BEAVER IN PARLIAMENT

So this happened in Scottish Parliament. I just found the footage. I’ve never seen grownups “Naying” over beavers but I bet it happens. Well maybe they don’t do that in Scotland.

Maurice Golden (North East Scotland) (Con)

Beaver activity can have and is having a negative impact on farmland, biodiversity and rural communities, especially in Tayside, where beavers were released either accidentally or illegally. The Scottish Government’s new translocation scheme aims to help, but it lacks detail, so can the minister provide answers to the following questions? When will the new rules launch, how many trappers have been trained, how many translocation sites have been identified and for how long will the scheme be funded?

Lorna Slater

I am really excited about our beaver translocation initiative, because it is an excellent way of managing conflicts between beavers and other land users. I disagree with the member on biodiversity loss, because beavers are excellent at improving biodiversity by creating natural wetlands. [Interruption.] Beavers are a reintroduced species. When my father grew up here in Scotland, there were no beavers—they were extinct—so this is a success.

We will publish a new beaver strategy—in June, I believe—and I very much expect that it will answer the member’s questions.

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DEFENDING BEAVER PONDS

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beaver Helpers May 23, 2022

It’s Monday again. I have a barrel of work to do and Monday’s always need a little good cheer. So I’m going to post my favorite kind of news this morning. My VERY favorite kind of news. Can you guess what that is?

Residents rally in support of Burde Street Beaver Ponds

Around 100 people showed up to talk about the importance of maintaining the Alberni Valley’s natural assets during a town hall meeting at the Athletic Hall this week.

The town hall on Monday, May 16 was moderated by Port Alberni residents Sandy McRuer and Robert Borrett, who co-administer the Facebook page “Friends of the Burde Street Beaver Ponds.”

San Group Inc. announced back in the summer of 2021 their plans to build a $1 billion housing development at the top of Burde Street under the name of Pacific Mayfair Estates. Although the undeveloped area is private property, it is popular with walkers and hikers and includes two ponds that are home to beaver dams.

Port Aberni is in BC right across the water from Port moody. I like how beaver advocacy tends to wick out from a source and saturate the surrounding areas.

Pacific Mayfair Estates has stated that the land immediately surrounding each of the ponds will be preserved as park land, but people like McRuer and Borrett are concerned that extensive construction will drive away much of the wildlife. The ponds are also home to the Western painted turtle, which is an endangered species.“What we have here is a jewel,” Borrett told the crowd on Monday.

A number of Port Alberni residents spoke at the town hall. Some were concerned about the increase in traffic over the past few years on Burde Street. Some had ideas about other areas in the city that could be redeveloped, instead. No one spoke in favour of the housing development.

A health-care worker from West Coast General Hospital (WCGH) said that she and her co-workers visit the beaver ponds on their breaks. Others talked about the importance of the ponds for their mental health.

Oh pooh. Since when do cities care about mental health? Oh right. They want all those people to follow rules and be nice to each other so I guess its good if theu’re calm.

“This many people in the room signifies that this many people care,” said Hupacasath First Nation elected councillor Jolleen Dick. “This many people caring is the envelope to push the change over the hill.”

Hupacasath’s Elected Chief Councillor Brandy Lauder said she was “surprised” to learn about the development because there hadn’t been any consultation with Hupacasath prior to Pacific Mayfair Estates’ official announcement.

“This is not the way we conduct business,” she said on Monday.

Hupacasath operates Woodlot License W1902 in the area, which overlaps with one of the ponds, and Lauder’s main concern is the conservation of the area. Lauder said she does not support the development at this time.

“We put in protection for those beaver ponds, the creeks, the trails,” she said. “We’ve done rebuilding of trails. As far as we’re concerned at Hupacasath, [Pacific Mayfair Estates] will need to change a lot before we’ll even consider it.”

San Group did not attend the meeting on Monday, but company spokesperson Amit Chandra Shekar confirmed that they had been invited. “We politely asked them to reschedule because none of our representatives (were) available at the time scheduled,” he said.

Yeah yeah yeah. The big guns hate showing up for the big meetings where all those great unwashed masses gather and demand things. Did I ever tell you there’s was a sniper stationed at our big beaver meeting? I didn’t find that out until a few years ago.

“We know the problems, that’s the easy part,” said Borrett. “But what I’d love to do is actually bring forth constructive solutions to them.”

Shekar added that company officials were concerned at the perceived threat of violence at such a meeting, which came to light in an exchange on the Friends of the Burde Street Beaver Ponds Facebook page. McRuer had asked for one or two volunteers “who are willing to calm down anyone who gets aggressive.”

Despite this, the town hall remained peaceful throughout the night. Borrett acknowledged that the San Group is made up of “wonderful people” who have provided employment for many people in Port Alberni.

Peaceful people gathered to demand that development behaves itself. Who knew there were such things?

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MONTANA SLOUCHES ITS WAY TOWARDS BEAVERS

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beavers May 20, 2022

So much of Tom Dickson’s article is wonderful, bitterly surprised by all the good things beavers can do when he was sure they were trouble for the past 50 years. I can imagine him gruffly standing in the stream and shaking his head. The article should be called “We’ll I’ll be dammed”.a;

He is helped in his conversion by beaver stalwart Torrey Ritter. And thank god for Torrey because he’s making the kind of difference in Montana that only a true insider can make.

While building a dam, beavers set in motion a whirlwind of ecological actions. Ducking under alder branches, Ritter shows me where the stream has backed up and spread amoeba-like across the floodplain. The weight of the pond, he explains, presses water into the earth, where microbes filter out heavy metals and other pollutants. The underground water flows downstream in subterranean channels, cooling as it goes, then seeps to the surface, in many cases increasing summer flows and lowering stream temperatures.

These wooded wetlands absorb powerful floodwaters, reducing their destructive force and checking erosion. Snowmelt from sur- rounding mountains is captured, stored, then slowly released during the summer when downstream areas need it most. What some are now calling “Smokey the Beaver” can thwart wildfires by creating lush wet areas that slow or even extinguish flames. “Beaver wetlands also act as a type of Noah’s Ark, where small mammals, frogs, birds, and other animals can escape fire,” Ritter says.

Excellent Torrey! Preaching the beaver gospel to the unconvinced and newly curious! Its an uphill batter but you’re the man for the job, I have faith in you.

The additional water above and below ground benefits ranchers, farmers, and communities in other ways. For instance, just north of the Montana-Alberta border, the city of Lethbridge is using beaver activity to in- crease water supplies during drought. And in Idaho, ranchers like Jay Wilde are partnering with state and federal wildlife biologists to “re-beaver” creeks and hold back more water for livestock. “When you see the results, it’s almost like magic,” Wilde told Beef magazine.

Not surprisinglThis y, all that extra water and vegetation is a boon to fish and wildlife. Species that share beaver-made wetlands include moose, deer, otters, mink, muskrats, great blue herons, cavity nesters like wood- peckers and wood ducks, fishing birds such as ospreys and kingfishers, bats, waterfowl, frogs—even sage-grouse, which lead their chicks in summer to green meadows sur- rounding beaver ponds to find insects..

You really convinced him Torrey. He had to check ALL the references because he totally didn’t;t believe y0u at first, Jay Wilde and Joe Wheaton. He’s still shaking his head even as he types I think;

Fish benefit from increased streamflows and oxygenated upwellings of cold water below beaver dams. Deep beaver ponds, which don’t freeze solid, provide winter refuge. They also trap sediment that other- wise would wash downstream and cover spawning gravel. According to David Schmet- terling, head of FWP’s fisheries research unit, when snowmelt on steep rivers like the North Fork of the Blackfoot gushes downstream each spring, it scours the streambed. “We’re finding that beaver dams there actually pre- vent spawning gravel used by bull trout and westslope cutthroatrout from washing away,” he says.

Okay.. This is where the rubber meets the road, He seems convinced that beaver dams are good for SOME fish in SOME places but not all of them. He’s not to sure about the results of evolution still apply,

Dams can also prevent salmonids from swimming upstream to spawning waters. In Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, one of the last holdouts of Arctic grayling in the Lower 48, beaver dams have both silted spawning areas and blocked spring migration.

Yet beavers and salmonids co-evolved for millions of years. Before European set- tlement, the West was awash in beavers and coldwater fish species. Why are the industri- ous rodents considered a threat today?

Historically, if a beaver dam blocked or silted in one spawning tributary, salmonids could still reproduce in countless others. Not anymore. Habitat loss and warming temper- atures have shrunk Montana’s bull trout population to a small percentage of former numbers. Grayling loss is even greater.

Beavers aren’t bad for trout and grayling everywhere, just in certain critical streams. Though FWP fisheries crews still remove some beaver dams, “studies in Montana are showing more and more that the benefits to trout and grayling usually far outweigh the detriments,” Schmetterling says.

Ahh Tom. You were soo close. Never mind. There are only to kind of people in the world, People who know the truth and people who haven’t been convinced YET,

In a West plagued by wildfiresand drought, it makes sense to create more wetland complexes like this one—though not where they give ranchers and fisheries biologists heartburn. Obviously, beavers can’t bring more rain orease summer droughts. But by keeping more water on the landscape and underground, they can help. “They just need a nudge in the right direction,” Ritter says.

NUDGE NUDGE NUDGE. That’s what beavers need. And for the people I’m thinking SHOVE.

EVERYTHING’S COMING UP BEAVERS

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beavers and climate change January 2, 2023

Amazing news report from KCBX yesterday. I had to fiddle with it to make a video. You’ll understand why when you click “play”.

How’s that for news you can use?

The meeting with the PRMCC went great, although I had to wait a long time to do my pony show. During the discussion of fire safety and the olive tree grove and funds earned by the Martinez Marina I had a flash back to every single dam city council meeting I anxiously sat thru for the beavers. Honestly just hearing anyone ask for a “motion” and a “second” traumatizes me.

There’s a fantastic new article about beavers from Montana FWP and we’ll be talking about it soon. I thought we could start though by checking out the amazing artwork. I had to write the author and the magazine to find the name of the artist, but this work is from Liz Bradford of North Carolina. You can bet I made sure Amy our chalk artist saw it too.

“JUST BEING HERE”

heidi08 Beaver Art May 18, 2022

I really needed this.

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