Month: January 2021

A YEAR OF BEAVER SEMINARS FROM ASWM

ASWM is the association for State Wetlands Managers. It’s a national non-profit group that webinars and certifications for river stewards across the country. They are a remarkable resource that is mostly free to access. And they just posted the four webinars about beavers and wetlands from 2020. Of course every one starts with OUR PHOTO because we are the beavers for the ages.

2020 Beavers and Wetland Restoration Webinars

The Association of State Wetland Managers (ASWM) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have collaborated to develop a series of webinars introducing the topic of restoration of aquatic ecosystems through the reintroduction of beavers, the use of beaver dam analogues (BDAs) or restoration designed to attract beavers to an area to contribute to changing hydrology and restoring ecosystem services. This webinar series has been planned by a national workgroup of beaver restoration experts and webinars are presented by expert practitioners, managers and researchers working in the field. The webinar series will provide four webinars in 2020 and an additional two webinars in 2021, covering the basics of beaver restoration and continuing through implementation challenges and ways to encourage beaver restoration projects.

There were four webinars in 2020 and more coming soon. Here the four from last year, each one is worth your time.

Webinar #1: The History of Beaver and the Ecosystem Services They Provide

PRESENTERS

Kent Sorenson, Habitat Restoration Biologist, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources
Amy Chadwick, Lead Ecologist, Great West Engineering

This first webinar in the Association of State Wetland Managers (ASWM) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) co-hosted six-part webinar series on beaver restoration provided the historical background of beaver on the land and the impacts from loss of beaver (through various hunting, trapping and removal activities) in terms of hydrology. The webinar shared what valley bottoms can be with restoration of hydrology and the role that beavers and beaver dam analogs (BDAs) can play in that restoration. The webinar explained the Stage Zero concept and unpack the challenges created by common practices that have been restoring streams to their first point of failure.

Webinar #2: Identifying Where to Place Beavers and When to Use Beaver Mimicry for Low Tech Restoration in the Arid West

PRESENTER

Joe Wheaton, Associate Professor, Utah State University

This second webinar in the ASWM-BLM Beaver Restoration Webinar Series focused on making decisions about where beaver restoration and/or the use of beaver dam analogs (BDA) can have the greatest positive and least negative impacts. Understanding that beaver restoration is not well-suited for all contexts and purposes, this webinar discussed risk assessment and introduce participants to the primary elements required to assess the efficacy of beaver projects for specific watersheds and sites. The webinar covered how data can be used to make decisions about different kinds of flow devices and when beaver mimicry/BDAs make more sense. The webinar included a demonstration of Utah State University’s Beaver Restoration Assessment Tool (BRAT), a model that helps planners assess key parameters (such as human interaction, hydrological setting, etc.) essential to beaver work. The webinar ended with discussion about the importance of post-construction monitoring.

Webinar #3: Case Studies of Long-term Changes from Beaver Restoration Activities

PRESENTERS

• Ellen Wohl, Colorado State University
• Nick Bouwes, Utah State University

This third webinar in the ASWM-BLM Beaver Restoration Webinar Series focused on the long-term changes in riverscapes that result from beaver restoration. Where intense stream restoration is needed, people are identifying low-tech process-based methods that combine the management of grazing, beaver and other approaches that engage processes to create self-sustaining solutions. Understanding the dynamic nature of these systems is important to understanding where and how they can be useful. The webinar shared case studies of work completed, focusing on the use of beaver to restore riverscapes.

Webinar #4: Addressing Common Barriers and Objections to Beaver Restoration Work

PRESENTERS

Wally MacFarlane, Utah State University
Justin Jimenez, Bureau of Land Management

This fourth webinar in the ASWM-BLM Beaver Restoration Webinar Series focused on common barriers to beaver restoration and beaver dam analog (BDA) work and when/how these barriers can be overcome. Common local landowner concerns include the taking of water from downstream water users, the potential for infrastructure damage, and a general intolerance for dam building activities. Common barriers to project success include long delays associated with the NEPA process and inability to sustain strong, diverse and long-lasting project partners. This webinar provided case studies from Utah and Idaho and will provide insights on best management practices for successful beaver restoration and BDA work.

That should keep you busy for this week. And convince you to sign up for Workshop 5 which is next week.

Webinar #5: Coalition Building for Beaver Based Stream and Wetland Restoration Success

PRESENTERS

Chris Jordan, NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center
Alexa Whipple, Methow Beaver Project
Natalie Arroyo

This fifth webinar in the ASWM-BLM Beaver Restoration Webinar Series focuses on how coalition building is essential to advancing the practice of process-based stream and floodplain restoration by helping the regulatory environment be responsive to the evolving understanding around functioning, intact riverscapes. Intentional and inclusive outreach efforts and creative partnerships are critical to achieving positive restoration outcomes. Restoring floodplains based on mimicking beaver dam inundated wetlands and their inherent complexity is a paradigm shift for the stream and wetland restoration community. Practitioners are eager to engage and the science community has jumped in to lead on methods for restoration, evaluation, and assessment. However, the regulatory community, both the formal statutory authority content and the interpretation of these regulations to allow on-the-ground restoration actions, has not seen the same degree of development. As such, a growing gap between natural process-based restoration methods and the legal authority for their implementation threatens to stall the vital progress science-based stream restoration is making. Cultural change is necessary to bridge this gap and generate the required broad understanding and adoption of novel best practices. Only through inclusive coalitions building will it be possible to develop commonly held values around functioning, process-based, vibrant ecosystems that support the natural and human ecologies essential for resilient ecosystems.

NOVA SCOTIA KILLS BEAVERS FOR BURROWING

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, What's killing beavers now? January 25, 2021

It starts small.

Even in a province like Nova Scotia that is notorious for killing beavers. It starts with just one or two people objecting to this solution that solves nothing. First it’s two. Then it’s four. Then it’s an entire town.

Mayor Amery Boyer said the 2 beavers could have caused damage to town’s sewage treatment plant

The culling of two beavers in Annapolis Royal this week has drawn criticism from residents, but the mayor says it was necessary to protect the town’s sewage treatment plant.

“We felt that the situation just couldn’t be allowed to sit because we had no idea what the beavers were doing underground,” Mayor Amery Boyer told CBC’s Mainstreet on Friday.

“… It appeared that they were burrowing into the dyke system so that really kind of escalated things for us.”

What they were doing? Did you think they had tunneled under the prison wall and were planning their escape? Or built a labyrinth of beaver warrens in which to bury the cities treasures?

Boyer said the town originally received a complaint about beavers destroying trees on French Basin Trail.

But after consulting the Department of Lands and Forestry, the town’s public works department and the Clean Annapolis River Project, it was discovered the beavers also posed a “significant risk to the town’s tertiary sewage treatment plant, as well as the adjacent trail and dyke systems.”

The marsh near the French Basin Trail is part of the treatment system for the town’s wastewater.

“If there was a blockage, we could have flooding of the walkways. We could have exposure of contaminated water,” Boyer said.

“If there’s burrowing into the sides of the treatment plant, it could cause the walls of the treatment plant to collapse.”

Prosecution by If’s. This is one of the things I hate most about city responses to beaver. The assumption that because you THOUGHT it might happen it’s the same thing as being sure it WILL happen. Imagine if humans were convicted in similar ways. “He was standing on the street and might have sneaked into our home at night and killed our children when they slept! Lock him up and throw away the key!”

Of when it comes to humans we demand proof of the crime. That’s never needed with beavers.

A notice about the removal was posted in the Annapolis Royal Town Crier and was shared on Facebook, where it drew criticism from residents.

“I couldn’t believe, firstly, that people complained [about the beavers] because it is a nature area. It’s natural, it’s a marsh, and you expect [to see] animals,” Susan Woodland, a resident of Annapolis Royal, told Mainstreet on Thursday.

“Secondly, I couldn’t believe, basically, that they were going to be killed because it says they can’t be relocated. So my first step was to find out, was there not something else they could do?”

Sometimes it just takes a single voice. Remember that.

Woodland contacted Hope for Wildlife, a wildlife sanctuary in Seaforth, N.S. She said the owner agreed that relocation was not ideal this time of year, but recommended relocation be delayed until the spring.

But Boyer said there was no time to wait, especially if damage could be done to the $968,000 treatment plant.

“We did feel it was a time constraint. We just couldn’t let the situation get beyond us,” she said.

Boyer said she understands why residents were upset, but the beavers could have caused more damage than originally thought.

“We live closely with wildlife. There’s a lot of respect for wildlife. It’s just that in this particular situation, we didn’t see a way out.”

I weep for them the walrus said. And deeply sympathize.
With sobs and tears he sorted out, those of the largest size.

I can actually ever decide whether its good for a politician to act like they feel guilty about a bad decision or not. Mostly I think it gives them cover and protects them from looking uncaring. But sometimes its enough of a hook to get the crowbar firmly placed an get them flipped in the right direction. You never know.

Well Nova Scotia needs to realize that what a beaver wants when it digs into the ground in January is a bathtub sized hole with an entrance that won’t freeze where they can sleep with their entire family until spring and not get eaten by bobcat..

They don’t want your sewage treatment plant.

MAYBE PLAN ‘B’ SHOULD BE PLAN ‘BEAVER’

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver ecological impact, Beavers and climate change January 24, 2021

It’s fairly good to be me at the moment, and being you got a whole lot better this week. I heard encouraging things from the web designer for the California beaver Summit yesterday, and had great fun watching this dynamic presentation from the good folks at the Scotts Valley Watershed Council. You really should make time for this epic story. They did and continue to do an unbelievable amount of work.

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Aren’t they wonderful? They get all kinds of folk marching to their particular beat. I’m so impressed. They’ve made a significant difference not only for beavers but for the river, the groundwater, the fish, the birds and the climate!

And there’s more good news on the climate change front coming. You just wait,

Wildlife: A Crucial Piece of the Puzzle in the Fight Against Climate Change

Wildlife and the diversity of species within an ecosystem increases an ecosystem’s ability to store carbon, making wildlife’s role in the fight against climate change indispensable. Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are balanced by the natural movement of carbon through certain ecosystems, during which CO2 is absorbed by plants, sediments or the surface of the ocean. From there, it is stored for long periods of time. The top five ecosystems for storing carbon per unit of area are tundra, seagrass, mangrove forests, salt marshes and forests. In the United States, temperate and boreal forests absorb enough carbon to decrease national annual net emissions by 11%. But without wildlife, ecosystems cannot operate at the maximum level to fight climate change.

Beavers, another keystone species often thought of as an ecosystem engineer for their roles creating habitat through dam building, help and hurt in the fight against climate change. The organic material in their dams store carbon and the dams. The organic material in their dams store carbon and the dams filter out pollution and reduce floods and the spread of wildfires. Climate change is causing more precipitation to fall as rain rather than snow, leading to more flooding and less water availability downstream in the summer. The presence of beaver dams at higher elevations can slow down this type of water flow and avert early runoff, much like snow does.

Of course any article about climate change and beavers can’t finish without at least a mention of the horrors beavers are creating in the tundra, making habitat for all those displaced species that are driver out of lower elevations by fire and drought. Sure. Okay. But believe you me, if you the planet is going to be ravaged by climate change, you are better off having plenty of beavers around to help.

COMPETENCE REARS ITS LEVEL HEAD

heidi08 BDA's, beavers and wolves January 23, 2021

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I’m sure you feel it too. That lightness and sense of freedom. The feeling that you get when after a long climb you just eased the sweaty backpack off your shoulders and suddenly feel like you might float directly upwards. The dreadful suspense of the last four years where at any moment you would read that hibernating bears could be shot in their caves with their young. or that wolves could be shot from helicopters, or that coal mine tailings could be dumped into drinking water is all suddenly gone. And replaced by responsibility an competence.

And stories like these. Posted the day Biden was inaugurated.

Human-made beaver dams likely save natural wetland from extinction

A natural wetland in southeast Oregon was likely saved from extinction thanks to four years of collaboration and some human-made beaver dams.

In the Oregon high desert, about seven miles northeast of the town of Crane, Alder Creek bubbles to the surface surrounded by sagebrush and juniper trees.

“It’s really the only source of water out in a long way,” he said.

“Really it was 99 percent about preventing the loss of the wetland,” said Lindsay Davies, the BLM fisheries biologist who helped manage the project.

You know what I’m thinking right? If the new head of the Bureau of Land Management understands that human made beaver dams save essential wetlands then they know that beav

“It’s amazing how green everything is and how much wetland – it’s a bigger wetland than we had originally anticipated,” said Davies.

BLM wildlife biologist Travis Miller thinks beavers will have a better chance of escaping predation in the deeper water and have the potential for long-term habitat.

“It would be really good to see those populations rebound and establish in these systems,” said Miller.

Full list of project partners: Malheur County Watershed Council; Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board; Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation; Grant County Soil & Water Conservation District; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Headquarters; Burns Paiute Tribe; The Nature Conservancy; Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife; adjacent private landowners; and grazing allotment permittees.

Whoo hoo! We’re still operating under an “acting director” but it’s wayyyy better than it used to be. And it’s not just BLM. The same thing is going on at FWS too.

Former FWP Director Appointed To U.S. Fish And Wildlife Service

Former Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Director Martha Williams was appointed on Wednesday as second-in-command at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Biden Administration. William’s replacement within Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte’s cabinet was also named today.

As principal deputy director of FWS, Williams will oversee a federal agency tasked with managing wildlife and habitat across the country, and in charge of more than 150 million acres of land in the National Wildlife Refuge System. The agency also administers the Endangered Species Act.

Here’s the inside scoup from Sarah Bates at NWF

Named this week as Biden’s choice for principal deputy director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Williams is serving as temporary FWS director under a secretarial order (E&E News PM, Jan. 21

Martha Williams, the Biden administration’s current head of the Fish and Wildlife Service, knows the Endangered Species Act both as a law school scholar and as a courtroom combatant who once fought environmentalists over the gray wolf.

Now the former director of the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks is getting a bigger bite at the ESA, including the law’s application to the long-litigated gray wolf.

Named this week as Biden’s choice for principal deputy director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Williams is serving as temporary FWS director under a secretarial order (E&E News PM, Jan. 21)

She also recommended we be more interested in species recovery than simple “Delisting” and appears to believe that habitat is crucial in this effort. So I’m feeling hopeful that she will be interested in beavers. Aren’t you?

And of course it falls under this exciting umbrella appointment of Native American hero and congresswoman Deb Haaland as the secretary of the Interior. Just as soon as the GOP stops sitting on its hands and appoints her.

If you want to play an exciting American version of power rangers, go look at the line up of his cabinet. Every single choice is game changing.

AMAZING DAM PHOTOS

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beavers, featured, pictures January 22, 2021

It’s time to start thinking of the next hurdle. And start getting my video together for the upcoming Valentine’s presentation at Oakmont Syposiumwith Bob Boucher. I am happy about the timing because it’s a great opportunity to plug the Summit which is coming soon thereafter, In the meantime he sent me some awesome photos for the website that I thought you’d want to peruse.

Feb 14, 2021– 10:30 am on Zoom
Bob Boucher and Heidi Perryman

Beavers: Conservationists Who Mate for Life

Happy Valentine’s Day! And the perfect animals to celebrate are beavers. Why? They mate happily for life. And not only is that kind of cool, but they are also a “keystone” animal. When these resilient critters aren’t around, the ecology doesn’t work right; when they are around, life thrives. Beavers are unsung heroes that shaped our country in more ways than one. Bob Boucher and Heidi Perryman, an “accidental beaver advocate” and will charm us with their fascination for these amazing animals.