Month: February 2023

WHAT DOES CALIFORNIA HATE MORE…BEAVERS OR FIRES?

heidi08 Beavers February 23, 2023

I remember when this first broke through, when Emily Fairfax was still looking for the right job post graduate-school. I am so glad to see it is still making a dramatic impact today. But honestly that was a long time ago. It feels like we are in slow motion. CDFW still hasn’t really shifted their thinking about beavers, they have just slowly signaled that they someday eventually possibly might.

We need more beavers. Yesterday.

How Beavers Help Fight Wildfires

What might beavers have to do with wildfire mitigation? Quite a lot, as it turns out. I talked about it with Dr. Emily Fairfax, an environmental scientist at California State University-Channel Islands who studies (among other things) how beaver dams impact the landscape around them. Here’s part of our conversation, edited for brevity.

Tell me, what do beavers have to do with wildfires?

Beavers are ecosystem engineers that can rapidly transform simple streams in thriving wetland ecosystems. In doing so, they also massively increase the surface water storage and soil water storage of landscapes.

During wet periods, the earth around beaver ponds fills up with water like a great big sponge. Then during dry periods, the plants that live near beaver ponds can access the stored water in that earthen sponge and stay green and healthy, even if the droughts are long and intense. Because the vegetation around beaver ponds is buffered against drought stress, it is relatively inflammable.

When a wildfire starts, that fire will take the path of least resistance and rapidly burn through dry vegetation. The beaver wetlands and the vegetation within them are quite wet, so fire either skirts around them or stalls, and sometimes blows over them. As a result, beaver complexes stay green while the rest of the landscape burns.

It seems like this research is pretty highly relevant to California’s success as a state survivor of climate change. Almost like any one who keeps beavers on their property is doing his neighbors a favor, the entire state a favor. Maybe we should be incentivizing stewardship, eh?

What does your research around beavers and wildfires show?

My research shows that rivers and creeks that have beaver dams burn three times less than similar rivers and creeks without beaver dams.

I’ve also looked to see whether this effect persists in megafires (which are increasingly common as climate changes), and in one study I found that 89% of beaver dammed areas served as fire refugia – meaning they didn’t burn, or only had very low intensity burning. Only 60% of riverscapes without beavers were fire refugia, and only 37% of the nearby hillslopes and non-riverine environment were fire refugia. So this beaver-driven fire resistance is a really durable effect – beaver complexes are uniquely and remarkably hard to burn.

It’s almost like beavers are giving us guard rails to keep us from driving over the edge but we just keep right on killing them and plunging to our deaths anyway. Does that sound smart to you?

Me either.

How might understanding what beavers do help us understand how to better control or survive wildfires?

Climate change is a really big, really complicated challenge we’re facing. There is so much work to do, and honestly it sometimes feels like too much work to do on our own. The fire refugia that beavers create has very real value as fire moves through the landscape. Not only can plants and animals stay safe in these beaver-engineered landscape patches during fast-moving blazes, but the physically complex wetlands also help catch and settle out debris and ash that is being carried in the rivers post-fire.

Further, understanding how beavers engineer their wetlands to be so fire resistant can help inform our own fire management strategies in river corridors. We don’t have to solve all the challenges of climate change on our own – working with nature and ecosystem engineers like beavers can be really powerful.

Gee it’s almost like beavers are so important people should throw them a festival of some kind every year, Invite hundreds of people and teach everyone who comes just how much they matter.

Just sayin’.

HONING THE SOCIOPATHS SKILLS

heidi08 Beavers February 22, 2023

When I look back over the 15 years I have been writing this beaver blog, some of my fondest, most joyfully uproarious posts have been mocking the hallowed coverage given to wildlife trappers. Both men and women of this trade are usually written about as timeless heroes, rugged everymen living off the land, fiercely pitting their wits against a coyote or raccoon. I truly never has as much fun as I do making fun of the obvious admiration and envy urban concrete reporters seem to share for this murderous bunch.

But this is just special. In a different class altogether. I hardly need to add any ribaldrous commentary. It speaks entirely for itself. I know you think I’m exaggerating. Just look.

“Helped me rejuvenate my soul:’ Inmates in Yellowknife learn trapping, outdoor skills

Inmates at the Yellowknife jail concentrate as they skin several squirrels, deftly moving their knives to remove the small animals’ soft fur, then scraping the remaining flesh and fat away.

Surrounded by murals featuring eagles and wolves, the more experienced men offer tips to their peers.

Roy Inuktalik, who is Inuvialuit and from Ulukhaktok, said he’s been hunting and trapping since he was five years old, but this is his first time skinning a squirrel.

“It was a good experience,” the 32-year-old said.

“I’m always willing to learn anything new. We learn new things everyday.”

Skills such as hunting, trapping and preparing animal pelts are traditionally passed from generation to generation, Inuktalik said, and it’s something he plans to keep on doing.

The mind literally reels. The jaw literally drops. Not only does yellow knife think trapping is so valuable they should train inmates to do it, they are so naive they think it’s a great idea to teach some lawless murders how to better cut the flesh away from things that used to be alive.

Seriously. Someone somewhere presented this idea in writing to the prison board and asked for funding for a workshop that taught inmates how to skin flesh from squirrels. I almost want to read the proposal.

“The skills that I’ve learned today will be locked into my memory.”

I’m sure they will. I’m sure you’ll think about them as you count off the days in your cozy cell waiting for your release. I’m sure you’ll draw on them again some day soon.

Every two weeks, experienced trappers lead classes at the North Slave Correctional Complex teaching inmates outdoor skills from how to set traps to snow machine repair and survival skills.

The program, which began as a pilot last year, is offered through a partnership with the territory’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

“This program is really great. It’s helped me rejuvenate my soul and keeps me nice and calm and happy,” Inuktalik said. “I like to learn different traditions and help keep them going strong.”

Oh good. I’m happy to think this came from the department of Environment and Natural Resources. I wouldn’t want to think all those natural resources are going to waste. And allow me just to say this is such a SPECTACULARLY bad idea that I knew a federal agency must be involved somewhere along the line.

I’m sure we’re all relieved Inuktalik’s soul is calm and happy. We wouldn’t want to make it angry or anything.

Vincent Casey, education outreach coordinator with the department, said the program empowers inmates and it helps many of them reconnect with their culture.

“A lot of the individuals who participate in the program have done this in the past,” he said. “It’s providing that connection, providing those skills and refreshing those skills … It’s empowering because they have this knowledge and they just need it to sort of percolate back up to the top.”

Casey said when the program started, about five people attended, but now up to 20 inmates can come to the classes.

The territorial jail is the largest correctional facility in the N.W.T. with the capacity to hold up to 148 adults and 25 youth. However, the number of people behind bars has been historically low over the past few years partly due to efforts to decrease COVID-19 risks.

It’s the largest prison in the northwest territories. So it’s not some fringe juvenile unit far outside anyone’s attention. A part of my brain almost thinks that the word ‘indigenous’ paralyzes all officials and makes them temporarily unable to think in a rational way. If you drop the I word into just about any crazy proposal I almost think it has a better chance of being funded. Just think how happy the Buffalo Bill from the silence of the lambs would have been to complete that program. “It puts the lotion on its skin or it gets the hose again.” He would have been teachers pet.

Inmates can have minimum to maximum security ratings and may be serving sentences under two years or awaiting trial.

Longtime trapper Carl Williams demonstrated how to prepare a fox pelt for sale, carefully handling it’s crinkling paper-thin skin, brushing its fur and pinning its ears. He says the fresh pelt was a “city fox” that was caught in Yellowknife, meaning it has more fat than animals that live in the bush.

“They had a good life,” he said.

The inmates end the class by roasting bannock on a stick over a crackling fire outside, a popular outdoor snack in the North, and enjoying the flame-cooked bread with butter and jam.

I think we will all be very very old before we read about an idea that is more stupid than this one. I guess fewer people really are trapping these days. And that means fewer people buying licenses. Which means we have to keep the spirit alive somehow. If it means a few more rape victims or children get skinned along the way, well that’s just an unfortunate side effect.

All those beavers won’t trap themselves.

HOW BEAVER FESTIVALS HAPPEN

It starts so small.

It always feels like getting the beaver festival to happen is like pulling up an ancient creaking sunken ship from the bottom of the ocean by only spider web threads. Impossible. Unlikely. Not going to happen. Not enough music, too many no’s on the silent auction front, missed deadlines and escaped exhibits, but then finally it starts, painfully, slowly to take shape. Just the beginnings, mind you. Just the barest hint of an outline in the fog.

Slowly it transforms from flatly “impossible” to “Potentially possible.”

I read once a quote from American author Mignon McLaughin.

“Even cowards can endure hardship, only the brave can endure suspense.”

Be brave.

BEAVERS WELCOMED BACK WHERE THEY BELONG

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver ecological impact, Beavers and salmon February 20, 2023

This report is a fine reminder that no matter how well intentioned you are or how much money you have, its a good idea to bring your neighbors along with your project from the very beginning. Whether that means having a barbecue or hosting fieldtrips or just answering phone calls. It takes a neighborhood to save a stream.

Animals and neighbors warm to Wallowa River restoration project

One of Ian Wilson’s greatest joys is going down to the short stretch of the Wallowa River on his family’s ranch to fly fish.

“For me, it’s the equivalent of … church for someone who is deeply religious,” he said.

But as a fish biologist, he’s also long known there was something off about the river as it cut across his property: The Wallowa was oddly, unnaturally straight. And because of that, it wasn’t very hospitable for fish. Rather than stop and spawn, salmon and steelhead tended to swim through the property.

Salmon like clean, shallow gravel beds to lay eggs. And smolt, or baby salmon, prefer lots of little still-water pools where they can relax and fatten up on insects. Basically, they need the kind of meandering river system that naturally occurs in a floodplain.

Over the years, Oregon’s farmers, road builders and developers cleared many of the state’s floodplains by cutting trees and filling in channels. Doing so maximized their ability to use land.

All those neighbors didn’t take too kindly to that stream stuff undoing all their hard work. But not everyone is privy to the stream of thought that can see what a river should be. Fortunately he just kept right on working.

But now, because Chinook, steelhead and trout are listed under the Endangered Species Act, the Bonneville Power Administration is trying to rebuild floodplains using revenue from electricity generation.

With help from the nonprofit Trout Unlimited, Wilson won a $1.2 million BPA grant to restore his three-quarter mile stretch of river.

In the summer of 2022, crews placed 475 trees, many complete with massive root wads, in the channel to slow water down and spread it out. They built 54 artificial beaver dams to hold water in the floodplain and create lots of little stillwater pools. And they planted cottonwood, willow and alder trees for shade.

Considering the aim was to restore the river to a more natural state, the restoration was a relatively industrial project, with excavators and dump trucks. They dug channels and filled-in deep river pools.

Wilson said the work vastly increased fish spawning habitat. It used to take him 45 minutes to look for salmon eggs in the river, “Now it takes me upwards of half a day, because there’s so much water to walk,” he said. “Same flows, but there’s just so much more area to cover.”

The restoration finished in September and lots of new animals have already shown up. Where Wilson used to see 10 ducks, he said there are maybe 100 now. He’s also spotted bald eagles, dragonflies and songbirds.

“Within two months, we had beavers return, which was beyond my wildest expectations,” Wilson said. “We’ve seen a black bear recently. We just saw a bobcat this last Sunday and there’s a lot of coyotes out.”

Beavers? Did you say you got BEAVERS? Wow that’s really lucky! And please tell me you aren’t so crazy as to think they’ll block all the salmon and decided to have them trapped out, right? So far so good.

It’s an environmentalist’s dream. But this is eastern Oregon, where endangered species listings have hurt local economies in the eyes and experiences of some residents. Land used for chinook salmon, the gray wolf, the Oregon spotted frog and other animals cannot easily be used for logging, mining or grazing, limiting economic activity.

And unlike many of his neighbors, Wilson is not reliant on his ranch income because he and his wife have other jobs. So he said when he gets the odd sour look at the grocery store he understands why, ”You know people give me a hard time,” he said. “And you just have to kind of accept that I guess, to some level.”

In hindsight, Wilson thinks he could have contacted more neighbors, even though it’s not required, “That probably would have gone a long way towards maybe a little more understanding, initially.”

To try to calm the waters, after all the work was finished Wilson held a neighborhood barbecue, to show everyone what he was up to.

“My reaction was, it was a huge project,” said Janet Hohman, Ken’s wife. She’s happy to see new riparian areas being created, but she’s withholding her verdict until it’s clear no logs get flushed downriver.

But Ken Hohman said he felt better after seeing all the work.

“I mean, it’s a good project,” he said. ” I wouldn’t spend $1 million of my money on it, but yeah.”

Sunlight is the best disinfectant, Showing your work and letting your neighbors know how it will affect them. Rivers are kind of remarkable symbols for how what I do in my little area might impact other people. You can never sneak restoration in under a cloak. Better to do it with a trumpet.

THE FIRST FLOW DEVICE IN CALIFORNIA…

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Flow Device Installed February 19, 2023

It was nice to see this photo of the newly installed ‘Castor Master’ in Martinez California in 2008. Mitch Avalon sent it along after our podcast interview. Of course no one knew what to call it back then or if Skip Lisle’s new-fangled invention would even work. But it definitely made an impression. PWA stands for Phillip Williams and Associates which is the fancy hydrology firm that the city hired to measure the creek and bemoan the amount of damage the beavers were going to do.

Now I can’t imagine why on earth PWA got paid for taking a photo of the flow device the city hired Skip Lisle to install and why they decided to do so at high tide exactly but I think I like Suzi’s picture better…