Month: August 2021

BEAVERS AT THE WHITE HOUSE?

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver Art, Beaver Conference, Beavers August 30, 2021

Beavers are catching on. And they dam well should be. Look what’s happening in Corvalis Oregon.

I was contacted by Ralph a while back and plied with questions about our festival. I gave lots of ideas including getting some children’s activities that could teach about why beavers matter. I told him about our beaver billboards and beaver tours and he invited me to come talk about our work in Martinez but I demurred. Too bad covid is still requiring masks but I’m hopeful that will get lots of photos of Oregonians in beaver tails soon.

Now that’s enough good news for one day, but while I was still glowing over this I got an email from Karen Pope at the forest service who was part of our Beaver summit team and she suggested that there was a call for natural resource inspired ornaments for the White house Christmas tree and wouldn’t it be great to have a beaver one?

Every year, a different national forest is selected to provide a tree to appear on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol building for the holiday season. The 2021 tree will come from the Six Rivers National Forest in California. From ornament making and special events to sponsorships and a cross-country tour, we invite you to follow the journey to D.C. Throughout the year.

They are calling for ornaments for both the large white house tree AND the several smaller trees they will erect around town.

Large Ornaments Requirements (4,000 needed)
The large ornaments will decorate the outdoor 2021 U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree.
– 9 to 12 inches
– Colorful & reflective
– Lightweight
– Durable materials such as natural products (wood, pine cones, shells, etc.), aluminum or repurposed material
– Weatherproof to withstand the elements (wind, rain, & snow)
– Will be hung from 14 gauge wire

How to submit ornaments
Click here to view mailing information and drop off locations.
Ornaments must be submitted by Sept. 15, 2021.

Well sure it’s not a lot of time for folks to get it together but it comes in handy if you already have the perfect graphic. I spoke with Amy Hall yesterday and have her full consent to print this on wood and run with it.

POISONED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS?

heidi08 Beaver Chewing August 25, 2021

The Miistakis Institute has concluded their study on protecting trees with sand paint and decided against it. Latex paint contains Titanium Dioxide which is toxic to rats in fairly small doses.

Lethal Dose, 50% (LD50) for titanium dioxide for a rat = >5000mg/kg
(please see Appendix 2 for the Safety Data Sheet (SDS) for No.4050 Ultra
Pure White® and No. 4400 Medium Base),

They infer that the average weight for a small beaver is 12kg and by extension a beaver could be poisoned by eating the bark of three painted trees.

There is a risk that the beaver may test the painted trees and
consume the painted bark in amounts that may be lethal, based on our
calculations. Our research shows that a beaver consuming the bark of 3
painted trees would reach a lethal dose (LD50) of titanium dioxide. Given the
small number of painted trees needed to be consumed to reach LD50, along
with the lack of safe alternative adhesives we conclude that the use of a
sand/paint textural repellent as a technique to protect trees cannot be
recommended

It’s a sound inference based on the toxic nature of the substance. But it doesn’t make sense to me who watched our beavers deal with our stand of of painted trees for nearly a decade. When the tree grew and the sand got farther apart and less off-putting, our beavers might ‘nibble’ to test it out, but I never saw them eat entire trunk of the tree or indeed the entire trunk of ANY tree. They were far more interested in the tasty smaller branches higher up.

I checked in with resident researcher and physician Rick Lanman to ask his thoughts. Here’s his response:

The Mistaakis Institute is sorely mistaken (pun intended). They used 2 gallons of paint to cover 167 trees (presumably they only painted the bottom four feet or so of each tree trunk). Their error was that they assumed the beaver would eat ALL the bark on each tree. Instead a beaver would typically not even eat the bark on the tree trunk, and instead fell the tree (spitting out the wood chips), then the beaver would go for the tender bark on the slender twigs and branches.

Even if the beaver accidentally consumed some of the trunk bark this would be a miniscule part of the area of bark on the tree. The notion that a beaver would remove all the bark from a four foot section of tree to fell the tree is ridiculous. Rough guess (for a 4 foot section of tree and using largest tree girth of 25 cm which is radius of about 5″) is they might eat a few % of the area of tree bark.

Let’s do the math: area of bark = π r squared x height = 48″ high x 3.14159 x 5″ x 5″ = 3,769 sq inches or about 26 square feet). I expect they might eat 1 square foot of bark of that 26 square feet of latex painted bark per tree or 1/26 of the painted bark per tree. So they’d have to eat 78 tree trunk sections each 4 feet long to hit that LD50, not three trees. Not even remotely close.@Heidi Perryman

Thank you Dr. Rick! You are the very first person to use pi on behalf of beavers on this website. Maybe ever. And now stop it. Because I came into this work to get AWAY from math. Sheesh.

For the record, I agree with Rick here. Beavers are not going to consume all the bark at the base of the tree when they have all those sweet upper branches at their disposal. But it is icky that paint is toxic. Stop that will you? Apparently the Tintanium dioxide is a pigment stabilizer so it makes your perdy living room just that right tone to match the sofa.

Surely they can invent some kind of icky unstabilized color that’s non toxic, right?

LUXEMBOURG PROMOTES BEAVERS

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact August 24, 2021

Well this is pleasant to come across. I’m not exactly sure who to thank but we know Gerhard Schwab had something to do with it.

One of Luxembourg’s biggest nature conservationists works tirelessly all-year round for no salary–the beaver. Its co-workers at the nature and forestry administration talk about why the return of the beaver is so critical for biodiversity.

Beavering away for biodiversity

Thanks to efforts to reintroduce the European beaver into neighbouring countries and forbid hunting, their numbers have swelled to between 600-800 in Luxembourg, going from nine reported sites, or families, in 2009, to 80 today. That is good news, and not just if you’re a beaver.

“Beavers have the biggest impact of any species on biodiversity,” says Alexander Kristiansen, who manages a team in the field for the ANF. “We say a beaver is like a Dutch engineer, with their dams, a Norwegian lumberjack and a Portuguese worker. They know exactly how to scan the landscape and, with the smallest effort, build a dam to flood a few hectares.”

Wow. High praise for the beaver indeed. You people are doing an excellent job. But truly. I would expect no less. Look at this photo. They are naturalists sent straight from central casting. I honestly can’t decide which one I want to date first.

The dams, he explains, are their habitat: beavers feel safe in water and they need to build up the level so that the entrance to their lodge is submerged. From the dam they might also build a canal to a tree along which they can float back wood. “Once you build a dam, areas get flooded, trees die, birds nest in those trees and they become like insect hotels. You have different vegetation that is good for fish and that filters water,” Kristiansen explains. They are even beneficial at limiting the impact of natural floods—because the dams slow the flow of water further down the line. “Even half a metre can make a big difference,” says Jacobs.

The accolade “keystone species” makes sense and yet beavers remain massively misunderstood in Luxembourg, which is why the ANF does a lot of awareness raising work.

Boy you sure make beavers sound good. How do the 12 other people in Luxembourg feel about them?

For the most part, the beaver gets good pretty good PR thanks to their appearance. “No-one fears the beaver. To us they look cute, and it makes it easier to protect them,” says Jacobs.

Nevertheless, there are tensions. Around 15 years ago a beaver community in Larochette was poisoned. Uninformed people mistakenly act out of fear that beavers will chop down all of the trees, or deprive fishermen of fish–never mind that beavers are vegetarian.

The biggest real risk to people is tunnelling, which may cause sinkage on farmland or trees to fall on roads or rail tracks. In these instances, Kristiansen will seek a solutions through compensation incentives to not farm the tract of land beside a waterway for instance, or buying land.

You are simply not going to believe this. I don’t believe it and I write about beavers every day and have done since the Bush years. Are you sitting down?

The best solutions involve landowners engaging in some way, like by planting a crop beavers can feed on. A farmer who followed this advice “took his family to see the beavers and now they love them. That’s the best strategy, when you take the children and their eyes are shining and then the father can’t say anything,” Kristiansen smiles.

So let me get this straight. The beaver is upsetting a farmer by tunneling into their crop or causing flooding. And a country the size of postage stamp actually PAYS them to plant a crop that the beavers want, like willow, on that floody field because they realize its SO GOOD FOR THE NATION to keep beavers that they find the funds and just do it.

I need to sit down. I feel faint.

The last lake at Kockelscheuer is a well-established beaver site. Otherwise, download the inaturalist app and enter “castor” (French for beaver) in the search engine to find reported beaver sites. The best time to spot a beaver from afar is in the autumn when there is less vegetation and therefore sites are more accessible.

Some day,

Mark my words. Some day California will pay farmers to keep beavers on their land because they do so much for water storage and biodiversity and FIRE PREVENTION.

Someday it will happen. I know it will.

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MARK YOUR CALENDARS: COLORADO BEAVER SUMMIT

heidi08 Beaver Conference, Beaver ecological impact, Beavers August 23, 2021

Mark your Fall Calendars. The Colorado beaver Summit is coming October 21st and you will be very interested in how it unfolds. New Mexico, California, Colorado have all had beaver summits. What state is coming next? (And I’m looking at you, Idaho!)

Colorado Beaver Summit fosters climate, drought solutions

Colorado and the West face unprecedented drought conditions and water scarcity driven by climate change. The cumulative effects of natural resource exploitation and misguided land management policies have made matters worse. The removal of beavers from the landscape two centuries ago by the fur trade was one of our earliest and most costly mistakes because it dramatically altered critical ecosystems that naturally conserved water in wetlands and alluvial aquifers, which in turn sustained streams and rivers during drought years.

Without beavers maintaining the dams they’d built for millions of years, rivers began to flow faster, carving channels below their floodplains, and water drained out of the landscape, including the aquifers.

The resulting ecosystem is drier, less resilient to drought and more prone to catastrophic wildfire. A 2006 study conducted in Rocky Mountain National Park found that aquifer recharge “may be the most important beaver-related factor in mitigating effects from climate change.”

Re-establishing beavers in key areas of their traditional range will begin to restore the resilience of western landscapes. Beavers are a keystone species that likely numbered in the hundreds of millions in North America. Once nearly extinct, beavers now number around 10 million, far less than their natural population prior to the arrival of European pioneers and settlers.

Well that certainly sounds convincing! Where do I sign up?

Organized by Colorado Headwaters, the inaugural Colorado Beaver Summit will feature two days of online seminars bringing together scientists, policymakers, activists and concerned citizens. The Summit will foster collaboration, education, and the advancement of science-based policies that facilitate beaver re-establishment and other nature-based restoration initiatives to improve resilience to drought and wildfires.

On Thursday, October 21, the Summit will feature presentations that demonstrate the importance of beavers in creating long-term solutions to western water challenges. Thursday sessions will emphasize the scientific studies that are documenting the importance of beavers to healthy ecosystems and ecosystem services such as flood and sediment attenuation, temperature moderation and improved water quality.

Dr. Emily Fairfax will discuss how beaver complexes improve resilience to wildfire and drought. Sarah Marshall with the Colorado Natural Heritage program will provide a statewide perspective on beavers in Colorado. Tom Cardamone, also with CNHP, will discuss the challenges and opportunities of beaver restoration in the context of a biodiversity and wetland study of the 9-million-acre Roaring Fork Watershed. Additionally, speakers from each Western state will address regulations for beaver hunting, nuisance situations, and relocation, as well as the biggest challenges they are working to address.

On Friday, October 22, the Summit will feature leaders from various agencies discussing policies and legislation needed to ensure beaver management programs are implemented in a positive and proactive manner. Most state and federal land agencies struggle with addressing beaver management due to lack of staff capacity and budget, and federal legislation relating to forest management is remiss in failing to promote practices to strengthen strong watershed and wetlands resources.

First the why and then the how. I like it. But since we can’t even get people to take a vaccine that might save their own lives, I have a hard time imagining they’ll allow beavers to save the planet. But good luck trying.

Fires in close succession and habitat destruction in general are significantly altering our rich biodiversity, and drought is a persistent concern. Efforts and funding to reduce forest fuel loads is certainly required for mitigating fire risk, but just as important is the need to address the health of our natural water infrastructure (streams and wetlands in our forests) which provides about 80 percent of Colorado’s drinking water.

Public lands agencies need to address water resources policy to emphasize the importance of wetlands and the role of beavers in resilient ecosystems to improve water resources for people and nature.

Understanding beaver management can transform this industrious animal from an uninvited guest to an untapped resource. Beaver stewardship of streams can make the West more robust, more resilient and less susceptible to climate change, drought and wildfire.

As climate change accelerates, Western states are experiencing drought conditions with greater frequency, intensity and duration. These changes threaten our water supplies, our food supply, our forests and our way of life. Please join us on ZOOM Thursday and Friday, October 21 and 22, to learn how beavers can help us avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Colorado Headwaters is a 501(c)(3) environmental nonprofit working to sustain, conserve and enhance Colorado’s freshwater resources (www.coloradobeaversummit.org).

Wow that looks amazing! I’ll be presenting in a roundup of western state beaver policy. I’ll be talking about all the good ideas in California, which will take half a minute. But I definitely want to see how this unfolds. You should to.

THE PRINCESS WHO WANTED TO SAVE WETLANDS

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beavers August 22, 2021

It’s Sunday and time for a story. It will surely be the familiar kind because you’ve heard this story before many times. It’s a David and Goliath tale, where David wants to save beavers and Goliath has taken the form of the terrible development monster that is terrorizing the village. You know how it goes. They want to tear down paradise to build a parking lot sort of thing.

I can’t tell you the ending because it hasn’t been written yet. I’m hoping it ends well.

Once upon a time in a not-s0-far-away land named Rocklin there lived a beautiful and shy princess who was keeper of a magical wetland near her home. Every day she and her neighbors would walk along the many winding paths and follow the stream to see the homes of the wild creatures that lived there. The wetlands were made and maintained by two creatures that were the most magical of all because they turned a lazy urban backwater into a wilderness where herons, turtles. frogs and otters all found their way.

They were called “BE-avers” Because with their determined effort they willed wild things into BEING.

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Very near this magical wetland was the gilded campus of Sierra College who wanted to build more housing for its many, many lords and ladies who were studying kingdom administration and graphic design. They sent foot soldiers every so often to tear out the beaver dams so that the magical wetland would be drained and it would be easier to reach all the things they wanted to develop.

This worried the princess because it was summer and getting drier and even when the magical BE-avers rebuilt their dams (Because BE-avers are very hardworking and never give up or get discouraged) the precious water they once held was lost and did not return and could not be expected to come back until winter.

Gradually the magical wetland grew more and more shallow. Until the moat around their lodge-castle receded and they had to walk the corridors instead of swim to get around. All the wildlife that relied on the pond, the dragonflies, the frogs, the turtles, the herons, and the otters all dwindled into a smaller and smaller space, or left the area entirely, or were eaten, with less food and protection to keep them safe. Soon when you walked the area you could see almost nothing except dry channels, choked streams and muddy pools where water used to be.

Now the great Sierra College needed permission from the city of Rocklin to unleash their beloved monster, and the city, like all cities, was eager for DEVELOPMENT dollars and said, go right ahead, don’t mind us and don’t worry about all those neighbors who like the wetlands just make certain you follow the gossamer rules from Great Wizard of CDFW who in its terrible wisdom requires that certain endangered species not be messed with. Or at least not APPEAR to be messed with.

(Not the BE-avers of course. It was perfectly fine to mess with them. in fact the lords of CDFW handed out permits for messing with them like confetti. And everyone in the county of Placer where this occurred messed with them as often as they possibly could. But I digress. Back to our story.)

The short list of creatures that couldn’t be messed with included a shelled fresh-water nymph called the “Western Pond Turtle” and the rules said that if this rare specimen was observed in the ‘not so very wet any more land’ they had to halt work and wait for it to crawl away on its own.

Which was very annoying. Because turtles crawl very slowly, as you know.

It was nesting season and the turtle would be laying its eggs soon and could not be encroached upon. That was the rule. And they HAD to follow it. Or at least give the appearance of following it. So they crossed their fingers and squeezed their eyes shut tightly and hope they wouldn’t find any WPTs.

Earlier this week the princess took her magical Nikon, went to the pond, and waited. She was a little afraid, because she didn’t want to make people angry, And a little soggy because she had to walk into the mud to do it. And a little bitten because there were less and less fish left to eat the mosquitoes. But she did it anyway because that is what princesses do when they need to save wetlands.

The Western Pond Turtle! And several of them!

So she sent her photo to the college and to the lords of CDFW and the city and waited for them to leap to the wetlands defense. She imagined the screeching train of development grinding to a halt, or at least losing steam. And she waited for her phone to ring in alarm as they sputtered and changed course.

And they of course put their hands up over their eyes and spilled coffee on her emails because all they could see were the dollar bills even the great Lords of CDFW hesitate before they get in the way of those.

Stay tuned.

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