing artist, she is also a visionary. She looks at the wood and literally sees the animal images that are reaching to climb out of it. There’s a graphic on her webpage that previews the wood and then the amazing paintings she creates from each individual peice, You have to go look. Honestly, when I was a teen I saw a display of unfinished marbled carvings of DaVinci and it was very similar, beautiful images stuggling to come to life and leap from their humble beginnings.

Of course I had in the back of my mind that I might one day ask ev entually for a donation to the silent auction if everything worked out. But in explaining the beaver I told her about our work and she offered before we could ask. She is very fond of beavers and thrilled to meet someone who protects them. So she has that going for her too.

We think all the walls in the house are jealous now because they didn’t get one too. We might need to see what we can do about that.

Meanwhile, here’s a fun reminder from the New York Times that of the famous bronx beaver and the the nature that we displaced all around us that is ready to come back.

When the Bronx Was a Forest: Stroll Through the Centuries

With more residents than Dallas, more than Atlanta and San Francisco combined, the Bronx is a vast, vibrant megalopolis, which also happens to be New York City’s greenest borough. It’s home to the largest urban zoological garden in America, a park system nearly 10 times the size of Manhattan’s Central Park — and the city’s last remaining patch of old growth forest.

Colleagues of mine have found American Eels also returning to the river. The Bronx River is proof that given half a chance, nature finds a way back. You know the story of José.

No. Who is José?

Oh, well.

Back in 2007 I was in my office at the zoo one afternoon when some colleagues came by and said that on their lunch break, walking along the Bronx River, they saw a beaver. I said, “No, guys, you didn’t see a beaver, you saw a muskrat. There haven’t been beavers on the Bronx River for 200 years.”

They were, like, “We know what a beaver is, Eric.”

So the next day, I go with them to look, and sure enough, there were markings on a tree that were not made by a muskrat. They resembled the carvings of beaver teeth. A few days later a photographer got pictures of the beaver. Nobody knew what sex it was — probably a male because males disperse a lot farther. It was named after José E. Serrano, the United States Congressman from the Bronx who directed federal money to help clean up the river.

Everybody had thought the closest beaver population was up in northern Westchester or Putnam County, which meant that José must have traveled all the way downriver, through Scarsdale, through Bronxville, through these really lovely, ritzy neighborhoods in Westchester — and decided to live in the Bronx!

In the Bronx Zoo!

The beaver built a couple of lodges and knocked down a couple of big trees.

José knocked trees down?

Well, the wind did, with an assist from the beaver. At the zoo everybody was like, OK, all right, that’s what beavers do.

But the Botanical Garden was less happy about the whole situation. They put some metal guards around some of the trees. Then a few years ago another beaver showed up. So, now there were two of them. The Bronx River Alliance had the idea to ask schoolchildren in the neighborhood what they should call the new beaver. And the kids decided on Justin. Justin Beaver.

So now José and Justin live in the Bronx? I haven’t seen either one of them in a while.

Hmm. Eric, do you think maybe they’ve moved back to the suburbs? Yes. Maybe.

If you were reading this website back in 2008 (And why wouldn’t you be) you’d know all about Jose, and the Manhatta project, and the grounds keeper at the park that was keeping an eye on him. And you’d be able to explain to the fricken New York Times that beavers don’t KNOCK down trees for god’s sake.

They chop them.

BEAVERS CAN STAY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JON

heidi08 Beavers, Devon Beavers August 12, 2020

August 12th is a prodigious day. It’s the day that in 1957 in the little naval hospital of Portsmouth England, Jon Ridler was born. In case the name sounds familiar he is the treasurer of Worth A Dam, the man of 100 tasks at the beaver festival including beaver tours, and my husband of lo, these many years. Happy Birthday Jon!

Jon was educated in England and enjoyed the life of a navy dental surgeon’s son living for a while in Malaysia, Gibraltar and some other places the sun never sets. His home base was always boarding school in Truro England though, down the peninsula of Cornwall near by where his grandfather retired, and oh by the way where some beavers were introduced after 400 years.

I mention this because Jon became an American citizen recently (because of all the winning obviously) and clearly England is so proud of their native son that they celebrated by making recently granting the Devon beavers legal status. Devon is at the top of Cornwall and about 100 miles away from where jon spent the vast majority of his early life. When the pilgrims sailed for America they boldly left from Plymouth which is the very tippy toes of Cornwall. Now beavers have been given a toe-hold.

Beaver families win legal ‘right to remain’

Fifteen families of beavers have been given the permanent “right to remain” on the River Otter in East Devon. The decision was made by the government following a five-year study by the Devon Wildlife Trust into beavers’ impact on the local environment.

The Trust called it “the most ground-breaking government decision for England’s wildlife for a generation”. It’s the first time an extinct native mammal has been given government backing to be reintroduced in England.

Environment minister Rebecca Pow said that in the future they could be considered a “public good” and farmers and landowners would be paid to have them on their land.

Beavers have the power to change entire landscapes. They feel safer in deep water, so have become master makers of dams and pools.

The River Otter beaver trial showed that the animals’ skill replenished and enhanced the ecology of the river catchment in East Devon.

They increased the “fish biomass”, and improved the water quality. This meant more food for otters – beavers are herbivores – and clearer and cleaner water in which kingfishers could flourish.

Their dams worked as natural flood-defences, helping to reduce the risk of homes flooding downstream.

Yes they do! Whoo whoo. There have been a few MILLION headlines about this story but I thought it could wait until Jon’s birthday, for obvious reasons.

The evidence gathered by researchers during the trial helped the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to make what it called its “pioneering” decision to give the beavers the right to live, roam, and reproduce on the river.

Beavers were hunted to extinction 400 years ago for their meat, furry water-resistant pelts, and a substance they secrete called castoreum, used in food, medicine and perfume.

In 2013 video evidence emerged of a beaver with young on the River Otter, near Ottery St Mary. It was the conclusive proof of the first wild breeding beaver population in England.

It was a mystery how they came to be there. Some suspect that the creatures were illegally released by wildlife activists who, on social media, are called “beaver bombers”.

The beavers faced being removed. However, the Devon Wildlife Trust, working with the University of Exeter, Clinton Devon Estates, and the Derek Gow Consultancy, won a five-year licence to study it.

Now there are at least 50 adults and kits on the river – and they are there to stay.

Peter Burgess, director of conservation at DWT, said: “This is the most ground-breaking government decision for England’s wildlife for a generation. Beavers are nature’s engineers and have the unrivalled ability to breathe new life into our rivers.

Congratulations Devon! And beavers all over England that definitely got one webbed paw in the door! And congratulations to Jon who I have loved for 39 years and who made all this crazy beaver madness possible. Wait until I show you his awesome present tomorrow.