Month: October 2021

QUOTED WITH A NUTRIA PHOTO

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers October 11, 2021

Well sure it’s monday I know, but it’s a special monday so Heidi is going to share with you the funniest thing that happened around her birthday last month. This article was published in MEDIA kindly quoting her in front of a noble nutria photo. In fact the title of the article is based on her quote, proudly adorned a nutria photo. Because you just knew it would happen someday.

For water in the faucets, you need beavers in the mountains

The evidence of how beavers protect land when wildfires burn through, and how they restore degraded ecosystems much faster and much less expensively than humans can, is piling up in a remarkable fashion. And it’s encouraging many projects to reintroduce beavers all across the landscapes that are most likely to burn — unsurprisingly, many of them are in California.

Heidi Perryman calls them the trickle down economy that works. “Let’s call them water savers.” If you want water in your taps, there should be beavers in the mountains, she says.

An award-winning film calls Heidi and others the ‘Beaver Believers’, who want people to embrace a new paradigm for managing western lands in partnership with the natural world. “Beavers can show us the way and do much of the work for us, if only we can find the humility to trust the restorative power of nature and our own ability to play a positive role within it.”

This article was originally published on July 8th by Rosemary Cairns in a blog called HopeBuilding. She had the nutria photo too because why mess with success? This is the way the universe rewards you. It credits your modestly clever quote that was memorable enough to be set into a film, but it highlights that quote with a photo of a NUTRIA because really all your efforts amount to nothing in this world. Sound and fury, signifying nothing.

In California, ecologists dealing with a dried out creek bed in Placer County didn’t have the million dollars they would need to bring in heavy equipment to restore the creek to health. So they brought in beavers to do the work instead. It cost them $58,000 to prepare the site, and the restoration took three years instead of a decade. The beavers brought Doty Ravine back to life, reconnecting the stream to the floodplain — for free.

“It was insane, it was awesome,” said Lynnette Batt, the conservation director of the Placer Land Trust, which owns and maintains the Doty Ravine Preserve. “It went from dry grassland. .. to totally revegetated, trees popping up, willows, wetland plants of all types, different meandering stream channels across about 60 acres of floodplain.”

The original article didn’t share a photo of doty ravine or a completely unrelated different ravine in new mexico but I’m sharing it because it’s my favorite photo at the moment. And why not give me something to take the sting of nutria out of my day?

“It’s huge when you think about fires in California because time is so valuable,” Fairfax told the Sacramento Bee. “If you can stall the fire, if you can stop it from just ripping through the landscape, even if that beaver pond can’t actually stop the fire itself, just stalling it can give the firefighters a chance to get a hold on it.”

The beaver wetlands also offer a refuge for wildlife that can’t outrun a wild fire. “The beavers are creating these patches, these fire refuges that don’t burn anywhere near as intensely,” she said. “So it’s a relatively safe spot for animals to wait and let the fire pass.”

So Emily is always good to include, and her quote is featured with her stopmotion film which is way better than a nutria. I suppose this author did a good thing for beavers by sharing all this fine information but she needs to realize that when you can SEE THE ACTUAL RAT TAIL in the photo, it’s NOT a beaver.

Sheesh.

BEAVERS GO TO HARVARD

heidi08 Beaver Behavior October 10, 2021

You knew it would happen eventually. Harvard is going to study the MIT mascot and learn more about the dams they build. Not about the ecology they create mind you, just about the nuts and bolts. Apparently it’s not been studied a lot because – are you sitting down? – beavers work at night when all the grad students are usually busy partying, downloading porn or writing bad poetry.

Dammed if They Do

Today the beaver thrives in many biomes throughout North America because of the animal’s ability to modify its environment to suit its needs. In the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, where the Blackfeet nation is located, annual floods wash out beaver dams every spring allowing a unique opportunity to watch the colonies rebuild them from scratch. When Kennedy returned to this region as a graduate student she had a simple question: How do beavers build dams? To her surprise, there was relatively little research on the topic—particularly from the perspective of an engineer rather than a naturalist.

“Beavers can transform an ecosystem thousands of meters in length over a single summer,” she says. “Dams are only a small part of it. They need extensive trail networks so that they can travel back and forth to support material transport for lodges, dams, and food cache construction. They also excavate extensive canals and fell trees right alongside so that they can float them back to the dam. It’s a pretty sophisticated and large-scale engineering project, particularly when you consider that we’re talking about rodents only as big as a mid-sized dog.”

The kind of indirect coordination between animals based on environmental cues that Kennedy describes is called stigmergy. A termite, for instance, digs up some soil and leaves pheromones on it, which attracts another nestmate who does the same. Multiply by a million or two termites and you get a mound nearly three meters high. In her research, Kennedy explores whether stigmergy applies to beaver behavior.

Hmm that’s actually interesting. Here in old Martinez we got to watch beavers build dams directly, because our internet was down I guess and we went outside. And we saw beavers learn to build better. Beavers who were very bad builders. And beavers who improved over time. Whether they got better because of STIGMERGY I cannot say, but I do think that if you put a stick in a certain place and it was the wrong place the water will come and show you why. Especially when the creek is tidal and the water comes twice a day. Hey did you know Jordan attended the California Beaver Summit? Yes it’s true.

Around here we call it STICKMERGY!

Beavers are not termites. Besides being much larger and smarter than insects, the mammals’ works take much longer to construct than a termite mound. Moreover, beaver building behavior is not a response to pheromone cues. But Kennedy believes that beavers respond to the flow of water similar to the way that her mentor Mahadevan found termites respond to temperature and the flow of air. While it’s long been suspected by researchers that the sound of running water is a trigger for dam building, though, Kennedy says the reality is likely more complicated.

“If it was just that they hear running water, then beavers would be trying to build across Niagara Falls,” she says. “Other environmental factors work together to create a kind of ‘Goldilocks zone’ where things are just right and beavers are going to build.”

“I took measurements and you can see that, when the flow of water is sufficiently low enough, beavers will start building dams,” she says. “So, although my field sites were all more or less in the same location—all on Blackfeet land—beavers started building at different times depending on the flow rate I measured at their particular location. I think the data set shows that flow is a very strong trigger.”

Okay I guess you can say the water is operating like the pheremones here and stimulating more building or different building, but just remember that beavers in rehabilitation who have been raised from orphans are constantly “Building dams” our of their caretakers rainboots or newspapers or coffee cups. Building dams appears to be somewhat hard wired. The water teaches ways it could be better.

And the beaver LEARNS.

Kennedy’s findings address a much larger question: How big can a stigmergic system get? Her other faculty mentor, Fred Kavli Professor of Computer Science Rhadika Nagpal, has leveraged research on social insects to develop kilobots, “a low-cost, easy-to-use robotic system for advancing development of ‘swarms’ of robots that can be programmed to perform useful functions by coordinating interactions among many individuals.” A reflection of the insects that they imitate, however, kilobots are quite small—only about 33 millimeters in diameter. Beavers are orders of magnitude larger—as are their works.

“Yes, beavers cut down the trees, but then they bring in all this other plant life,” she says. “A number of papers demonstrate that plants start to flourish and invertebrates start to populate the areas beavers inhabit. Even if you don’t think that beavers are sacred, it’s coming more and more to the forefront how important they are to the health of our waterways and everything that lives there.”

Sure. That’s why I’d go to Yale to study beavers. Not to understand how they improve the environment; Or to learn how their decimation lead to historical and environmental ruin. Or even the destructive of biodiversity in early America or see if they help fight fires or end drought. I’d study beavers to learn if they can inform robotics. Because that that smells like funding to me.

Sheesh.

COWS AND FISH AND PEOPLE

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact October 9, 2021

We don’t hear very much from Alberta but a lot of smart beaver things start there Glynnis Hood for example teaches and researches at the university of Alberta. The Miistakis institute is in Alberta. And Cows and Fish, who has been doing smart things to educate people about beavers for as long as I’ve been at this rodeo is in Alberta.

They can be troublemakers, but beavers do a lot of good, too

Beavers have been given a bad rap, but they can benefit the landscape — and there are ways of coexisting with them.

“People are beginning to recognize the value of beaver and how they might be able to help us as a society navigate some of the challenges we are facing,” riparian specialist Kerri O’Shaughnessy said during a recent virtual talk hosted by the Pigeon Lake Watershed Association.

Her organization, Cows and Fish, has been working with the Miistakis Institute and provincial officials to help landowners who aren’t so enamoured of Canada’s most famous rodent (which, since 1975, has been the country’s official emblem).

Beginning? Beginning? I’m so old that I remember when the publication of your book “Beavers our watershed Partner” made a resounding tail slap across the hemisphere. We still use the amazing illustrations by Elizabeth Saunders every time we can. Way back in 2017 Worth A Dam paid for founding father Lorne Fitch of Cows and Fish to attend the state of the beaver conference, and present on the outstanding work getting ranchers to cooperate with beavers.

“Beavers have been recognized as important for climate resiliency as they facilitate groundwater storage, increase stream permanence, enhance water quality, mitigate floods, create terrestrial and aquatic habitat, among myriad benefits,” the booklet states.

“Beaver ponds, particularly in dry years like this, have some of the only surface water that we can see. It also influences what we can’t see, underground.”

Ponds not only retain more water on the landscape but can offer protection against wildfires and slow flood water in a watershed, she said.

Yes beavers are pretty darn amazing. You’ll get no argument from me. But I’m happy you’re there with boots on the ground talking sense to folks.

Traditionally, the solution to problem beavers was to trap or hunt them (moving them to another place is illegal in Alberta). But when a beaver or its lodge are destroyed, the problem is rarely solved for long, as another beaver will show up within a few years.

But there are alternatives that are cost effective and can maintain the land around the pond for economic, environmental, and other benefits, said O’Shaughnessy.

One is something called a pond leveller.

It’s a pipe that has an inlet in the pond (surrounded by a cage) and extends through the beaver’s dam. The idea is to keep the pond deep enough so the entrances are submerged while providing an outlet so the water level in the pond can’t get too high to flood property or damage infrastructure.

The biggest problem with pond levellers is red tape, the Miistakis Institute says in its booklet. Sometimes no permit is required but other times “rigorous and expensive requirements” are mandated by Alberta Environment and Parks, says the booklet from the institute (which has been conducting workshops on how to build pond levellers).

There are also culvert protectors, which are simple structures to prevent a beaver from damming a culvert (again a permit may, or may not, be required). Wrapping wire around trees prevents beavers from chewing on them (the wire should be loose to allow for tree growth and be a metre high) and exclusion fences can also keep beavers out of certain areas.

Yes there are these things called SOLUTIONS for these things called PROBLEMS and people who can think for more time than it takes to fire a rifle or call a trapper can use them! It’s amazing how this works out.

DAILY MAIL THINKS BEAVERS SHOULD BE SMALLER

heidi08 Beaver Chewing October 8, 2021

The Daily Mail is generally despised and regarded as half a rung above the National Inquierer, but sometimes they do post fun articles about beavers for some reason. I guess when there’s no royal behavior to speculate on.

Nice gnawing you! Huge beaver is captured in Utah after chewing through tree that fell into power line and left 1,000 homes without power

A power outage that left 1,000 people in a small Utah town in the dark this weekend was caused by a huge beaver who gnawed through a tree and sent it crashing into power lines.

Nearly 1,000 residents of Logan were left without power for nearly an hour on Sunday afternoon after a large tree landed on powerlines. But the tree had help falling down and in a letter to the mayor, a safety officer confirmed a particularly large beaver was the behind the outage after gnawing through the base of the tree, causing it to tip over.

In a Facebook post addressed to the city’s mayor, safety officer Brody Parker confirmed that a beaver, located between the Boulevard and Canyon Road, dropped a large tree that landed on the power lines. After helping clean the trees and clear the area on Monday, Ambrie Darley, the Human Resource Director for the City of Logan, captured the animal on Tuesday, Parker wrote.

Is that a really a HUGE beaver? It’s weird because he seems to be just the right size for the cage she happened to bring. Funny they would bring such a large cage for beavers that are, everyone knows, much much smaller.

Good thing they caught that great big TREE CHEWING beaver. The other ones won’t present a threat to the power lines I’m sure.They probably just eat daisies or something. Did someone tell the mayor that Logan Utah is famous for coexisting with the beavers that settled in Walmart property?

BEAVERS MAKE HABIT- FOR ROACHES?

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beavers, Beavers and Insects October 7, 2021

It’s Thursday and that’s just another day to celebrate beavers. Today some fairly local ones from Sonoma who are leaving their mark in the creeks and in the local news.

Beavers return to Sonoma Creek

It’s been a long summer of extreme drought conditions in Sonoma Valley. But in what seems like a steady stream of dire news for the local watershed the Sonoma Ecology Center finds one glimmer of good news stands out: beavers are moving back into Sonoma Creek.

The return of these charming dam builders isn’t quite breaking news – since 1993 beavers have slowly made a comeback in Sonoma Valley. But this year, in the middle of peak dry season, their increasing presence is something for celebration.

From the perspective of drought resiliency and water retention in our watershed we’re observing how beavers are a positive factor in keeping what water is in creek beds and reducing hydrological impacts of water rushing through the main stem of Sonoma Creek. Their natural impulse to build dams and create ponds is a major factor in retaining refuge habitat for species that rely on water to survive.

Isn’t it funny how one city sees beaver dams in its creeks and says “GOOD LORD we better kill those beavers fast!” And another city drolly describes them as “Charming dam builders” and starts listing all the good things they do? Well maybe not. Just listen.

Beavers provide refuge habitat for crawdads, California roach, Sacramento suckers, frogs and the endangered California freshwater shrimp which rely on deep pools and submerged, structural habitat like fine tree roots which are often present in the structure of a beaver dam. Any animal, insect, or crustacean that requires water to live in creeks is something that benefits from the damming that the beavers do.

UM, Beavers provide habitat for ROACHES? Are you kidding me? That’s the best you got? Not Steelhead or salmon or otters or great blue herons or wood duck but ROACHES???

There are some issues of note that can arise with the presence of beaver ponds. One such issue being a proliferation of water fern or duckweed growing over standing pools. However, it’s better to have water in the creeks than none at all, and these refuges of cold pools allow many species that can handle the duckweed a little extra room to survive a dire drought year.

In town, beavers can cause localized flooding and/or excessive soil wetness where development or agriculture have encroached upon low floodplains. All in all it’s a net positive to have beavers back in our Valley and making their mark on our watershed.

Yes they can cause problems, but on the bright side they make habitat for ROACHES so that’s a plus, right?

That is LITERALLY what I’d call “Damming with feint praise”. Someone needs to step up to their publicity team. Something tells me that this campaign is persuading no one.