One of the by-products of being the unofficial champion of urban beavers is that folks contact me asking for helping saving their beavers. I especially like when it’s local because I imagine we’re seeing our beavers grandchildren or great grandchildren. I was contacted recently by Maggie in Pleasant Hill and look at the lovely vision she was treated to behind Dick’s sporting goods.
Not a bad way to start the day right? She’s been watching as the experiment with a little dam of mud in walnut creek. It is just 3 miles up from the beaver we were watching behind target. Walnut creek connects to Grayson creek down by imhoff which is a quick swim for beavers.
Doesn’t Jesus say something about the prophet being accepted everywhere but in his home town? Well let’s say that applies to beavers and Sacramento too, because they’ve been very slow to say anything nice about their once not-native rodent. That is until this morning, When they were on Cap radio.
The beaver dam showed up right in the middle of Christian Dewey’s research site. As the lead of a Stanford study, Dewey spent months looking at water quality along the Colorado River. This river is a water source for numerous states aside from Colorado, including Arizona, Utah and California.
The dam re-directed the study. In the end, researchers unearthed a surprising finding: the beaver dam played an important part in improving water quality in the river – so much so that in some areas, it’s mitigating water degradation caused by drought and climate change.
Dewey observed the dam during the summer of 2018, a drought year for multiple states, including Colorado. Dewey said that when water levels are low, minerals tend to become concentrated in the river. This deterioration of water quality can have devastating ecological impacts.
One example of that degradation is a high level of nitrates in the water. When the mineral is too concentrated in a river, it can cause explosive algae growth. When that algae dies and begins to decay, it eats up “dissolved oxygen,” which refers to the level of oxygen in the water. This can negatively impact species throughout the surrounding ecosystem.
“When dissolved oxygen levels suddenly drop, those species become imperiled,” Dewey said. “If we have all these watersheds contributing nitrate to the Colorado River, then the more nitrate within each watershed that ends up downstream is potentially a problem.”
But as Dewey took samples of water downstream from the beaver dam, he realized that its quality was improving. The dam was pushing water out toward the sides of the river, where it would then have to move through soil before reentering.
“The soils then essentially acted as a filter and removed that nitrate,” he said. “And so the water discharged from the soils was lower in nitrate than it was when it entered the soils.”
Yes that’s the way it works. Pretty darn shocking for everyone that isn’t reading this website right now but I’ll bet sacramento was BESIDE themselves.
“Where our study site was up and near Crested Butte, Colorado, you can see pronounced beaver activity that you didn’t see 50 years ago,” said Fendorf. “These ecosystem responses, the rebound of the American Beaver, is actually having this really counter impact on the degradation we’re seeing from climate change.”
Fendorf said that different species play large roles in their environments – many of which researchers might not yet know about, as was the case with this finding.
“This is a sign of why it’s so important for us to have ecological preservation,” he said. “Healthy people [come] from having a healthy planet, meaning a healthy, thriving ecosystem.”
Well of course they do. I wrote Dr. Fendorf this weekend and introduced myself saying Worth A Dam had tons of video and photos documenting the difference beavers make in an urban streams and suggesting he let us know if we could help in anyway. And he wrote back much impressed and said he loved our name.
Jenny kiss’d me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in; Time, you thief, who love to get Sweets into your list, put that in! Say I’m weary, say I’m sad, Say that health and wealth have miss’d me, Say I’m growing old, but add, Jenny kiss’d me.
Leigh Hunt
What do you want your obituary to say? Have you ever really thought about it? I suppose mine will I was a child psychologist and daughter of so and so and the wife of so many years but what else? I have to confess. I’m having a severe case of obit-envy this morning. I thought I should come clean.
Okay it starts out pretty ordinary I’ll admit. We should all expect something like this, But then the magic happens and we realize Marie was an no ordinary woman and we should be in awe of her memory forever.
Marie enjoyed spending her days at the Pit Pond, feeding Chewie, her pet beaver. She was a kind and giving soul, always lending a helping hand. She worked hard her entire life, eventually retiring from her position as a postal worker at Canada Post. She was a devoted mother and grandmother who loved her grandchildren dearly Marie loved nature and animals, and was particularly fond of her dog, Muffin.
How did you ever come to have a pet beaver? Did you rehab it? What is pit pond, did you make it? Oh, I want a pet beaver! I want a pond! I want a dog named muffin! Oh Marie I have a million questions for you that can never be answered now but I have learned that there is only one way to truly live in this world and that’s by loving nature and animals and feeding beavers at the pond.
We love your gentle spirit Marie, and wish you to rest in peace. I hope you son looks in on Chewie now and then.
Meanwhile I have been evolving my climate tarot idea into a stamp collecting idea for the beaver festival. I found a cute company in Portland that can make custom stamps and have been chatting with a nice man whose title is the “Vice Perforater” which made me laugh very hard and might be the best job description ever and now am thinking kids will get a bookmark and collect Erika’s great drawings as stamps to fill up the back all about ways beaver can help us manage as our climate changes.
My 94 year old uncle told me he saw this on the teevee the other night but I was driving home from the sierras and missed it. Amazing that there’s even a mention of Martinez! (And what sr=ure looks like my video clip from lo these many moons ago).
The data comes at a time of increased interest in nurturing beaver activity, even in semi-urban settings like Martinez, where one celebrated group had discovered dam building in 2007. In a separate paper, Felicia Marcus, a Landreth Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Water in the West program, connects the dams to a drought strategy known as “nature based solutions.”
Well now I’m fine with being lumped in with the likes of Felicia Marcus but I just want to point out that Martinez was saving beavers 15 years before it was what all the cool kids were doing.
Trend setters. That’s us.
She says a number of states have set up programs to compensate land-owners where beaver activity damages property. Meanwhile Dewey and Fendorf are hoping their study will focus attention on how natural ecosystems could be stressed by drought and climate change in the future. And the benefits of supporting natural populations that might be able to help.
A number of states? I guess 1 is a number. Okay I’m counting Washington’s legislation waiting in the wings. And maybe something in Colorado. Anywhere else? I’m all ears.
What’s NOT to love about that sentence? Way to go professor Fendorf. I’m hoping all this nice media attention gets you inspired to chair another beaver dissertation soon – maybe something about how beavers on urban landscapes improve water quality or beaver depredation increases pollution.
Well the world continues to be SHOCKED that beavers can help improve water quality even after we ruin the planet. I would remind them to read about how beavers made a difference in Chernobyl and after Mt St Helen’s erupted but that would just be me being reasonable again, and who wants that? Beavers are in PEOPLE magazine for this ‘discovery’ and everyone is talking about them so I’ll just try and enjoy the ride. This morning there’s a nice article from New Hampshire that gives me the feeling people are starting to notice their beavers or at least their ponds.
The pond in back of Pine Crest Drive in Bow is now almost completely drained after a beaver dam was demolished last week.
Town officials in Bow accepted responsibility and apologized Wednesday night to neighbors for failing to communicate better before a beaver pond on public land was drained by members of a local snowmobile club.
“I apologize that we didn’t have some kind of other notification out to you and it’s our fault that we relied on how we historically dealt with beaver dams,” said Bruce Marshall, chair of the Board of Selectmen.
More than 25 people crammed into the Select Board meeting in Bow on Wednesday night to address the removal of the beaver dam along Page Road. It has been a while since the town meeting has had such a sizable turnout.
The episode felt like a breach of trust, between the town and its residents, said Page Road resident Nick Watson. The town’s biggest investment is in its people, he said.
“Your people rely on you and you should rely on the people. If you’re not communicating clearly and transparently, then you’re not building any bridges,” said Watson “You’re just tearing them down.”
The town-owned pond nestled behind homes on Page Road, Pepin, and Pine Crest Drive served as a wildlife habitat for frogs, birds, turtles and beavers who had constructed dams.
The beaver dam had caused the pond’s water level to rise over time, which left the Bow Pioneers Snowmobile Club, concerned about potential flooding that would harm the bridge that connects to the main trail system. The club asked the town for permission to trap the beavers and clean up the debris around the pond’s drainage system. Selectmen agreed in September by a 3-2 vote.
So we just trapped and killed the beavers and took out all that “DEBRIS” which was getting in the way of our muddy pond. We didn’t think you’d mind. I mean it’s winter for god sakes. When the snow comes you won’t notice anyway.
On Oct. 29, club members cleared away debris and a portion of the dam after receiving consent and confirmation from the board. The beavers were trapped and killed and the pond was drained.
Abutters and residents were not just upset about losing their recreational area, they were equally offended by how it was done.
On behalf of several neighbors, Kevin McCahan who lives on Pine Crest Drive, laid out two main concerns – the lack of oversight of the snowmobile club’s actions and a failure to communicate with neighbors.
McCahan asked board members if they were aware the dam was going to be removed and the pond drained since it wasn’t included in the meeting minutes from Sept. 27, when the approval was given.
Board members, with the exception of Marshall said they did not realize that clearing the debris also meant removing the dam. Marshall said he had been assured that the club would follow the state’s Fish and Game regulations when they remove the dam and beavers.
Selectmen acknowledged that the verbiage in the minutes did not clearly distinguish between debris and dam.
“What happened exceeded what I thought was going to happen,” said selectman Angela Brennan. “I did not understand that it was going to be a removal of the entire dam.”
Oh that old “Debris-Dam‘ canard! Many a ship has been lost on the rocky shoals of that mistaken identity. Hey did you know that the beaver debris can improve water quality and the benefits have been in the news week?
Holy guacamole. Apparently before the town installed a beaver deceiver everyone was notified. They just didn’t tell them when the beavers were going to be KILLED.
In 2016, two weeks before a meeting to discuss the installation of a beaver deceiver, a device to maintain the water level in the pond, the town sent written notices to each abutter. It gave them an opportunity to come to the meeting and give their input. But this time, residents said that they were kept in the dark and were unaware of what was going on until they noticed the pond being drained.
Others asked about possible punitive action against the snowmobile club.
“If I asked you for an inch and I take a mile, what is my repercussion for doing that?” resident Eleana Colby said.
Board members voted to form a committee to look into pond restoration and future beaver pond management in light of the beaver dam removal on Page Road. It will be adopted as a subsidiary of the conservation committee.
Selectman Christopher Nicolopoulos said the committee will involve the town’s people and make recommendations when a beaver issue comes up.
“When somebody comes and says they want to deal with beavers, you know what to expect from us and people know what is sufficient and how we’re going to deal with them,” said Nicolopoulos on the committee’s role.
You know I bet our buddy Art Wolinsky was involved with the deceiver in 2016 and maybe contacted over this recent about face. He says he didn’t know anything about this and will do some checking.
