Month: September 2020

WORKING HARD: LEARNING LITTLE

heidi08 Beavers and Flooding, Beavers elsewhere September 25, 2020

I was oddly impressed by this article from Juneau but never had time to talk about it before. Seems like their hearts were adjacent to “in the right place” but they sure put a lot of effort into no learning any actual solutions?

I guess it’s true what they say. Maintaining ignorance takes effort.

Beaver builds dam. Road floods. Visitors dismantle dam. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

In the summer of 2018, Christine, Colt and I drove an old, mostly unmaintained road on U.S. Forest Service property to a favorite jump-off place to climb into the high country. It was early morning, and for an instant the water rushing across the road seemed a mirage. The splash of the truck tires dropping into the 8-inch-deep crevice confirmed it was not.

The alder boughs, still resplendent with green leaves that lay in an orchestrated tangle across the stream where it ran beside the road, identified the culprit. An enterprising beaver had decided the narrow gap where water drained from a small shallow pond was a good place to make it a bigger, deeper pond for beavers to do whatever it is they do.

The stream was a small tributary of a larger stream that ran under a short bridge to the northwest. Below the bridge were numerous beaver ponds, stepped down the valley where previous generations of the large rodents had built palatial lodges. Family tradition, it would seem.

We had a moment about the legalities of tearing out a beaver dam and decided, judging from the way the current was washing away the road, that if we didn’t there would be no road in short order.

Okay then. Here they are, on federal lands, wondering what to do about a beaver dam that is going to soon plug the culvert that makes driving possible. Gee I wonder what they’ll try? Don’t you?

We decided to remove enough of the dam to drain the pond below the road-crossing level and call the Forest Service when we got out of the mountains.

Relief flooded over me when I talked with a Forest Service fellow I had gotten to

know while doing ptarmigan survey work. He chuckled when told of the dilemma and said it was fine and they would be up to clear out the dams.

A beaver had also dammed a culvert that ran across the road south of the washout. We both figured someone would trap the beaver when the trapping season opened, and that would solve the problem.

Until the freeze-up of the 2018 season, we cleared the dam about every 10 days. The Forest Service was also clearing it, and it seemed other folks pitched in too. By that time, we had developed a fondness for this enterprising animal that did not take no for an answer, and that we had never seen.

They kept shoveling away, ripping out that dam. And never once cracked open the google to read about those new fangled beaver deceivers they were using in the lower 48.Sure why not? It’s Alaska. Frontiers and all that. You’ve got nothing to lose but your time.

We began to enjoy the time spent in the stream, making more work for an animal that displays the capabilities of a journeyman engineer. Each time would reveal more of its amazing creativity and resolve.

When we started up the road in the spring of 2019, we wondered if our buddy had made it through the winter. When we saw no evidence of his presence, it was kind of sad.

A few weeks later we drove through again, and there was a trickle of water going across the road. Christine clapped with delight.

“He’s back!”

Funny story. I mean not to interfere with your fun new hobby or anything, but the beaver needs that water level so that he and his family don’t freeze to death during your long Alaska winters. I’m guessing since you never left them any water they DID freeze to death. And you just ended up with new beavers the following year.

So it’s not really “He’s back” it’s “We still haven’t learned!”

The 2019 season was a repeat of the year before. Between us, the Forest Service and other folks we don’t know, we thwarted the marvelous little fellow’s efforts. By freeze-up this animal had become “family.” We kept our fingers crossed he would make it through another winter.

Early in 2020, it seemed the same as the previous year, except now we had more faith. Once again, one late spring morning, the dam was back, and once again, we were delighted.

The dams in the stream and the culvert have become more substantial. The freshly chewed alder boughs, dead sticks and small rocks from the previous years have been supplemented with rocks the size of footballs placed in the streambed and culvert. One end of the pipe sits above the pond bottom by a foot or so, and these large rocks had been hoisted into the opening.

How these creatures manipulate these objects a source of wonder. We have found old, waterlogged root masses and logs encased in packed mud that stagger the imagination.

Wanting to see what goes on, we’ve spent some nights sitting by the dam, hoping to observe. Nothing. It is as if they know, and are not playing. A couple of times, there have been tail-slaps, perhaps telling us to go away.

Or maybe telling their family to WATCH OUT! “Those crazy fuckers are here again!”

In the past, the dam would be rebuilt after about 10 days. This year, it’s more like every three or four days.

During the most recent clearing of the dam, a couple of weeks ago, this story’s start occurred. It was a particularly tough job, and water flowed over the road that day.

When I finished, I called my friend with the Forest Service to tell him about the road and that I wouldn’t be able to get back for more than a week, and the speed of the beaver’s rebuilding might demand a visit sooner.

No problem, they would take care of it.

Hmm. How exactly? I’m holding my breath.

When we got back a couple of days ago, I had one of those pit-in-the-stomach moments, when it appeared the beavers had not done much in 10 days.

The last time we cleared the dam Christine commented that the work was more challenging than climbing the mountain, and how good it felt to be doing something beneficial in the outdoors. Some might say, “Not to the beaver.” But, they are disposed to do what they do and must do to survive. The benefit works both ways — we keep the road, and they keep working.

So, as I write this, I hope the beavers just took a mini-vacation and in a few days they’ll be back to work. If not, then we’ll hope a trickle of water over the road will welcome us back when we drive up in the spring.

You sweet, plucky, fools. If you had installed some culvert protection 5 years ago you could have spent the time dog-sledding or planting rhubarb. I mean there are worse ways to be stupid. Killing the beavers for instance. But if you’re going to spend your effort and time and care about this why not make the right kind of difference?

BEAVER DESTINY PART INFINITUM

heidi08 History September 24, 2020

I guess the problem is just me.

I have read too many details about beavers for far too long and that just naturally makes them connected to random details in my life and as a result I feel my entire existence is just some big coincidence designed to make me serve beavers.

It’s just random. A coincidence. There is no pattern here.

I mean sure the fact that the famous beaver trapper is buried half a block away in a grave site overlooking our beavers, that could be a fluke right? And the fact that the author of the most famous beaver book came to Martinez 112 years ago and had to cross the very creek where the beavers live to do it, that’s just random, right?

But this? THIS?

So I’m starting Derek Gow’s great new book, bringing back the beaver. it it starts with a quirky mention of an obscure take I’ve never heard, about how St Felix when he was traveling to East Anglia to bring christianity in 631. He wrecked his boat in the river Babingly in Norwich and was hopelessly disoriented and unable to find his way and might have drowned.

When he was rescued by a colony of BEAVERS who helped him find his way safely home.

In gratitude St Felix made the leader of the beaver clan a bishop. No I’m serious. And the now decayed town is still contains a sign post documenting this.

Okay, sure. A beaver bishop. That’s a pretty random fact but hardly fate or anything. I pulled out my map to see where Babingly even is.

And that’s when the room started to spin.

Since Jon is from England, I didn’t meet his parents until after we were married. His dad was a retired navy dental surgeon and his mum a nice older women with that liked car boot (rummage) sales. They lived in Swaffham where his eldest sister was head mistress of a girls school, and when we finally took a trip to visit them they took us on a very english outing to the nearest ruined castle and pub lunch.

So the castle we visited was castle rising which it turns out is about a block from Babingly and the pub we ate lunch in was in King’s Lynn which is right there alongside. And gosh here is a photo of a much younger Jon and his father staring off into the tiny river Babingly where St. Felix we reportedly rescued by beavers.

But sure. It’s just a coincidence, right? Not destiny or anything.

This is how Derek’s book begins:

“According to an old folk tale, when a ship carrying St. Felix of Burgundy was wrecked in a storm on the River Babingley in Norfolk in 615 CE the saint was saved from drowning by a colony of beavers. The village which is now abandoned records this event upon its signpost where a large beaver wearing a bisops mitre adminsiters to another more junior candidate.”

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BEAVERS FIREFIGHTERS IN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

heidi08 Beavers and Fire Prevention September 23, 2020

Now, you know I don’t drag out the star wars award scene for just ANY achievement. I save it for the best of the best. And this is better than that. Yesterday NPR was busy shouting that beavers create climate change, I got calls from Idaho and Wisconsin and my own mother. But National Geographic was doing this:

By Ben Goldfarb

PUBLISHED September 22, 2020

The American West is ablaze with fires fueled by climate change and a century of misguided fire suppression. In California, wildfire has blackened more than three million acres; in Oregon, a once-in-a-generation crisis has forced half a million people to flee their homes. All the while, one of our most valuable firefighting allies has remained overlooked: The beaver.

A new study concludes that, by building dams, forming ponds, and digging canals, beavers irrigate vast stream corridors and create fireproof refuges in which plants and animals can shelter. In some cases, the rodents’ engineering can even stop fire in its tracks.

“It doesn’t matter if there’s a wildfire right next door,” says study leader Emily Fairfax, an ecohydrologist at California State University Channel Islands. “Beaver-dammed areas are green and happy and healthy-looking.”

BOOM! And just like that not only is Emily’s research reported in National Geographic at the very time we need to hear it the most, the entire article is WRITTEN by our good friend Ben Goldfarb. So you know it’s going to be good.

For decades, scientists have recognized that the North American beaver, Castor canadensis, provides a litany of ecological benefits throughout its range from northern Mexico to Alaska. Beaver ponds and wetlands have been shown to filter out water pollution, support salmon, sequester carbon, and attenuate floods. Researchers have long suspected that these paddle-tailed architects offer yet another crucial service: slowing the spread of wildfire.

“It’s really not complicated: water doesn’t burn,” says Joe Wheaton, a geomorphologist at Utah State University. After the Sharps Fire charred 65,000 acres in Idaho in 2018, for instance, Wheaton stumbled upon a lush pocket of green glistening within the burn zone—a beaver wetland that had withstood the flames. Yet no scientist had ever rigorously studied the phenomenon. (See California’s record blazes through the eyes of frontline firefighters.)

“Emily’s study couldn’t be more timely,” says Wheaton, who wasn’t involved in the research. “This points toward the importance of nature-based solutions and natural infrastructure, and gives us the science to back it up.”

BOOM BOOM BOOM! The beavers marches right into the headlines and every single depredation permit is suddenly an act of arson and vandalism.

A green, hydrated plant, of course, is also less flammable than a desiccated, crispy one. And that’s what makes beaver ecosystems so fireproof. In beaver-dammed stream sections, Fairfax and Whittle found, vegetation remained more than three times lusher as wildfire raced over the creek. Beavers had so thoroughly saturated their valleys that plants simply didn’t ignite.

These lifeboats don’t merely protect beavers themselves: A broad menagerie—including amphibians, reptiles, birds, and small mammals—likely hunker down in these beaver-built fire “refugia,” Fairfax says. Although wildfire is a vital force that rejuvenates habitat for some creatures, like black-backed woodpeckers, it can devastate other animal populations.

How much does California need beavers? A whole dam lot I’d say. And I am hoping this article is open on the desk of the governor and everyone at CDFW.

In addition, beavers may help an ecosystem recover from a wildfire. In northern Washington State, Alexa Whipple, the director of the Methow Beaver Project, found that beavers promoted the recovery of native species, like willow and aspen.

Beaverless streams, by contrast, were more likely to become colonized with invasive plants after a burn. Whipple also found that beaver ponds improved water quality by capturing the phosphorus-laden sediment that runs off torched hillsides. (Learn how wildfires are increasing worldwide.)

“If we have a wetter landscape, we are going to resist fire and recover from it better,” says Whipple, whose results haven’t yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. “My hope is that wildfire can be the gateway for people to understand the whole suite of benefits that beavers offer.”

Oh my god. Chills. I’m getting actual chills. Is it just me or is this BIG.

Despite all the good that beavers do, thousands are killed every year for flooding roads, cutting down trees, and causing other damage to human property. Employing smarter, more humane policies—using nonlethal flood-prevention devices like “Beaver Deceivers,” for example, and relocating trouble-making individuals instead of killing them—could heal our relationships with beavers and wildfire alike, Fairfax says.

BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM!!!!!!! I’ve been waiting for this moment for 13 years, Tears of joy are making it hard to type. I cannot wait to see the fall out from this.

“Strategically embracing beavers in local watersheds could provide reassurance that you have wet soils and wet plants around your town,” Fairfax says. In fact, as her paper’s title suggests, the U.S. Forest Service might want to consider a new animal mascot: Smokey the Beaver.

That’s me. Grinning from ear to ear. Great work Emily and Ben and Joe and Alexa. We could not be prouder. And hey half of them have been to our beaver festival and since Joe’s sister came a couple years more than half. Beavers are finally getting the credit they deserve, and I for one could not be happier.

Cue the very finest fireworks I know.

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FAIRFIELD BEAVERS IN THE NEWS

heidi08 food cache September 22, 2020

Well, well, well. The Fairfield beavers had a fine news day yesterday – akin to one of the many enjoyed in Martinez. The first was the local paper which launched into the story directly on their front page. Click the photo for a link to the online version.

It’s a nice article with of course plenty of airtime for city officials to say how they only did it to SAVE the city and would never kill beavers. Of course we know that isn’t true. Because we have the depredation permit obtained for city hall in 2015. But you know how they are. The dust they throw is magical and makes reporters obedient.

Less easily intimated was the report in the SF Gate by Jeremy Hay. He’s the reporter who was sent the story by a friend of mine in Martinez. I’m super impressed with the thorough job he did talking to Virginia, the city, me, and the Sonoma Water District about the flow device they just installed,

Something tells me Fairfield might be discussing this right now.

Removal Of Beaver Dam In Laurel Creek Draws Criticism From Residents

What happened, said Bill Way, a Fairfield city spokesman, is that the dam was removed last Wednesday as part of “routine preventative maintenance work ahead of the rainy season.”

The city “has experienced numerous instances of flooding due to debris blocking the culverts, which run beneath our roadways,” Way said. He acknowledged that the dam location had not been a flooding problem “in recent years,” though the dam is believed to have been only 10 months old.

Way said the beavers swam away unharmed.

Now, because this is my website and not at all my first rodeo, I get to play the cross examining beaver lawyer and comment that last sentence was odd. Go read it again. Obviously the dam wasn’t destroyed in the middle of the night and most likely the beavers didn’t rush out of their safe-hole when the water level dropped. So they could not have bee seen swimming away unharmed. It’s a pat on the head, and we are being told not to worry. In my considered opinion Bill Way said that because he is lacks basic knowledge and thinks that beaver live IN the dam. Which if he doesn’t know that simple fact how can we believe anything he says? And my god if you thought the dam was full of beavers how could you possibly hack it apart with tools?

Neighbors and others who have enjoyed the beavers and the wildlife that gravitated to the pool created by the dam say the city decided to take action without considering the ecological value of the dam and the beavers that created it.

“It just seems like it would be a very simple thing for the city to say, ‘Hey, we have a problem, we think this is the way to solve it. And have a discussion about alternatives,” said Noah Tilghman, who lives about 150 feet from the site of the former dam.

“It’s my hope that they (the beavers) will reestablish the dam. There are some real benefits to having it there,” Tilghman said.

Outstanding. Man on the street stuff and neighbors watching and wanting the best thing for the creek. I could barely have cast a better screenplay for real change. Fingers crossed.

Beavers are fast in water but, because they are heavy with short legs, they are slow on land. So they build dams to create a safe space for themselves where they can raise families, said Heidi Perryman, founder of Worth a Dam, a Martinez-based nonprofit that advocates for beavers.

The dams raise the level of the water — in this case, Laurel Creek — above the entrance to the beaver home, keeping predators at bay.

When a dam is destroyed, “the first thing that happens is that habitat is lost, their protected space,” said Perryman.

The second thing that happens is that the pond created by the dam washes away and with it the ecosystem that developed around it. In Laurel Creek that included tule reeds that the beavers ate, which now, Perryman said, will die because their roots are exposed, plus otters, turtles, cormorants, muskrats, and herons.

The problem with getting rid of beavers is you get rid of a ton of habitat,” Perryman said. “Beavers build kind of a neighborhood and everyone moves in. So it’s not just that you’re losing beavers, you’re losing a ton of species that are benefiting from beavers’ habitat.”

My my my. What a great quote if I do say so myself. I’m really pleased with how our interview came out. It was one of those perfect clarity moments where it feels like you have infinite time to get things right. And Jeremy was a great listener.

Way, the Fairfield city spokesman, said, “We agree that beaver dams do create ecosystems. However, when taking into account the damage caused when neglected within an urban setting, the responsible decision is to remove them.”

Ahhh that’s fantastic. He’s already on the ropes. Yes what you’re saying is true but we HAD to! Our job is to protect the city and the infrastructure. We had no choice.

Now it’s time to give him a choice.

Holsworth, Perryman and others say that there are viable alternatives that the city could pursue instead of dam destruction — essentially channeling water around, under or over the dam, thereby preventing it from backing up on one side of the dam and reducing the likelihood of flooding.

Way said the city has looked into such alternatives.

“We have considered multiple devices which have been brought to our attention, and in all cases, they require routine maintenance,” he said.

The “unnecessary risk” to city workers outweighs the other options.

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If it please the court could you clarify some of the multiple devices you looked into? I’ll wait while you pretend to look through papers. Hmm…The Clemson Pond Leveler? Yes that was a big invention back in the when Reagan was president. I’m curious, did you look at anything more modern? I mean did you for example pick up the fricken phone and talk to public works in Sonoma which just installed or your across-the-strait neighbor Martinez where one worked for 10 years? Did you ask them how much maintenance it took?

Holsworth thinks the city is just stuck in its ways.

“I think it’s just the process that has been going on for a long time, just like someone who has some behavioral routine, they don’t see anything wrong with it,” Holsworth said. “They’re not being open to solutions that can maintain our ecosystem and keep our infrastructure safe.”

Communities from Martinez — home to an annual Beaver Festival — to Diablo to Sonoma County have installed alternatives to destroying dams.

“It was a successful project,” said Barry Dugan, a spokesman for the Sonoma County Water Agency, which installed three levelers at dams on Fryer Creek, south of the city of Sonoma.

You were saying Mr. Way? Speak up the court can’t hear you.

In Fairfield, the issue of the Laurel Creek beaver dam has quickly acquired a political tone. Holsworth is leading a petition drive to get the city to install a flow device, and urging residents to contact Mayor Harry Price who, she said, hasn’t yet responded to repeated calls and messages.

And Kam Holzendorf, a City Council candidate in District 4, which includes the stretch of Laurel Creek in question, has adopted the dam’s removal as a campaign cause.

“I’m very concerned about the actions taken by our city and I’m going to go ahead and look for answers for the constituents to ease their frustration or find solutions to keep our ecosystem safe,” said Holzendorf, a Fairfield High School English teacher who recalled playing in the creek as a kid. “I don’t appreciate the fact that there was no heads up about this or no warning.

There is almost nothing I like better than politicians looking over their shoulder and seeing looming beaver support. It is the very definition of the old saying “Let the people lead and the leaders will follow“.

Another neighbor to the former dam, Linda Elkins, said once she saw it she expected it would be removed.

“I understand the necessity of it,” she said, “I’m not happy about it.”

But she said she would like to know about — and would like the city to explore — different strategies for the future.

“It would be interesting to hear about other alternatives,” she said.

In the meantime, Elkins said, “I think if nothing else, this brings awareness to people that right in our backyard we have nature that we should appreciate, and I’m glad to see that so many people are concerned. Maybe this will ultimately help our neighborhood.”

Oh man. This article has ALL the voices. The reasonable neighbor who understand the city but wants to consider options. The devoted neighbor who wants the wildlife in their creek to thrive. The weasily city official who is made to answer to these charges because HE will never have to be elected and the cowering mayor who is not available for comment until he figures out which way the scales will tip.

Now they just need a documentary filmmaker. And the scene is set for beaver resilience 2.0!

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SASKATCHEWAN’S BEAVER CHAMPION

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver Chewing September 21, 2020

Well. That was fun. I got a day filled with the cutest craziest beaver cards a person could imagine. Gosh, looking at them all together you people would think I’m obsessed with beavers or something. What ever would give someone that idea?

I am obsessed with this though. It was posted on the beaver management forum page yesterday by Mike Digout of Saskatchewan. It is pretty amazing that anyone living there is a fan of beavers, because they are so notorious for killing them. But here’s his comments.

Thought you all would enjoy this close up video I took in August. This beaver chewed through a poplar limb in 40 seconds, then flung it over her shoulder and headed for the beaver pond. Tonight I had a front row seat to watch and videotape this beaver gnaw through a poplar limb in about 40 seconds. Soooo cool (note: FYI, this was the adult female of the family)

When you see how FAST that beaver is chewing, not pausing to enjoy a single bite and scurrying off with her branch you realize how very unsafe she must be feeling. She’s totally exposed. In daylight. Away from the water. In Saskatchewan. That’s pretty vulnerable.

But boy does she get the job done.

Mike has been watching a family of beavers all summer long and taking photos and video. Obviously we know just what that was like. He has fantastic stuff and hopefully when all his friends and neighbors get to watch how cool beavers are they will think twice about killing so many. I’m also hoping that we will become best friends and he’ll be guest posting here soon.

For now you can see the collection on his facebook page here.