Month: November 2020

THREE NORTHWEST VOICES FOR BEAVERS

Beavers are having some good press in the pacific northwest, as they usually do. Check out these cheerful tidings from Oregon, Colorado and British Columbia.

Letter to the Editor: Protect the beavers

For too long Oregon’s lack of beaver management has ignored sound science. Current hunting and trapping guidelines frame beavers as a nuisance species, which ignores overwhelming evidence of their key role in creating and maintaining aquatic ecosystems. Beavers are a keystone species, a species that other wildlife depend on. Humans also need beavers to improve our water quality, provide healthy streams for endangered salmon, mitigate pollution from wildfires and stem the effects of climate change.

In September, conservation groups sent a petition to increase the size of protected public lands throughout Oregon for beavers. This petition, which would amend current hunting and trapping rules, leaves half of the Beaver State open to trapping and hunting, while allowing beavers to thrive on federally-managed public lands where the benefits of their presence would be maximized.

Okay, you got my attention. Making room for beavers is always a good idea.

This petition, if adopted, would require the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission to honor its own mission statement regarding indigenous species, and begin monitoring beaver populations so that we can make informed management decisions.

By permanently closing commercial and recreational beaver trapping/hunting on federally-managed public lands and the waters that flow through them, we allow these creatures to provide essential ecosystem services for the 4.2 million residents throughout the Beaver State, in addition to creating and maintaining homes for aquatic life.

— Sristi Kamal, Portland

Nicely done! Sristi is the director of the Oregon branch of Defenders of Wildlife, which apparently believes that beavers belong in every western state but California. No squeak of support for the golden state beavers just yet, but I’m hopeful it will come. In the meantime we can just bask in our neighbors glow.

Here’s some beaver glory from Colorado, passingly discussed in the rejoice about reintroducing wolves.

JIM CRUMLEY: Colorado went to Biden, but it’s also gone back to the gray wolf

IF YOU missed the US election last week, the result in Colorado was as follows: Joe Biden: 1,753,416 (55.3%), Donald Trump: 1,335,253 (42.1%)

So Colorado’s nine electoral events went to Joe Biden. Why mention Colorado? Because if you did miss the US election, you will also have missed the fact that on the same day, the state also voted for the reintroduction of wolves, which, in the pageant of North American history, is arguably more newsworthy than the admittedly entertaining spectacle of Donald Trump getting his comeuppance. Gray wolves on the way back, Trump gone. It’s what you might call a win-win situation.

Ahh, once the predator is gone, the wolves can come back! Of course we know that one of the things they will do is keep the elk away from the water and let the willow grow. And surely you know what happens then,,,

It’s five years since I wrote Nature’s Architect, my book about the reintroduction of beavers, forgive me if I quote myself, because it’s relevant to all of the above:

“Few landowners and farmers think in the long term. Fewer still are willing to acknowledge that nature may know more than they do about land management, about marshalling natural resources…about using wetlands to mitigate against flood and drought, about the wisdom of biodiversity, about the folly of monoculture. Beavers do all that.

I knew I recognized his name from somewhere. His book is sitting on my beaver shelf as I type. We need to make space for very important species that might inconvenience us. Like wolves and beavers.

Even British Columbia understands why beavers matter.

Golden West Bench Recreation Use and Wildlife Habitat Study

Wildsight Golden is working in collaboration with local recreation groups to develop a study that focuses on the intensity of recreational land use and potential cumulative effects on wildlife and their habitat along the west bench of the Columbia River in the Dogtooth Range. The objective is to develop a better understanding of our current recreation “footprint” in this area and help us to avoid compromising the distribution and sustainability of wildlife populations or the integrity of their habitats over the long term.

Continued protection of important wetland habitats along the west bench is also an important element of this work. We need to make sure that recreation trails are designed and used in a way that allows beaver colonies plenty of room to work their magic with wetlands.

Well of course, Let beavers do what beavers do, and send in your biologists to count the successes. Sounds like a good idea to me.

Oh and happy anniversary to the brave Englishman who took a chance on American soil 35 years ago and voted in his first presidential election yesterday. It’s been a wild adventure.

DID THE BEAVERS COME BECAUSE THE CREEK WAS CLEANER? OR IS THE CREEK CLEANER BECAUSE THE BEAVERS CAME?

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact November 9, 2020

Pennsylvania considers the difficult “Chicken and egg question”: Is more wildlife a sign that our creeks are cleaner? Or are their just more people seeing the wildlife because they’re not at work? Or hey, how about this one. Do beavers THEMSELVES improve our waterways and make for more wildlife?

Beavers and sturgeon and bass, oh my! What wildlife tells us about watershed health

In the beginning, Cathy Heckler didn’t know what, exactly, was swimming around in the creek. “When we first saw it, we were wondering, ‘What the heck is this thing?’” she said. “We were looking with our binoculars, trying to figure out what it was, and then it started building a dam.”That’s when she and her puzzled neighbors realized they were looking at a beaver.

There are plenty of people who think of beavers showing up in a stream as a sign that the stream is getting cleaner. Not me. Beavers didn’t show up in Chernobyl or Mt St Helen’s after the explosion because things were cleaner. They showed up because there was adequate forage and it looked good enough. And then they made it better.

Everyone else just followed.

The Game Commission relies on local reports, farmer complaints, and animal impacts to gauge animal counts every season, he said. That means every wildlife population estimate it makes is an educated guess, not a precise statement.

“No state can really do surveys to that detail, where we can give you one number this year, another number next year, and say, ‘Oh, well, the population is rising,’” Morgan said. “What we do is, we look at things that are impacted by populations.”

Then the commission adjusts hunting and trapping seasons accordingly, he said.

“I think it’s great when people report seeing wildlife … as long as [those] wildlife aren’t being a nuisance, aren’t being destructive, I think it’s wonderful,” Morgan added. “And it could mean that numbers are up. But again, if you get into the statistics of doing surveys, we don’t really know.”

Let me get this straight. You are too busy filling out forms and collecting fees to actually count the numbers of beavers or dams in your state. So you count the number of farmers or landowners who COMPLAIN about them instead, and use that information as a proxy for how many there might be in any particular area.

Hmm. I think I’ve spotted the flaw in your little plan.

Sure, I guess on the one hand more complaints about beavers might mean more actual beavers, but it could also mean there are MORE PEOPLE to complain about them in the first place. When subdivisions spring across the county you might end up with 12 calls about the same beaver family, but that doesn’t mean the population has increased 12 percent. Or that more permits should be issued to kill more beavers because of it!

Where the beavers Rademaekers and Heckler see are living, for example, he would expect to find young forest growth of aspen, willow or alder situated around rivers or creeks.

The wildlife, then, point to something bigger: the health of the environment around them.

“It’s just anecdotal, but I never thought I would see something like river otters and beavers in the city,” Rademaekers said. “Further up the watershed, it gets cleaner and cleaner, but down here, just to see the health of the watershed even in our most urban areas … it’s really encouraging and beautiful.”

You know a million years ago I had a fascinating chat with the legendary Hulet Hornbeck about our own beavers in Martinez. He told me about the great 50-year effort that had gone into cleaning up the mouth of Alhambra Creek and what a huge success it was that things looked decent enough that the beavers had stuck around at all. He also privately admitted that many people at EBRP felt it was a kind of sign or reward for their hard work – even though the city didn’t see it that way.

It was a magical conversation, and I even though I didn’t really know then anything about what a legend he was, I could tell it was important. (Especially when he sought ME out at the event and laughingly said he wanted to meet the “little lady that all the fuss had been about!“) In retrospect I think that other than planting a few willow trees we didn’t really earn the beavers. They are pretty used to hard times and are happy enough to try their lot in the most unlikely of places,

We earned what came after. In the beginning Martinez just got lucky.

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KITSAP KNOWS THAT BEAVERS HELP SALMON

heidi08 Beavers and salmon November 8, 2020

If you have a pulse I believe it is beating lighter this morning. Time for some more uplifting news from Kitsap Washington.

Salmon run starting later than usual, but here’s where you can see them

Salmon are just starting to leap over beaver dams and swim upstream toward freshwater. The salmon run season seems to be starting a little later than usual, according to experts, but thousands of salmon in the Kitsap area are or soon will be on their way upstream to riverbeds to spawn.

Rain in the past week has invited the salmon into the rivers and creeks, but smaller streams aren’t yet filled with enough water to support the fish swimming toward their destination.

Jon Oleyar, Suquamish Tribal fisheries biologist, said a dry summer has caused many Kitsap streams to be relatively clear of salmon so far. Chico Creek, Blackjack Creek, and Curly Creek are beginning to flow with fish, however.

It’s splendid that some places still get enough salmon to celebrate. And guess how they look at their beavers by the way?

“The nice thing about salmon is they’re very evolved to these conditions. They’ll wait around in the saltwater until the right conditions,” Walbillig said.

The higher up a salmon can get in the watershed, the better the chance of successful spawning. Lower in the watershed, there is more of a chance for flooding, which could bring sedimentation or pollution to salmon as they’re trying to spawn.

Beaver dams can slow the salmon’s pace a bit, but overall they are beneficial and important to salmon health and habitat.

“Beavers and the salmon have coexisted for thousands of years and they’re good buddies,” Oleyar said the beaver dams aren’t an issue in the salmon’s crossing. “They do slow down the passage a little bit, but it’s actually beneficial because it gives the salmon a place to rest and wait for that rain.”

No one’s blowing up beaver dams in Washington I assure you!

When the rain comes down the streams go up, and the salmon can go around, through, or over the beaver’s barriers. The water is then also nice and deep for the salmon on the other side of the dam. Members of the public are encouraged not to remove beaver dams if it can be avoided, as they benefit the health of the watershed as a whole.

Walbillig said in low-water conditions with few salmon he’s visited a beaver bond full of coho. Deeper pools like that provide a rearing area for juvenile fish, he said.

“It’s a really symbiotic relationship between the two,” Walbillig said.

Nicely said, although to be honest symbiotic is probably the wrong word. Beavers don’t NEED salmon, any more than they NEED mergansers or woodducks or otters or dragonflies. It’s a one way street baby. Beavers need willow. They don’t really need any of you.

You’re welcome.

Last night, after the celebrations, we watched the Sound of Music. So we could see inspiring people get away from Nazi’s. With singing. May I say we highly recommend it.

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MONEY FOR BEAVERS AND YOUR STICKS FOR FREE

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver Art November 7, 2020

Yesteday’s interview was actually really fun and interesting. Did you know elephants are afraid of bees? Her foundation is working to teach people to use bee hives lines to control elephants and keep them away from crops. They get a lucrative career and elephants don’t get shot by farmers. Win win. I also had a very nice conversation with an old friend from Fish and Wildlife yesterday who is plenty interested in the idea of a California beaver summit. So that was excellent. He also said things are farther along on beaver reintroduction plans for the Mountain Maidu trip (near lassen) the Kurok tribe (Klamath).

Not to mention the drip drip drip of votes is going in a way that says hey democracy can stick around a little while longer. So that’s buoyed my mood.

Great news from New York this morning. Apparently a whole bunch of people are giving money for beaver ecology.

DEC Awards Mohawk River Watershed Grants to Prevent Flooding, Improve Habitat

Utica Zoological Society: Beavers, Wetlands and Watershed Protection ($54,868)

This project will design and implement a comprehensive water education program focusing on watershed protection and the role beaver ponds and wetlands play in flood control and creating healthy ecosystems. Programs will take place at the Utica Zoo’s Conservation Education Center, Beaversprite, in Oppenheim in Fulton County, and include family programs, arts integration camp, and resources and tools for local teachers.

Whoa. You mean they’re gonna get paid for doing what Worth A Dam has done for free for a decade? Sure. okay. Great idea. Let us know if you need any cool ideas about involving kids in learning about beaver ecology through art and activities okay? We might have a few ideas.

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BEAVERS AND OTHER UNPOPULAR THINGS THAT ARE GOOD FOR YOU

heidi08 Beavers November 6, 2020

Beavers are feeling pretty good today especially about Georgia and Pennsylvania and the secret service setting up air space over Biden’s house in Delaware. I’m not jumping to conclusions but get your forks ready, because thinks are looking just about “done”.

This provides an excellent backdrop for me to give a cheerful interview today on Coe Lewis “Coexist” Podcast. I learned yesterday that I’ll be on air with Project Coyote’s Michele Lute, so that’s perfect because we are old friends with Coyote people. Pretty clever to put all the unpopular animals that are actually really good for you in one day. Apparently it will air after thanksgiving, and I’ll post the inks and Megan Isadore at our fifth festival in 2012.

In the mean time maybe you know a graduate student ready for this:

Graduate Assistantship – M.S.

Job Description:

We are seeking a highly-motivated M.S. student to join our interdisciplinary water quality and riparian management research team in the Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management at Iowa State University (ISU).

Project title and overview:

Dam! Impacts of Beaver Dams on Surface and Groundwater Quality

This field and laboratory-intensive project aims to quantify impacts of beaver dams on nutrient and sediment loading, hydrology, and stream channel morphology within agriculturally-dominated Iowa watersheds. Project affords ample collaboration potential with partners within and beyond ISU, including: ISU Extension and Outreach, Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Iowa Geological Survey, USDA National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This project is funded by the Iowa Nutrient Research Center (cals.iastate.edu/inrc/).

You read that right. IOWA is looking for a research candidate to study the nutrients saved by BEAVER DAMS. Honestly I wasn’t sure I’d live long enough for this to happen but if Georgia can become a blue state anything is possible.

Wish me luck with San Diego’s rock star DJ. She’s pretty so=cal. Called me “Angel”.

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