WILDLIFE DETERRENCE FUND PREVENTS FIRES

When I was a little girl looking for a clean piece of paper to scribble on I accidentally found my mother’s Xmas shopping list in the kitchen. It had the names of all my siblings and appropriate gifts for each. Of course I can’t remember a single item on that list for anyone else but I remember MINE – and I knew exactly what I was getting that year. I was old enough to read her handwriting and feel guilty for seeing it, but not old enough to cross out what she wrote and write in what I really wanted instead. Now I remember that moment of illicit discovery. That unused and overlooked corner of the kitchen. And I think, THIS.

THISis my new shopping list. How do we make THIS happen after the first ever beaver summit? It’s the natural outcome that I want to see for water drinkers everywhere.

New nonlethal wildlife deterrence fund proposed

A bill in the Oregon Legislature would direct the Oregon Department of Agriculture to establish a grant program to explore nonlethal deterrence between ranchers and wildlife.

House bill 2689 introduced by Dan Rayfield, D-Corvallis, would establish a new grant program under the Department of Agriculture to explore nonlethal deterrence between specific wildlife species and ranchers and farmers. Big game species and wolves would not be impacted by the nonlethal deterrence grants.

Under the proposed bill grants may be awarded to nonprofit groups, counties who have established a nonlethal deterrence program and individual farmers and ranchers; this includes people who are raising crops or animals for noncommercial purposes.

This is what I’m talking about. This is it. This is all of it. It just needs a snappy new name. Like the “Natural resource preservation act” Or the “Water saving Treatise” “Fire Prevention Fund” but this is my fantasy about what comes out of the beaver summit. Even if it dies on the floor I want it to be talked about. Written about. Considered.

Money can be used to purchase a guard dog or other animal. Building or enhancing fencing around property to prevent wildlife species from entering. Money can be used to acquire visual or acoustic scare devices, or flow devices such as beaver pond levelers. Ranchers and farmers would be allowed to trap an animal in a nonlethal trap and release the animal in another area with prior approval from the Department of Agriculture. Money for the new grant program will be distributed from the General Fund.

As of press time the bill has been referred to the House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources. No public meeting date has been scheduled and no public testimony has been submitted either in support or opposition.

For more information contact Rayfield’s office at 503-986-1416.

It’s early days. We start with an idea and go from there. How do we make this happen in California? That’s what I want to know. How. How, How,

REHABILITATION MAKES STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

heidi08 Video March 30, 2021

Now I’m usually not charmed by those “Duck is best friends with donkey” videos but this got my attention for obvious reasons. I guess even river otters have their lovable side. Of course I disprove of the idea that beavers are vocal because their spoiled or demanding, when we all know their vocal because their social structure is way more complex than otters, but STILL…

BEAVER EDUCATION IN VERMONT

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact March 29, 2021

Big super moon greeting me this morning, apparently it’s called the “Worm Moon” which is hardly an attractive name for something that shiny. I guess they can’t all aspire to be a “beaver Moon”. This great article by Declan McCabe has been making the rounds in the past week. Enjoy!

The Outside Story: Beavers, landscape engineers

When I returned to the pond years later, the beavers had departed — but the dam remained. Seven feet tall and made of sticks and mud, the dam had an upstream arch that spanned more than 50 feet of stream valley. According to Tom Wessels in his book, “Reading the Forested Landscape,” old beaver dams can last for decades. Wessels points out that beavers engineer more than mere dams, however.

Beyond dams and lodges, beavers sometimes dig canals to aid their movement, as well as to float saplings and limbs to stock their underwater larders. Some tree species die after being submerged in beaver-made ponds, becoming habitat for woodpeckers and other wildlife. Some favored food trees, such as big-toothed aspen, re-sprout from their stumps, producing early successional habitat and multiple delectable stems for beavers to eat.

McCabe teaches at Saint Michael’s college in Vermont. I can just imagine what excellent summer garden parties he, Skip Lisle and Patti Smith have. Well, I’m sure they would if the were the kind of people that enjoyed those things. Vermont knows some very fine things about beavers.

In areas where beavers can resettle along the same water system, their ponds can serve as aquatic habitats for decades. Well-established beaver populations provide a complex combination of active ponds, abandoned ponds and beaver meadows in various phases of succession. These create a diverse set of habitats that increases biological diversity across the landscape.

Abandoned beaver ponds accumulate silt and fallen leaves, forming rich soil that eventually fills the pond basin. Light from the canopy gap and well-watered, rich soils support lush communities of grasses and wildflowers called “beaver meadows,” which store an abundance of carbon. This soil continues to build as grasses grow, live and die. Beaver meadows may remain open for decades, even if the beavers don’t re-flood the area, because in part of a lack of mycorrhizae necessary for tree colonization.

It’s so lovely to read nice things about beavers. Couldn’t you just curl up and listen for hours? I could. I have. I will.

Another important physical impact on the landscape, is the animals’ effect on groundwater. Beaver ponds are far deeper than undammed streams, and pond water saturates surrounding soils. This raises the groundwater table for some distance around the pond. The pond, together with the higher water table, stores a huge volume of water. During dry spells, water seeps from the pond and riparian water table to sustain streamflow. Rainstorms that might otherwise have quickly scoured and eroded streambanks, recharge the pond and water table. Flooding from small storms is contained by the combined water storage capacity, and erosion caused by larger storms is reduced.

Ahh it is nice to read about the gospel from a true believer. McCabe begins and ends the article with a nod to his sister who lives in Ireland. For some reason he doesn’t stop to consider how truly bizarre it is that beavers supposedly made it there

HOW MANY MEETINGS DOES IT TAKE TO DO THE RIGHT THING?

heidi08 Beavers March 28, 2021

We have been writing about Havre Montana since 2012. The Lands Council visited in 2019 to teach them how to solve their problems, but the park board has stubbornly resisted trying anything new. This week they received another earful from their constituents,

Park Board committee hears public testimony on beaver trapping

The Hill County Park Board’s Rules and Regulations Committee held a meeting Monday evening to hear public testimony regarding the future of the board’s methods of beaver population control.

Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson lead the meeting and said its purpose was to gather information and perspectives on the subject in preparation for eventually determining a policy for the park going forward.

The issue of beaver population control in the park has long been a controversial one, with some favoring the historical model of lethal trapping as a method of keeping the population down, while others want the board to look into non-lethal alternatives, and Monday’s meeting had attendees from both groups.

I vote for the second one! Can we please try the second one? How many times does Montana need to be told to do the right thing?

Lou Hagener, a certified professional in rangeland management, said research suggests that while beaver can have detrimental effects on areas, they can also have positive effects on water quality.

Hagener said it is true that beaver have caused damage to individual’s properties, but managing the population based purely on the individual desires of the property owners is not necessarily doing what is best for the park.

He also said that population control is not necessarily the same as mitigating the damage done by beavers which can be addressed with devices that don’t have any effect on the population but do discourage dam building.

While beaver do cut down trees, he said, replacing those trees is an option to address the issue.

Renelle Braaten, another long-time advocate of non-lethal alternatives, and a former member of the Hill County Park Board, said that board has been very resistant to having experts on these alternatives come to Beaver Creek Park to evaluate the area and how effective various methods might be.

Braaten said she, along with land owners around the park, plan to bring many of those experts up anyway after the pandemic is over to test non-lethal alternatives to provide first-hand demonstrations of their effectiveness for the benefit of the board.

Yes I agree with these two. Better wildlife is better for a park than no wildlife. Better water quality is better for a park than icky water quality.

She also said beaver can have beneficial effects and when someone from the audience asked what benefits there are for having beaver in the park, she said there were many including increased water quality.

“It’s also the namesake of the park, so torturing and killing beavers doesn’t make any sense to me,” she said.

Margaret Standing Bear, a long-time resident of Havre and Hill County, also criticized the board for their resistance to non-lethal alternatives and accused them of attempting to eradicate beavers in the park through trapping.

Peterson said beaver on the north end of the park have hardly been bothered and that the board is interested in population control, not population elimination.

Population control? They are not bunnies. How many do you think live there now? What’s that? You have no idea? And how many do you think there might be if you quit trapping? Infinity? Is infinity the right number?

Peterson said after the second meeting is done he will attempt to arrange a meeting with experts of varying backgrounds to give presentations on the subject for the committee, similar to a meeting he attended in Helena a few years ago.

“Some of them will surprise you with how they lean and why,” he said.

He said this meeting may take some time to set up and the larger process of establishing a population control policy will likely take well over a year.

It will not be a black-and-white issue, he said.

Mr. Peterson sounds like he is shopping for the very experts who will tell him what he wants to hear. But preferably look like they care about wildlife. You know the type. A nice woman with curly hair who will say that it’s important to trap beavers to keep the herd healthy.

I’m available. Do you think they want me to speak?

Here at beaver central we are nothing if not timely. This made me laugh yesterday.

BEAVERS GET A LITTLE RESPECT

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver Conference March 27, 2021

Yesterday was data drop day at beaver central. We are up to 798 registered for the beaver summit. Not bad for a state that never thought about having a beaver event before. 541 are from California but there are people from 26 states attending an four countries.

I wish we had 10 more state park attendees and 20 more waterboard people but it’s not bad first effort. There are also hundreds of various non profit attendees and lets hope they hold some feet to the fire so that those that can’t attend this time will learn in the future,

In the meantime there was a darling/terrifying story yesterday from Canada of a beaver turning up in the subway and making rescue. Poor little disperser who tried to use public transit.

Beaver wandering inside Toronto subway station prompts rush hour closure

TORONTO — An entrance to a Toronto subway station was temporarily closed due to a wandering beaver. According to the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), the beaver strolled into Royal York Subway Station on Bloor Street, near the Humber Marshes, early Thursday morning.

As a result, the TTC temporarily closed the Grenview entrance to the station “due to an animal in distress.” The station entrance has since reopened.

You have to love the Canadians for closing the station. I don’ even want to think about what would have happened to a beaver who wandered onto BART.