FEARLESS SUPPORT FOR BEAVERS

Do you remember last July when I posted about it being time to hire a lobbyist for beavers? At the time shared an article about Jennifer Fearing and suggested that sometimes you need someone on the front lines in Sacramento to make this happen. Well it’s happening. Yesterday I got a request from Ms. Fearing to support the OAEC letter on 30 x 30 and today’s she’s in Mike’s McPhate’s California newsletter.

5 questions with …

… Jennifer Fearing, a Sacramento-based environmental and animal rights advocate.

I’d also like to see California bring back beavers, amazing animals that bring enormous, urgently needed benefits to the state’s water challenges, habitats for endangered species, and climate change impacts. Nature’s engineers are native to California, but since the “fur rush” that preceded the race for gold nearly wiped them out, beavers have been treated as nuisance animals under California law and policy. I’m grateful to California scientists and beaver believers like Dr. Emily Fairfax who are making the case and communicating it to the public and decision makers. (more…)

“IT’S LIKE KILLING THE GOOSE THAT LAYS THE GOLDEN EGG”

Have I got a family to introduce to you today! Meet the Sorensens from Elko Nevada, Their family has been ranching the land for 3 generations. But they are the ones that have learned something different. You’re going to just LOVE this story.

At Secret Pass near Elko, family focuses on making ranch sustainable

The Sorensens pose for a family photo on their ranch in Secret Pass near Elko on Dec. 12, 2021. Back row, from left, Jules holding her baby, Mesa next to her husband, Justin; Jared and his wife Selena and their daughters Michelle and McKatie. Middle, Jared and Selenas son Weston, and front row, children Jonas, Gabe and Charisty. Not pictured are sons Keaton, who is serving a mission in Texas, and Kaysen, who lives in St. George, Utah. (David Calvert/The Nevada Independent)

In the 1940s, the Sorensen family planted roots in Nevada, raising thousands of sheep and some cattle on a ranch where the Ruby and East Humboldt mountain ranges meet in the northeastern corner of the state. Their descendents are still there.

Third-generation Nevada rancher Jared Sorensen and his wife Selena are raising their family of nine children, who play important roles on the Secret Pass Ranch, where winter winds are unforgiving and a blanket of snow glimmers across the region. Encompassing 10,000 acres (and an additional 12,000 acres the Sorensens lease for grazing), it sits between the mountain ranges, the valley opening up to vast fields where cattle graze. The Sorensen home, an unassuming 100-year-old house, is mostly hidden from the highway by trees. Across the way at the foot of the Ruby Mountains, a stream flows along the highway. (more…)

70 YEARS OF BEAVER RESEARCH – FIRST INTERVIEW

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beavers, Beavers and groundwater, Beavers and water January 10, 2022

There has been such loud response to Monday’s Minnesota research that I have been waiting for an interview or two to pop up. WTIP community radio was first with this excellent audio recorded with the study author and host Joe Friedrichs. It really is compelling stuff. Especially when he says that beavers keep water on the landscape AND when we kill them it reduces water on the landscape, but then says “I’m not going to say anything about whether or not we should keep killing them”. HAHAHA

Study analyzes beavers as ‘ecosystem engineers’ near North Shore rivers

A new study shows the critical role beavers play in regulating water storage along the North Shore.

The project reviewed data and photographs from the Kadunce and Cascade rivers in Cook County, as well as the Manitou, Split Rock and Knife rivers down the shore.

The study is considered one of the most extensive reviews analyzing the extent to which beavers are essential for freshwater conservation and ecosystem stability by creating and preserving aquatic and wetland environments in Minnesota.

(more…)

THE SMITHSONIAN HAS LOST ALL FACULTIES OF REASON: ARCTIC BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers and climate change January 9, 2022

Have you a daughter?
I have my lord.
Let her not walk in the sun. Conception is a blessing but as your daughter may conceive, Look to’t.

Hamlet II:2

Will somebody please put a wet blanket over this story once and for all? Or find the NOAA scientist that spawned it and send him on a one way trip to Jamaica? You would think that Chevron drilling holes in the ice and driving huge trucks back and forth across the permafrost would get an occasional mention, but obviously the BEAVER CALAMITY is taking up all the bandwith.

After all, there are only so many pages in a magazine like the Smithsonian.

Beavers Are Reshaping the Arctic Tundra. Here’s Why Scientists Are Concerned

Beavers have the ability to completely transform landscapes. They gnaw through trees, build dams and flood new areas to create ponds, earning them the title of “ecosystem engineers.” But a northward migration of these bucktoothed builders has scientists concerned, Hannah Osborne reports for Newsweek. (more…)

BEAVER AS ORNAMENT

heidi08 Beaver Art January 7, 2022

Mike Digout the videographer from Saskatchewan recently posted this on FB and I wanted to share. It gave me lots and lots of ideas. I do have a lot of buttons and scraps of fabric from all our beaver projects over the years.

Thank you to my dear friend Lynne Hunks for the beautiful handmade Christmas card with an incredible beaver scene. It is perfect. Lynne makes beautiful cards with fabric and buttons. Check out her work at https://ottawaartisans.com/…/seller…/whitepinefabrics

Thanks again Lynne, I love it.