Kent Woodruff was the visionary USFS leader behind the ground-breaking Methow Project and really the spark for so many beaver movements across the country. His protege is Alexa Whipple who now directs the beaver project hersel. I was looking forward to hearing this talk from BeaverCon2. Make sure you find time for it too.
Month: August 2022
Do you remember back a million years ago when our friends in Utah worked to install a flow device so some beavers could stick around near the walmart in Logan? It might of slipped your mind but at the time I was sure it was the beginning of a massive cascade that would sweep the nation. Apparently just down stream the beavers are still making a splash.
Like Yellowstone: Logan Canyon beaver colony attracting crowds
A family of beavers in Logan Canyon has gained celebrity status of sorts this summer, attracting spectators almost nightly to watch them go about their business.
One reason for the beavers’ popularity is that the dam and lodge they’ve built along Temple Fork are only a few paces from the road, so families can easily park and set out blankets and lawn chairs for the evening “shows.”
“It’s really interesting, almost a Yellowstone-ish experience where people can go up and watch animals’ behavior in their natural setting,” said Nate Norman, director of Utah State University’s Beaver Ecology and Relocation Center. “The beavers have gotten used to people being around, and in the evening they’ll come out and do their thing — chewing on sticks, grooming themselves, fixing their dam — in front of what’s turning out to be crowds of people.”
Whoo hoo! Hey I remember that kind of life. Yes beavers are fascinating to watch and can easily draw a crowd. Yes beavers can habituate and get used to people watching them over and over. Oh I never thought I’d say this, but I’m jealous of Utah right now.
Of course, like at Yellowstone National Park, crowds of people and wild animals sometimes don’t mix well, and there have been reports of some unruly Homo sapiens disrupting Temple Fork’s Mammalia rodentia — both unintentionally and on purpose.
“It’s a really neat place to go see beavers in action, but it’s starting to get really popular to the point where people are starting to harass them, like throwing rocks at them and crossing over to the other bank and getting too close,” said Norton’s assistant, Becky Yeager. “It’s a great opportunity for people to see them, but we have to educate people on how not to harass them.”
Grr. I believe the part about getting too close. But throwing rocks? That never even happened in Martinez the origin of all crazy beaver stories. I saw people sometimes throwing bread, Throwing sticks. Stupidly fishing and laughing when beavers swam to the line, but rocks? I’m not terribly worried because beavers in water are pretty good at getting away from annoying humans.
With this in mind, Norman and Yeager have discussed approaching the U.S. Forest Service and offering help in developing some signage at Temple Fork that gives visitors some guidance on respectfully observing the beavers. However, Forest Service biologist Paul Chase told The Herald Journal on Monday he’d likely advise against this since beaver colonies like this one never remain at one location.
“We certainly support that message, but these beaver lodges are fairly transient,” Chase said. “That one’s been there for three or four years and keeps expanding, but it likely won’t be there in three or four more years because they’ll be running out of food. They build their dams, they harvest all the aspen and willow in that location, and then they pack up and move. At some point in time, they’ll be back once the aspen gets rejuvenated to a size that they can utilize.”
Not really that transient if you consider that I was writing about the Logan beavers in wallmart in 2014.
Signs of this pattern are visible all along the Temple Fork trail in Logan Canyon, where remnants of former beaver dams and lodges are common. Depletion of trees in the area of the current thriving colony is also visible, and Chase said the beavers have lately been going farther and farther upstream to cut and gather more wood.
On a recent weekday evening, nine beavers of all sizes could be seen in and around the pond as two couples watched from blankets on the bank. The older of the beavers, who spent a lot of time out of the water on the opposite shore, are surprisingly large. Google searches indicate they can grow as long as 4 feet, including their tails, and sometimes weigh as much as 100 pounds.
The peacefulness of the scene was occasionally interrupted by the sound of the younger beavers slapping their tails on the water before diving under, then resurfacing across the pond.
The beavers at Temple Fork were not subjects in USU’s relocation program, but Norton and Yeager have been aware of the site’s growing popularity — as they are with most things beaver related hereabouts.
Their program, too, is getting a lot of attention of late. This summer it hosted Mike Rowe and the film crew of the popular television series “Dirty Jobs” for a segment to air later this year or early next year. They were also paid visits by CBS Morning and wildlife author Ben Goldfarb, who is doing an article on beavers for National Geographic.
The “Dirty Jobs” experience was described as intense, with Rowe arriving for one extremely busy day after a lot of preparation by his advance team.
The mission of USU’s beaver relocation program, based at the Predator Research Center in Millville, is to find new homes for beavers that are disrupting farmers, neighborhoods and infrastructure in populated areas. After trapping and quarantining the animals — preferably without separating families — the university’s biologists find a places in the wild where the beavers’ work as “nature’s engineers” will benefit habitat and other wildlife populations.
No no no. These beavers are just fine. Don’t you start relocating them too, okay? I dream of the day when all cities have a lodge like this where folks can lay a blanket to watch the beavers work. And articles like this are as common as shoe sales.
This one of those cheery articles that looks deceptively like really good news for beavers but when you look more closely appears slightly ominous. There really aren’t many details about the project, even at the National Parks Website. All they’re specific about is roads, and banks which might mean asphalt and sheetpile. I’m not sure.
I guess it’s nice when National Parks decide to use beavers as window dressing?
Forillon Gets Funding Boost For Beaver Pond Area
Quebec’s Forillon National Park is getting funding to conserve, restore and present its beaver ponds area.
Funded through Parks Canada’s Conservation and Restoration Program, this $4.3-million ($3.3-million USD) project will restore ecological connectivity to the forest and waterways near a former section of Hwy. 132 by 2026.
“Habitats connected by natural corridors are home to a greater variety of plant and animal species,” Parks Canada said in a news release. “Ecological connectivity therefore contributes to the protection of biodiversity, making us more resilient to climate change.”
This project will showcase the importance of the beaver, an “ecosystem engineer that creates wetland habitats for other species, improves water quality, influences forest succession and promotes biodiversity.”
Conserve, restore and present. What in god’s name does that mean in english? I’m assuming when you get 3 and a half million dollars for beaver ponds you do not install 7 flow devices and boardwalks over the waterways. Restore? Beavers don’t need your help to restore their ponds so I’m assuming that’s not what you mean. Probably there was some erosion in a road by a pond and you’re going to dewater the pond and desilt the bank before you restore the paving? I cannot imagine the beavers will be allowed to stick around while the trucks work. But I’m a very suspicious soul.
The work includes asphalt and guardrail removal and the reforestation of 5.5 kilometres (3.4 miles) of old road. Waterways and soils will be redeveloped and restored, helping with the movement of animals and dispersal of flora. About 15,000 native trees will be planted.
Three portions of various types of trails will be developed and lead to the Visitor Information and Discovery Centre, beaver ponds and Cap-des-Rosiers creek areas, and La Chute Trail.
“Forillon National Park is a jewel of the Gaspé Peninsula,” Diane Lebouthillier, Minister of National Revenue and Member of Parliament for Gaspésie–Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine, said in a news release. “By investing $4.3 million in the park’s biodiversity, the Government of Canada is demonstrating that the conservation of natural environments is at the forefront of efforts to fight climate change and stimulating the tourism industry, a critical sector of the Gaspé Peninsula economy.”
Well getting rid of old roads might be good. Letting wildlife move easier in the park is always a good thing, and fewer roads mean that beaver ponds are less likely to be a problem for them. Maybe this can really be good news for beavers?
At the end of the project, Parks Canada will have restored 133,000 square metres (1.4 million square feet) in surface area and will have connected six streams whose banks will have been rehabilitated, facilitating the passage of fish and amphibians.
Forillon is recognized for its efforts in the fight climate change. It was awarded the 2020 Canadian Parks Council Award of Excellence to an Agency for its Cap-des-Rosiers beach restoration project.
Parks Canada is one of the few national park systems that has a system-wide ecological integrity reporting and monitoring program. It’s based on about 600 science-based measures that support each park’s priorities and guide restoration actions.
Now there is a Le Castor parking lot where you can gather with park rangers to begin a Beavers Turf tour of the area so I guess there’s a chance in high heaven that this 3.3 million dollars will really benefit beaver habitat in some way. Let’s hope the replanting of native trees includes lots and lots of willow and they’ve already figured out a plan to protect tasty seedlings from curious castors.
Because if NP traps beavers for eating trees that they were given funds to replant in beaver habitat I will be most unhappy.
I pledge allegiance to the streams
and the beaver ponds of America
And to the renewal for which they stand,
One river, underground, irreplaceable
With habitat and wetlands for all
I’ve been hearing a lot about this book lately, and coming across beaver believers who recommend it highly. So I thought we should spend some time thinking about it. The author Erica Gies is an author and accomplished journalist. She’s the kind of women who’s seen things all around the world, so when she talks, we should listen.
Reflections on the extraordinary power of slow water
For her new book, Water Always Wins, National Geographic Explorer Erica Gies criss-crossed the globe, witnessing some of the unanticipated results of modern society’s preference for engineered solutions.
The tendency to hem water in and wrestle to alter its natural course with enormous dams and ever-higher dikes, straightened rivers and hardened shores often exacerbate the symptoms of global warming, the environmental journalist found.
But an array of microbes, animals, and communities enjoy beneficial relationships with this vital element by harmonizing with water’s wishes, Gies discovered. As such, her book explores hopeful and resilient approaches to working with water that respect its natural flow and rhythms, with positive outcomes for humans, biodiversity and the climate.
Hmm. Got your attention yet? What does water want? Well might you ask young Jedi. It almost always has seemed to me that water wants the freedom to move where it chooses and rest when it feels like it. But Erica has different ideas.
“Basically, what water wants is a return to its slow phases that we have dramatically eradicated with much of our development,” Gies said.
As much as 87 per cent of the world’s wetlands have been eradicated since the 1700s, and humans have heavily encroached on floodplains worldwide, risking homes and businesses should water reassert its return, she said.
There are so many examples of the folly associated with interfering with the natural filter, trickle or spread of water, Gies said, pointing to California, the poster child of perpetual drought.
“California is arguably the apex of water engineering hubris,” Gies said.
Now that’s interesting to me. I never thought of California as spectacularly worse than any other large state at managing water. But maybe because are so long. From wet to dry. I wonder if the reason California pretended to forget it had beavers was because it needed to focus on its own water management needs and get theirs out of the way.
Since the mid-19th century, the corralling of two great watercourses, the Sacramento and the San Joaquin rivers, has eliminated the historic annual flushing of the Central Valley — once a vast floodplain — drying it out and denying vital aquifers below an opportunity to top themselves up, she said.
Compounding the problem, the rivers’ water is funnelled vast distances across the state while the region’s groundwater is heavily tapped to fuel California’s vast agricultural empire — helping in part to create a critical shortage of water in areas where it once existed in abundance.
Surface water and groundwater are mutually entwined, Gies said.
“We have deprived the natural recharge that happens when the water slows on those lands and moves underground,” Gies said. And in reverse, stressed aquifers can’t help recharge rivers and tributaries at the surface during the dry season.
“For a long time, California had this sort of political attitude that they were dealing with two separate sources of water that could be regulated independently, or in the case of groundwater, not regulated (at all).”
Yes I guess we did forget that all water is the same. And that when you deplete one bank you run out of funds in the other. You know who didn’t forget? Beavers that’s who.
“But beavers are incredibly important for the health of the hydrological cycle, and they’re being used in different places around the world to help protect against drought, wildfire and also flooding.”
Gies dedicates a full chapter to the multitude of ways we can better our relationship with water by relying on and living with beavers.
The skill of these once ubiquitous mammals has been recognized by U.S. authorities, who on various occasions in the past parachuted beavers into wilderness areas to restore watersheds.
Slow-water projects, principles, and solutions are unique to each location, community, and culture, she added. But there are some common principles.
“I think it’s really about respecting water and appreciating the benefits that collaboration can bring.”
Can I get an amen? I know why Stanford referred to you in its water in the west study. You can see the writing on the wall. And it’s been written by beavers.
I was daydreaming yesterday about the horrific vigilante law in Texas that allows friends and neighbors and gossips to turn women they suspect of seeking or helping a woman seek an abortion and collect the reward in court. It’s promotes deep mistrust under the guise of being PRO LIFE. And I thought, HEY if we could turn in friends and neighbors and cities for trapping beavers off their property or even applying for a depredation permit, and then take them to environmental court and collect the reward money which can then be used to install a flow device that would be pretty PRO LIFE too. I mean we know that beaver dams create biodiversity and store water to keep things alive so anything anyone does to threaten them destroys that right? And we’re not SO far away that any act to waste water is an act against the state, right?
Suddenly the vigilante law seemed to have more promise,
Well until those dark days come lets hope to persuade folks with lots and lots of carrots.
Support for Federal Funding for Beaver Coexistence
AWI is working to develop federal legislation that would establish a national beaver conflict-mitigation grant program to help tribes, states, agencies, local governments, landowners, conservation organizations, and others pay for nonlethal beaver-conflict solutions. More than 100 small businesses, wildlife groups, and tribes representing 33 states have joined a letter in support of this idea. In addition, some organizations and tribes have drafted separate letters of support.
That’s really good to hear. You may not know this but a million years ago when Mike Callahan was just dreaming about doing his instructional video to teach people how to install flow devices, he received a grant from AWI to make it happen. They are the power player you never hear about on the beaver stage so I hope this works out. They have a long list of supporters for this idea, which includes some folks you might know at the end.
Let’s wish them every success, although I’m kinda liking my viglante idea, swooping to drop some justice on every intolerant farmer and city manager
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