Month: February 2021

IOWA THINKS ‘MUSKRATS’ MANIPULATE THEIR ENVIRONMENT?

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beavers, Environmental February 18, 2021

Okay, I’m going to break my rule. Usually I wrote about several complicated beaver notions on this site, quoting research or experts or the news of the day, But not today. Today I’m going to write about just one sentence. On inexplicable sentence from the great state of Iowa. And let me once again poise the age old question: Why do we let them vote first?

Diverse aquatic wildlife found in Iowa

While there are no oceans or seas in Iowa, and some 95% of its natural wetlands were converted to agricultural cropland over the past two centuries, the state is bordered by rivers and has an abundance of wetlands, lakes, ponds and even standing water in farm fields that provide habitat for a huge variety of creatures.

In a recent webinar hosted by Iowa Learning Farms, Adam Janke, Extension wildlife specialist and assistant professor at Iowa State University, highlighted some of the cast of characters found in Iowa’s aquatic ecosystems.

Janke selected 27 species that are found in Iowa to represent the diversity, which spans insects, mammals, reptiles, fish and others.

Okay, 27 species is a nice round number. That is more than I might expect from Iowa’s waterways. But it’s this sentence that stopped me cold.

Wetland mammals such as the muskrat and beaver were also discussed in the webinar. “Muskrats are one species that is recognized for the benefits other creatures enjoy from the ways in which muskrats manipulate their environment,” Janke said. “The reestablishment of trumpeter swans has been well supported by their use of abandoned muskrat huts as nesting sites. And the still waters held back by beaver dams create excellent environments for Iowa’s only native trout species, the brook trout.”

On the left is the muskrat. On the right is the beaver. Only one of these manipulates the environment. Photo by Rusty Cohn

Muskrats manipulate their environment?

Muskrats?

I mean lay aside the questionable grammar of “muskrats is one species”. What exactly do they do to to manipulate the environment?

Chew it into a new shape?

Now now maybe Mr. Janke is being misquoted. Or misheard. Maybe he meant BEAVERS and the reporter just wrote down muskrats because they both live in the water. But I watched muskrats daily for many years as they swam alongside the things that ACTUALLY manipulate their environment. And they didn’t lift a finger unless it was to eat something.

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POOR BESIEGED TYRRELL COUNTY

heidi08 Beavers, Who's Killing Beavers Now? February 17, 2021

Aren’t you glad you don’t live in Texas this morning? I woke up during the night imagining what it would be like to have no heat, put on all your clothes and pile everyone into one bed room to stay warm. Apparently the mayor of Colorado City thinks his residents should “Stop whining!” and now has resigned because civic responsibility has its limits in the Lone Star state.

Meanwhile Tyrell North Carolina has problems of its own.

Tyrrell commissioners hear about beavers and mosquitoes

Tyrrell County has a beaver problem.

“We’ve got to deal with the issue,” said David Clegg, Tyrrell County manager.

Beaver dams in ditches block water flow and flood properties. People destroy the dams, but beavers build them back in two to three days. Beavers have two or three dams around a Tyrrell County water tower. The ground around the tower is so saturated that the superstructure needed to paint the tower will sink.

A conversation about beavers took place at the February 2 meeting of the Tyrrell County Board of Commissioners.

Oh pulleeze, If read an article about NC dealing intelligently with a beaver problem I think it would blow my mind. Gosh I bet you are about to tell me that these beavers need to be trapped. Surprising they kept fixing the dam after you ripped it out. That almost ~~always~~ never happens. Must be some weird kind of “rebuilding beaver”. Usually they are such slackers they give up right away.

One nuisance and health threat will be reduced from June through November. Tyrrell County will embark on its own mosquito control program, Clegg announced at the meeting. “Everything just sorta happened,” said the county manager.

Until now, the county has asked the Town of Columbia to attack spot issues with the town’s mosquito control equipment.

Clegg told the board the county program will “spray by count, where traps tell us to go.”

The program expense of $15,000 to $20,000 will appear as a line item in the maintenance budget. He said a part-time person will be needed to operate the program.

Yup. Spray the mosquitoes, Trap the beavers. And take money from FEMA when you are plagued with drought again. Tyrrell is a coastal community that will probably disappear anyway as the oceans rise. So I guess it makes sense if they start with the beavers.

THE BEAVER IN WINTER

heidi08 Beaver Chewing February 16, 2021

Last night I watched the news about the cold snap hitting much of the country. All of Texas and parts of Louisiana and Mississippi are under a snow warning. Which has never happened. Many parts of the country are experiencing temperatures FIFTY degrees colder than usual. Stunning.

Which because I have a one track mind made me think about beavers.

That means of course that places where the stream never freezes will freeze and beavers that have never needed to cache their food will find themselves without a way to eat. And for how long? I mean places that are usually frozen in winter will be colder, I get it. And beavers can manage. But what about the places like Dallas and Santa Fe?

What happens to those beavers?

Let’s hope they either have lots of stored fat OR lots of rhisomes and roots to eat under the icein the meantime. And while we’re worrying about the beavers we should stop to worry about the humans too because that’s not anything they expected or signed on for. Frozen pipes and snowy roads are just not something you plan for in Corpus Christi.

For those beavers that can forage in the normal ways their are other obstacles to contend with. The Miistakis institute just launched a study to figure out the value of abraisive painting in keep a beaver from chewing trees.

I’m curious about what they will find, aren’t you?

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BEAVERS JOIN THE RESISTANCE

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver ecological impact February 15, 2021

Chris Jones is one of the major players of the Beaver Trust in Cornwall and has been instrumental in the work to get beavers on the landscape in Cornwall. He is also my FB buddy and a generally pleasant guy. He recently completed this interview with Derrick Jensen of Resistance Radio. One of the fun parts of this interview is the very English sounding truck horn occasionally in the background. He then recommended that I do an interview with him so we’re scheduled to record on March 10th. Let’s hope we can stir up some interest in Beavers and the California Summit.

Resistance Radio – Guest: Chris Jones

Chris Jones leads the river and beaver restoration programme for Beaver Trust, helping communities to develop projects that will recover biodiversity and build climate resilience. He is a farmer and ecologist based in Mid Cornwall. He has worked as a policeman in Africa, as a forester in SW England, as a drilling fluids engineer in the North Sea, Middle East and Africa, and as a theme running throughout as a farmer in Cornwall. He has been interested in the idea of reintroducing beavers to the UK for many years, and has been practically involved setting up and running the Cornwall Beaver Project with Cornwall Wildlife Trust and Exeter University since 2014.

Eek! I just heard my name dropped by a Cornish farmer I have never met in an interview I knew nothing about. Well then.

“IF WE JUST ALLOW THEM TO WORK”

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Urban beavers February 14, 2021

Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope someone makes you feel very special today and that you still find a little time for beavers. I’ve been seeing notifications lately about the beaver footage in the new PBS documentary about Big Bend National Park on the Texas Mexico border. This trailer will give you a great introduction for what to expect. The Beaver part starts around 2 minutes in but it’s all pretty nice watching.

Making of “Big Bend: The Wild Frontier of Texas”

Filmmaker Skip Hobbie discusses his and the crew’s experience making Big Bend: The Wild Frontier of Texas. Hobbie talks about both the challenges and exciting moments while filming the animals of Big Bend, such as beavers and bears.

Ahh I remember it well. Waking up before 5 and blearily trudging down to the dam to watch the beaver family finish it’s day. Sure we didn’t have to watch out for bears of jaguars but it was still a good idea to keep an eye out for the homeless or trains. Memories!

Let’s follow that excellent film up with an exciting new article out of Maryland that contains one of my very favorite quotes of all times. I can barely wait to highlight it but I’ll be patient and give you the excellent overview first,

Leave it to Beavers: Chesapeake Bay Restoration by Nature

At the 2020 BeaverCON–a biennial, international conference held in March in Hunt Valley, Maryland–wildlife and environmental professionals gathered to learn what works in human-beaver conflict management and restoration. Following the conference, DNR staff and other partners formed a Beaver Working Group to help promote the science and understanding of beavers as ecosystem engineers and to elevate “process-based” stream restoration as a climate-resilient bay cleanup tool.

Blue-spotted sunfish

Throughout 2020, the Maryland Beaver Working Group has met virtually to discuss a path forward for beavers in Maryland–seeing beavers becoming a key player in increasing wetland acreage, improving habitat for a myriad of different wildlife species, and promoting healthy watersheds for brook trout and other aquatic species in need of conservation, such as the native coastal plain sunfish.

Well that’s very nice. Isn’t that very nice? Congratulations to Mike Callahan and Scott McGill for making this happen in the first place and for years and to Lois and Len Houston for years of conferences in Oregon for modelling good behavior.

To further the science and implementation of this relatively new approach, DNR is partnering with the Baltimore and Harford County Soil Conservation Districts and Ecotone, a Maryland-based ecological restoration company, to implement this approach in a number of degraded stream systems. This approach promotes ecological recovery with minimal corrective intervention. The partners in this effort are cooperatively monitoring existing beaver dam complexes to determine effects on stream temperature and fish habitat.

Early findings indicate that while some areas behind a beaver dam can see increased water temperature, the technique promotes groundwater recharge, resulting in an overall cooling effect on water temperatures.

Beavers can modify their environment more than any other animal except humans, and have a large role to play in combating climate change. For example, elevated water tables surrounding beaver-modified areas increase the density and height of vegetation, reducing diurnal fluctuation of water temperatures, maintaining base flow, and increasing aquatic habitat complexity. These environmental modifications created by beaver activity can be essential components to restoring riparian corridors and building resilient ecological systems which help to mitigate against the effects of land use changes, increased impervious surfaces, and effects of climate change.

That’s right. Not only is the Department of Natural Resources interested in beavers, The County Soil and Conservation District wants in too. Here’s my favorite part. Shhh.

Beaver Working Group members believe that like oysters, the beaver should be thought of as a keystone species in our restoration efforts. The difference is that the beaver is at the top of the watershed. Oysters are at the bottom. Both are equally important in maintaining healthy ecosystems. But beavers can help filter nutrients and sediments before they get into the tidal systems–leaving oysters with less work to do “filtering” the bay.

Be still my heart, Erik Michelsen of Public Works in Anne Arundel County might well be my favorite human ever. Just imagine hearing those words come out of Dave Scola in Martinez. Well a girl can dream can’t she?