So yesterday’s presentation was less than ideal. Michael called in sick with the flu and Heidi had to present all by herself to a bunch of hard core fishies who weren’t all that happy about beavers. There were one or two positive converts in the audience. The rest asked questions like “Don’t beaver dams in urban settings cause more fish predation” and “Don’t they make erosion worse?” and “How can juvenile steelhead get out of those ponds the beavers trap them in“.
I make an effort to share photos like this in my talks because I think it shows that both bird and fish species are augmented by beavers. They saw them and thought it showed the long line of feathered predators waiting along a beaver dam to pick off all those heroically trapped fish.
That’s it. A long line of feathered predators waiting to ruin the lives of those scaled predators because of those dam vegetarians.
I confess to being a little dumbfounded. I’m used to questions about flooding and salmon passage and population explosions. I never ran into a crowd of people who thought there were too dam many birds and otters.
I bet Chelsie would have handled it better. That’s the thing about having a very deep beaver bench. Stupid doesn’t get to stand around very long before it is contradicted by intelligence.
In response to B. Fleming’s letter recently published in the Sun: Beavers are a friend to salmon, not a foe.
Prior to colonization, beavers and salmon coexisted for hundreds of years. Before beavers were trapped near extinction, they covered North America with salmon habitat. Salmon are adept at going over, under, around and through dams; I witnessed a handful of chum take down a beaver dam on Barker Creek via blunt force in a matter of hours a few years back.
Beavers are amazing for salmon! This was the focus of my master’s degree so I can (and did) write at length about it, but a few of the main benefits of beavers in a salmon-bearing stream include reduced stream velocity, reduced pollution and turbidity, improved stream flow during dry periods, and increased salmon habitat. Slower streams are easier for salmon to navigate, especially during heavy rain events, and reduce the potential for redds (egg nests) to wash out. Slow moving water is clearer because sediment and pollutants sink to the bottom, which is so important for our sensitive coho friends. Beaver dams create places for juveniles to hide and spawners to rest with their ponds, which also help maintain a steady flow downstream during periods of scant precipitation. There is also evidence that beaver dams contribute to cooler water temperatures (salmon thrive in brisk, low 40s temps), plus cold water holds more dissolved oxygen.
Final note: Tampering with beaver dams is illegal in Washington without a hydraulic permit from the Department of Fish & Wildlife.
Chelsie Webb, Central Kitsap
