Month: October 2022

“ENDLESS PRESSURE. ENDLESSLY APPLIED” FOR BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers, Flow Device Installed October 11, 2022

Complex problems require complex solutions. This is a great opportunity to discuss Kim Royar’s response in the Vermont Digger. Earlier the paper published a letter from John Aberth asking “Why are we killing the one animal that could help us?” It was a nicely worded defense of beavers, and the response is a nicely worded rebuttal.

Kim Royar: There’s no silver bullet for beaver conservation, coexistence and management

As a 40+ year veteran of the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, I take exception to the Sept. 13 “Why are we killing the one animal that can increase wildlife habitat” commentary’s oversimplification of the department’s beaver conservation, coexistence and management efforts.

The department recognizes and publicly promotes beavers as ecosystem engineers and a keystone species. That is why we successfully reintroduced beavers to Vermont throughout the early 1900s and established a “beaver baffle” program 22 years ago that continues to this day. Our beaver baffle program works with landowners, business owners and road crews to protect valuable beaver-created wetlands by installing water control structures.

Just as important, our program also advances a culture of coexistence with wildlife

But while installing water control structures can often help solve flooding issues, maintain habitat, and foster important conversations in our communities, it is not a silver bullet in all cases of conflict with beavers.

We need to stop right here and acknowledge that Vermont is the single state out of 50 where Fish and Wildlife actually installs flow devices to keep beavers on the landscape because they are so important to fish and wildlife. That should be true in every state, but only Vermont makes it happen It started years ago with funding from a duck stamp by FWS. Kim was kind enough to agree to talk to me about it when I was wondering why similar programs aren’t happening in Oregon or California. It is fair to say that Kim has gone out on somewhat of a limb for beavers. I’m sure there are plenty of voices in Vermont that don’t approve of her involvement in rodents.

But it;s perfectly reasonable to say also that it should happen more than it does. And that if installing 10 baffles helps a lot of wildlife installing 50 would help more. Not to mention that the vibes between beaver inventor Skip Lisle who has solved thousands of these problems in the state and Vermont Fish and Wildlife are hardly warm. They are downright unfriendly. Even though they have lbenefitted from his advances over the years they exist without any cooperation at all. They even call the ‘baffles’ instead of ‘deceivers’ like the rest of America.

Could they do better by letting themselves learn from Skip? Or even from Mike and the beaver institute? Of course they could.

Water control structures require regular maintenance and an indefinite commitment from affected landowners. They can also be expensive, making them inaccessible to some landowners and towns. And even with the full support of an affected landowner or town, water control structures are not effective in every case of conflict with beavers. Site conditions make each beaver conflict unique. Depending on water depth and velocity, topography, substrate, drainage area, and the persistence and abundance of the local beaver population, it may be challenging or even impossible to resolve some situations with beaver baffles alone.

This is why the department has relied for decades on regulated and ethical harvest to replace some of the natural predation by wolves and harvest by indigenous communities that influenced beaver numbers before European colonization.

We in Martinez know exactly how much maintenance our flow device required over the decade. And we know how much it cost and how much money it allowed us to save. We know that installing too few flow devices in a state is a thousand percent better than installing none. We know Vermont has done a lot right. But we still want more.

Our current beaver trapping season assists in sustaining and coexisting with Vermont’s healthy and abundant beaver population by minimizing the need to take beavers as a “nuisance” in conflict situations. This goal is especially important because animals taken outside of the winter trapping season are often wasted, rather than utilized as a local source of food and clothing.

Yeah. sure.

One of my favorite scenes in Ken Burns National Parks Series “America’s Best Idea” comes around the fourth episode when John Muir finally got president Roosevelt to Yosemite. The president and his people went out to see the park for himself. It was a huge Huge victory for Muir, The culmination of many years work. And that night John and Theodore slipped away by themselves to camp under the redwoods.

Think about that. Getting the most powerful man in the world to sneak away with you for a night in the redwoods where you can show him the most beautiful thing you care so passionately about with zero distractions. Yosemite will be protected. You are getting everything you want.

And that night as they lay in their bed rolls under the trees with the tiniest of stars peeping between the branches, John Muir said to the president of the united states,

“Are you still hunting? You should stop that. There isn’t enough big game anymore and it just destroys the population.”

Because that’s what advocates do. We push and push and push until we get everything we said we wanted and then we keep pushing for more. And that’s what it takes.

Endless Pressure. Endlessly Applied.

UP CLOSE WITH PATTI SMITH: A NEW FILM

heidi08 Beavers October 10, 2022

I’m sure you remember Suzanne Husky is the high-power French American Artist who has become a huge beaver believer and borrowed a bunch of our artifacts for the opening of a show in LA. Well she’s been working with a film crew and just released this feature on our very beloved Patti Smith. Remember Patti is the beaver believer who wrote the Beavers of Popples Pond and several very charming articles in the Battleboro Informer. I don’t care you busy you are. I don’t think you’re going to want to miss this.

Once again I am forbidden from embedding it here. Click on the photo to go watch the entire enchanting thing on youtube. And your welcome.

“BEAVERS: THEY DO MAGIC”

heidi08 Beavers and climate change October 9, 2022

Who knew the Weather Channel was packed full of such beaver believers? Not me, that’s for sure – but it makes sense when you think about it, Especially if beavers really are the climate heroes we keep saying they are.

I have found my new favorite person. And his name is Pierre Balduc. I think I will start a fan club. You might want to sign up after you watch this. I just spent 40 minute trying to figure out how to embed it but the weather channel is smarter than me and it can’t be done. Hopefully you will click on the link because it is beyond good.

Why beavers are a good ally in the fight against climate change

Saturday, October 8th 2022, 8:00 am – Once hunted and trapped to near extinction, the beaver — a national symbol of Canada — is having quite a moment among researchers for their ability to help prevent droughts, fires, and floods.
Pierre Bolduc stands near the pond that was once a stream on his Alberta property. His goal is to be completely self-sustainable, which has led him to be one of the largest residential producers of solar energy in Canada. His next plan is to set up a micro-green operation in the hidden compartment of his garage, which he also uses to design art projects with a climate change message. (Rachel Maclean)

“I’m one of the lucky fellows in the valley here that still have a significant amount of water for my well. And … I’ve got to thank the beaver, because before the beaver showed up, I used to run out of water, which is a terrible thing.”

After using his homemade trap to bring the beavers to his land, he set up a solar-powered CD player that played sounds of a running stream by the small creek on his property. That enticed the beavers to get to work.

“This is the reason why the dam is so straight, it’s because there was a line of speakers … there,” he said.

That raised the aquifer levels up by at least eight feet on his property, which also brought up the level on his well.

“So if you asked me if I love the beavers, oh, yes, I absolutely adore them. Because they helped me with my water issue,” said Bolduc.

The beavers even helped the local municipality, as they no longer have to come and clear out some of the culverts nearby.

Raising the water level also helps when it comes to wildfires, given the pond has created a lush environment more resistant to flames. Bolduc has a fire hose nearby so he can use the pond water to battle any fires that spring up, given his property is roughly 50 minutes away from the nearest fire hall.

While Bolduc has come to his own conclusions on what he calls an “incredible species of nature,” it turns out that new research supports his findings.

Emily Fairfax operates a drone while conducting some field research on one of her many trips to observe beavers in their natural habitat. She says if beavers can bring a little hope with all the doom and gloom that climate change brings, they are certainly climate heroes in her book. (Submitted by Emily Fairfax)

“And if you see these beaver complexes just sort of sprawling around the landscape. And you’re like, ‘Wow, this is huge.’ Imagine that times 10. It’s not just like, ‘Oh, a small stream has been changed.’ It’s truly the watershed that has been changed.”

She says there are a few ways to bring beavers back so there is less conflict with humans, including creating a good habitat for where you want them to build.

“If you have beavers in really high conflict areas and all coexistence has failed, like wrapping the trees and fences failed and putting in pond levellers has failed, you can take that beaver and in many places you can relocate it to somewhere where it’s more desired — where it’s going to have a better chance to live,” said Fairfax.

“Relocation is definitely not a guarantee. But if that beaver was sort of doomed to be lethally managed anyways, you might as well try to let it establish itself in a watershed where it’s further away from human conflict.”

Bolduc agrees.

“They do magic,” he said. “We need them to ease the stress that we are putting on the ecosystem by maintaining a … friendly relationship with the beaver.”

AND scene!!!

Some smart person had better figure out how to download that video or put it on youtube because it is everything I’ve wanted to say about beavers in one 3 minutes and 29 second space, Emily is more careful that relocation isn’t a guaranteed fix and is complicated and I was delighted to hear him say they do magic. I had to hunt up this graphic which surprisingly is from the very first days of my own enchantment. The photo is Cheryl’s and it is from our 2007 kits.

HOPE IS A THING WITH ‘BEAVERS’

heidi08 Beavers and climate change October 8, 2022

If it worked for Emily Dickinson and an entire presidential campaign, maybe it could work for an animal no one has been very patient with? Beavers are getting them selves talked about far and wee because of the tools they can bring to our more difficult climate change problems – problems which usually make us feel powerless and overwhelmed. Beavers are something attainable we can do to help. Makes sense to me,

As an aside I may have mentioned my historical tendency to challenge my sleepy brain sometimes by making ordinary words into acronyms that mean what they define. Just in case you wonder my solution for the h.o.p.e. anagram game is “How Ordinary People Endure”. Which fits with the beaver theme too.

Oh look, an actual beaver photo! I feel hopeful already.

Mother Earth says, ‘Leave it to the beavers’

Beavers are having their media moment. The Guardian, the New York Times, the Globe and Mail, and CBC explain how these “superhero rodents” can restore nature and help deal with climate change.

Indigenous communities are restoring beaver populations in drought-stricken parts of North America. Frankie Myers, a Yurok leader, says beavers have “gone through the same struggles against Europeans as us… viewed as pests and driven off the land.” He adds, “we’re looking to bring the beaver back again, to help us manage the land like they used to.”

Extensive research shows that by reconnecting waterways to their floodplains, beavers improve water quality and quantity, support biodiversity, increase flood, drought and fire resiliency, and bolster carbon sequestration.

Aquatic plants grow rapidly in beaver ponds and along their margins. The carbon dioxide they remove from the atmosphere remains in storage owing to slow decay in waterlogged soil.

Beavers may be our number one ally in the fight against runaway climate change. The benefits they provide for the global water and carbon cycles far outweigh any local damages they may cause. Those damages can be addressed in a simple and affordable manner.

Beaver solve problems for us that we can’t solve. Beavers create problems for us sometimes that we CAN solve. The math seems pretty simple on this one. Am I missing anything?

A few million other species will also lend a hand if we let them. Municipalities, resource extraction companies, developers, and property owners must join an alliance with nature. The basic message is straightforward: Stop waging war on Mother Earth.

Designate areas currently managed for logging as “proforestation” climate reserves. Allow urban and suburban property owners to stop mowing. Greatly restrict use of herbicides such as glyphosate and insecticides such as neonicotinoids. Repeal drainage acts. Remove unused human-made dams. Unbury urban waterways. Reintroduce beavers and other animal and plant species in areas from which they have been extirpated.

In the words of a recent Guardian editorial, beavers have become a symbol of hope for nature’s recovery, and proof that restoring ecosystems is possible (and urgently needed).

Governments should take this lesson to heart at the upcoming global summits on climate change (6 -18 November, Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt) and biodiversity (7 -19 December, Montreal).

Beaver as a symbol of hope. I like that. Maybe there could be a whole line of hallmark cards utilizing beaver imagery. Call it the “Hopeful Beaver Line” Just sending you this beaver to hope your finals go well, or your surgery is successful. Or specifically for climate change, Here’s hoping the flooding isn’t too bad in your neighborhood.

Beavers made Martinez hopeful. I’ll agree with that.

TENNSSEE SAYS BEAVERS TUNNEL UNDER THE WATERWAY

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers October 7, 2022

Well that answers THAT question. I most certainly am NOT magic. Immediately after I posted yesterday I got a headline from Dutch News that beavers were causing millions of dollars in damages, and then last night two more beaver alarm bells, one from Tennessee and one from the beaver-beloved Washington state!

All reminding us that it ain’t over until it’s over.

Beaver Dams causing problems in Campbell County community

Beavers burrow their way under the waterway before making their way into the dam that they made as a home which causes issues for farmers and their equipment.

“The problem is that they live in the streams, Mayor Lynch said. “They tunnel underwater and come above the water where it is dry, and they have a home under there. When a tractor drives over, it falls through.”

Beavers tunnel UNDER the waterway? UNDER the waterway? Like jewel theives or prison escapees? What on earth would be the point of that? Are you imagining that its dry under the waterway? And they do all this in preparation for making their home in the dam? Which unsuspecting farmers drive over and then tractors fall through? Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

“A man named David Marlow came and had a discussion with me and I didn’t realize that there would be a lot of damage,” Lynch said. “I thought beavers are beavers, but we got educated about them quickly.”

I’m thinking Mr, Marlow might not be the font of education that you think he is. Honestly I haven’t heard anything this crazy since I read the letter of complaint filed by the attorney of the building next to the beaver dam in Martinez. Sure our city leaders played along and gave you the big money you were asking for under the pretense that beavers were tunneling under your living room but you can’t expect to get that lucky all the time. Eventually people will actually start thinking.

I hardly ever find time to write beaver WTF letters any more, but I might make an exception for this case. One would think that farmers who have lived on the land all their lives would know a little better.

Now to Washington where a landowner is being told he is LIABLE for his beaver dam.

Skagit County: Big Lake landowner must accept liability for beaver dam

Skagit County has made it clear that it believes the owner of a property uphill from Big Lake is responsible for addressing flood risk from a beaver dam on his property. A letter sent to Jim Beckett says he has an obligation to implement a fix at his expense.

“Now, they’re absolutely on notice,” county Commissioner Peter Browning said in an interview.

Flooding caused by a breach in the beaver dam last October sent water, trees and boulders downhill, damaging dozens of west Big Lake properties and burying roads in mud. And as fall approaches, these property owners downhill from the dam are worried that rains will bring another flood, and another expensive cleanup.

Beckett, who recently bought the property, did not respond to a request for comment. But at a Sept. 29 meeting with Big Lake residents, he made it clear he wasn’t interested in accepting liability.

Well now that’s a big deal. If this was a landowner who dearly loved the beavers and wanted them to stay I would say the solution was to reinforce the dam by installing a BDA or two behind it. Give it some backup so that it doesn’t have to do such a hard job all by itself. It’s Washington for gawd sake. You know what to do.

Browning said if Beckett doesn’t accept legal liability, the issue will have to be worked out in court. In the letter to Beckett, the commissioners requested a written plan in the next 30 days describing how he plans to prevent future flooding.

Ken Dahlstedt, a former county commissioner and consultant working for the west Big Lake residents, said he appreciates the county weighing in on the issue.

“I think it’s a huge statement, because now the county said you are liable, and you are responsible,” he said.

The Big Lake neighbors have designed a possible fix for the dam that would reduce the water level in the pond created by the dam to where it no longer threatens residents below the dam.

Dahlstedt said he hopes Beckett will be able to work with the residents to install this device before flood season starts. Dahlstedt said if Beckett would like to argue the legal issues, he should do so after this temporary fix is installed and the residents are protected.

Well a flow device could help too. Our flow device was often the only thing that anchored the dam in place after a big storm. I’m sure that’s not why the city paid for it but I was often very grateful for its traction.

Dahlstedt and the residents had been pushing Skagit County to fund a fix and accept liability, but he said he was satisfied with this solution — as long as the victims of the flood aren’t the ones held accountable.

In the letter, the commissioners also hold the Skagit Land Trust accountable for any future flood damage.

Hey I’m assuming they also are going to award the Skagit Land Trust the taxes paid by landholders for city services like water, fire prevention and biodiversity funding to FWS, I mean if they’re responsible for potential damages they’re also responsible for all the benefits too, right?

The trust holds a conservation easement on the property, essentially banning development in the name of environmental preservation.

Browning said the easement forbids any modifications to the dam.

“If you’re part of this beaver dam, you can’t just hand it to somebody else,” he said. “You are liable by virtue of your relationship.”

However, Skagit Land Trust Executive Director Molly Doran said the easement allows for the property owner to take emergency action to protect downstream residents, and it’s her understanding that installing a pond-leveling device would qualify as such an action.

She said the easement is not standing in the way of a fix, and Skagit Land Trust staff have been clear about this since the beginning.

Even if the device is installed, Doran said it would be a temporary fix. She said the county needs to work with residents on a plan that deals with drainage issues throughout the watershed.

If I didn’t know better I would assume that this is along standing feud between the SLT and the county and you re both just using the threat of a beaver dam to beat eachother over the head with.

I’m a very suspicious person. I’m sure I’m wrong.