Month: February 2023

COASTAL COMMISSION FUNDS BEAVERS!

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers February 18, 2023

There’s grand news this morning about the grant awards from the Coastal Commission Whale Tale license plate sales. Guess who earned a slice of the pie? I’ll give you a hint. They make the water that enters the sea cleaner and they make more salmon so all those hungry orcas have something tasty to eat.

Coastal Commission Awards $2 Million in Whale Tail Grants

SAN FRANCISCO, February 17, 2023. On Wednesday, February 8, the California Coastal Commission approved 56 Whale Tail Grant applications totaling more than $2 million to non-profit organizations, community groups, and schools for projects and programs that provide educational experiences focused on coastal protection, public access, and environmental justice.

SLO Beaver Brigade/Ecologistics, $41,480

Project Title: Beaver Education in SLO County Engaging Communities in: San Luis Obispo County Project Timeline: March 2023 – March 2025

Twice-monthly experiential tours to beaver wetlands, including Spanish language and wheelchair accessible tours; monthly river and creek cleanups; new educational interpretive panels and a mural; and Spanish-translated educational materials will engage and educate the local community about the environmental and climate benefits of beavers and the connection of local waterways to the ocean

WHOO HOOO! Isn’t that wonderful? I honestly never thought about the costal commission as a possible grant source, but it’s all watershed eventually! Congratulations to our friends in San Luis Obispo who have made all this possible, and are as we speak working on a first beaver festival of their very own!

THE VICTIM IS THE REAL CULPRIT HERE

Beavers have put up with a lot over the years: near extermination, being called all kind of names, lies that they kill salmon or eat salmon or compete with salmon. They’ve been dropped out of airplanes and helicopters even when people thought they mattered. Meanwhile otters have sprung back from the fur trade being called cute and athletic, Even fishermen stop what they’re doing to watch otters frolic, Even when they hate them. It’s not fair in any way, considering who does all the work that makes all those fish ponds that the otters enjoy in the first place,

So you have to forgive beavers (and me) for enjoying the thinnest slice of Schadenfreude in the past 24 hours where headlines like these have been falling like thick snowflakes.

Otter kills young beavers released at Loch Lomond

An otter is suspected to have killed two beaver kits released at Loch Lomond last month. The kits, along with their parents and three siblings, were relocated from Tayside to a nature reserve as part of efforts to boost biodiversity.

The dead beavers and an otter were spotted on remote camera footage last week.Conservationists said a post-mortem examination had confirmed an otter had preyed on one of the kits.

Well of course the post mortem could show kits in their stomachs but they couldn’t actually prove the otter killed them. I mean anything might have happened and the otter just swam up to investigate and gotten lucky. and nibbled the spoils. I mean be honest, it’s not OTTER CSI we don’t know for sure what took place. But it’s a reasonable assumption. They do attack pelicans and baby ducks, I’ve been seeing headlines like “Otters attack” and “Killer otters” for days now and all I am sure that every fish in the world is reading those headlines thinking, “MMM….And how cute are they now?”

The world is temporarily out of balance. Don’t fret, it will right itself soon enough. Let’s just turn the page and see what challenges beavers are facing now, shall we?

Refuge Notebook: More research needed to determine beavers’ impact on landscape

I was recently pouring through decades of beaver harvest data, trying to map where people had harvested beaver on the refuge and where they had not. This historical data is one piece of a complex puzzle in predicting current and future distribution on the landscape.

As a biologist, I feel that one of our strongest traits is pattern recognition, which was in full force as I input years of harvest data. With every name, I could visualize times I had been to almost every spot.

Even when the harvest report had the wrong name or spelling, I remembered doing a bird or vegetation survey nearby. The patterns continued year after year until I came to a name I had never noticed, Ootka Lake.

What a cool name, and why do I not know where it is? I started old school and scanned my paper maps to no avail. Next, I used my trusty electronic device and found Ootka Lake in the Beaver Creek Drainage near Akula Lake.

I had to know more about it.

As I looked at the map and traced the water back through the drainage, I also realized there was very little geological or topographical reason for a lake in the middle of these vast wetland-stream complexes.

There may or may not be beavers there now, but it seems apparent as I backtracked up “Beaver” Creek that these lakes were at one time formed by some of nature’s most energetic engineers.

There was no geological explanation for a lake there. Some other culprit must be to blame. Beavers are afoot! Call in Mr. Holmes at once, maybe he can get to the bottom of this.

At some point, I will have to find my way to the downstream side of Q’alts’ih Bena and see if there is an active beaver dam. Or is the history of that well-constructed dam buried under the lakeshore sediments and leaf detritus?

The picture in my mind of beavers dragging birch limbs down to the water’s edge may not be present, but somewhere buried in that lakeshore is a history of how a small creek was temporarily blocked, filling the valley with water, and then continued to flow down to the Kenai River and how that slow meandering creek and wetland were transformed into a small lake that continues as a place today.

What a treat to know the Dena’ina had already discovered the history of this place and named it long before the timeline of the beaver harvest records in front of me.

As our climate continues to change, concerns have surfaced about warming waterways and potential impacts on salmon. Some of my colleagues have been looking at where water in nonglacial streams similar to Beaver Creek originates and what influences the water temperature throughout the season.

Because I just THOUGHT it so it must be true. Beavers must warm ponds and kill salmon. Never mind all that research saying that dams actually cause hyporheic exchange that ends up COOLING the waters. Because science is hard to read and makes my head hurt.

Since there are no glaciers affecting water quantity and temperature in this system, we can narrow inputs down to snow melt, rain, artesian upwelling and wetlands. The lakes hold water and slowly release stored water like a sponge.

In some situations, temporary flooding from a well-placed beaver dam could be the catalyst that wets the surrounding spongy wetland. It is actually feasible that throughout a warm, dry climatic period, inputs like artesian upwelling and slow-released water from wetlands might be the temperature-stabilizing influence these creeks need to remain viable for salmon and other habitat components they need.

When I see things like fire, insect outbreaks and drought can change landscapes, I am stumped at why I never put beavers in the same category. Without more study, we can only speculate, but the influences of one family of beaver could be far-reaching. The obvious storage of water in a lake is the low-hanging fruit in this story.

Time and future research will hopefully shed light on the function of beavers on our landscape previously, today and into the future. But, for now, my daydream of visiting Q’alts’ih Bena must be put on hold as there are 10 more years of data to input and five other outstanding reports to be finished before the summer field season arrives.

Yeah it might turn out that beavers are actually helping things by making these spongy wetlands but we don;’t know for sure. It could be a fluke, They could be a cancer, spreading across the tundra and wreaking havoc. Better spend more money on research just to be sure.

MONEY FOR BIODIVERSITY IN WYOMING

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact February 16, 2023

Beavers always do better when they have friends in high places. How high is Wyoming? 6700 feet above sea level give or take. I think they going to are really appreciate this.

UW Receives Major Gift to Support Conservation Across Wyoming With Initial Focus on Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

The University of Wyoming has announced a major gift from Joe Ricketts’ Jackson Fork Ranch that will support environmental stewardship and conservation across Wyoming, with an initial focus on the greater Yellowstone ecosystem.

The substantial donation will fund the Jackson Fork Ranch-University of Wyoming Research Project, which will support the university’s conservation and biodiversity research throughout Wyoming. It will help to increase public awareness of the unique value of biodiversity in the state and will promote the importance of environmental stewardship as an enduring value.

This financial commitment is timely because the wide range of biodiversity in Wyoming is not well studied, especially those lesser-known species that have a disproportionately large impact on ecosystem function and biodiversity.

Hey I know who you’re talking about and it starts with a ‘B’ right? I suppose if you’re in Wyoming you might care about biodiversity because you want there to be more big game and ducks to hunt. I wouldn’t get distracted with that argument rght now. Eyes on the prize. We all want more beavers around, Let’s start there.

— The first will focus on small- and medium-sized mesocarnivores, which form an important but poorly known component of the state’s fauna and food web.

— A second focus area will be the ecosystem impact of American beavers.

— A third study will examine the impact of red squirrels on forest biodiversity. These conspicuous animals store food for winter in large piles of conifer cones and feeding debris called middens. These are biodiversity hotspots for small mammals, birds and insects.

— Finally, the project will study golden eagles, an iconic avian predator across the western United States. The project will assess the distribution and productivity of these birds by intensive survey routes and the identification and observation of nest sites.

Okay, if I were you I would take all that money you are sliding into category 1, 3, and 4 and put it into section two. Beavers are as far as you need to look searching for species that impact biodiversity. Let the make more of everything first. And then you’ll have more to study down the line.

Beginning in 2023, this research will increase the understanding of biodiversity throughout Wyoming by engaging outstanding UW researchers; training the next generation of wildlife conservation biologists; and sharing the research results with the world. This also will grow sustainable conservation tourism in the region.

“This is such an exciting, generous and forward-thinking gift that fosters collaboration to learn more about our lesser-known but impactful wildlife species across the wild and working lands of Wyoming,” says John Koprowski, dean of the UW Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources. “The stories that will be revealed promise to inform our conservation and management strategies and to capture the imagination of Wyomingites and our many visitors.”

The Jackson Fork Ranch and the Ricketts Conservation Foundation work with private and public agencies to study, protect and enhance the populations of at-risk species while working to understand how lands can be sustainably managed for the future.

Joe Ricketts is an entrepreneur and philanthropist who founded the online brokerage firm TD Ameritrade. Don’t you wish you could be an philanthropist and donate millions to the university of your choice influencing science and ecology for years to come? You know just last year I was approached by a woman wanting to start a beaver festival in Jackson Hole. I think she should definitely approach the Ricketts Conservation foundation to get started! This was from Montanaast year but you get the idea…

A DECADE OF MUSIC FOR BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers February 15, 2023

It was way back in 2011 that I first heard the delightful clang and pluck of the Spirit of ’29. Eliot Kenin was the leader, He’s the tidy looking one with the banjo in the middle. He happened to live in Martinez and I thought that might soften his heart towards its crazy beaver story and make him inclined to grace our festival stage. I don’t think he loved the animal part of so much, but he was greatly amused by the people part, and the fight-city-hall-and-win part.

I was delighted when he talked it over with his members and agreed to play on our tiny hot stage. He brought his 5 piece band Dixieland band to brighten that tiny stage in the old beaver park. All those musicians barely fit on those wooden pallets we used to borrow from the John Muir Association back then. The music immeediately felt right, timeless, ageless, spirited against the machine of progress. Doing things the old way. Like the beavers.

The Spirit of ’29 graced us every year afterwards, including 2023. It was always a bright star in our line-up and sometimes there were brave souls who danced. Last summer I was called by a band member before the festival saying Eliot was in the hospital but confirming that the rest of the band would be there anyway. He said it wasn’t anything to worry about, a chronic condition that had happened before. He was sure he would be back making music soon.

6 weeks later Eliot died.

I actually didn’t learn about it until yesterday when I read about his memorial and the support it garnered. I can hardly believe that he shared his music with us for 10 summers and we barely met and now won’t meet again. Eliot was a singer, songwriter and activist which I guess is why the Martinez story appealed. He brought music to many many lives and his spirit made our little festival official.

I don’t know about you, but I will still be hearing Dixieland in my mind at the festival. Thank you, Eliot.

MO BEAVERS = MO BIRDS

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Birds February 14, 2023

There was a whopper of a new study published in Europe at last month. It just made it’s way into the journals. It found that in addition to creating wetlands, beaver habitat created bird species diversity in woodlands as far as 60 miles away. That means that our little Martinez science experiment could have changed things in Rosevile, Gilroy or Point Reyes.

The engineering activities of the Eurasian beaver Castor fiber have far-reaching effects on the components of an environment and therefore modify the functioning of the ecosystem. The wetlands thereby created are the most conspicuous effect of beaver activity and attract water-related species. However, there is some evidence suggesting that beavers influence not only aquatic ecosystems but also the terrestrial habitats adjacent to these wetlands and the organisms occurring there.

We found a greater species richness and abundance of wintering birds on beaver sites than on watercourses unmodified by this ecosystem engineer (by 38% and 61%, respectively). Species richness and abundance were higher in the terrestrial habitats near the edges of beaver ponds, but for some species this tendency also held in forests growing at some distance from beaver wetlands. Greater species richness was related to beaver presence, but also increased with a more open canopy and greater forest floor diversity, whereas bird abundance was correlated only with canopy openness. The beaver sites attracted primary cavity nesters, secondary cavity nesters and frugivorous species.

This study provides evidence that the engineering activities of beavers during the growing season have a delayed cascading effect on the richness and abundance of the bird assemblage in terrestrial habitats in winter. This indicates that beaver ecosystem engineering should be seen as having a potential for carry-over effects, in which the consequences of beaver activity become apparent in subsequent seasons. Birds are considered to be ecological indicators, so our results highlight the importance of beavers for the distribution of terrestrial organisms at the local scale, and therefore the functioning of ecosystems beyond the immediate wetland area.

Wowow. That means if a population of beavers changes the diversity and richness of birds along a riparian corridor, those birds also take that diversity and abundance to whatever forest they overwinter in. It’s like putting more dollar coins in circulation: It changes spending patterns in the county where it was launched but also in cities up and down the state and eventually out of the state.

More diverse birds mate with other diverse birds and the entire cycle replicates. And beavers are the launch party.

Number of bird species and individuals

The beaver sites were characterized by a significantly higher number of bird species than the reference sites. The mean number of individuals per 100 m on both transects combined was 5.3 ± 7.4 SD on the beaver sites and 3.3 ± 5.3 SD.

SD refers to standard deviation which just means the amount of distance from the average, So a big SD means there was lots and lots of variability in the numbers and a little SD means that most places they looked did pretty similarly. Beaver sites had MORE bird species than the control sites, and when they looked 100 meters from the site there were still more birds than non beaver sites.

MO BEAVERS = MO BIRDS.

The results of our study indicate that beaver sites are valuable areas for birds wintering in temperate forests. The greater species richness and abundance of both the entire assemblage and certain ecological groups of species in areas modified by beavers suggest that the presence of these animals rearranges the winter distribution of birds at the local scale.

Beavers make a difference to birds around their pond. BUT NOT JUST AROUND THEIR POND. Beavers make a difference to birds SIXTY miles away. That means granting a depredation permit in Rocklin might affect the bird population in Jackson or Santa Rosa.

That means when the fur trade devastated the beaver population it also destroyed bird diversity and species richness at a scale exceeding DDT.

Watercourses transformed by beavers provide valuable wintering sites for a number of bird species and individuals. Bird species richness and abundance in terrestrial habitats adjacent to the water’s edge were correlated with the presence of beaver wetland, but also with characteristics of the vegetation. Terrestrial habitats as far as 80 m away from the beaver wetland still tended to have a greater bird species richness and abundance.

Well okay, sure maybe beavers are good for birds, and fish, and invertebrates and mammals and water but honestly, but they ate my almond tree, so I had to kill them.