Off to the bone dr this am, X-ray and new cast. I’’ll leave you with something pretty.

Add this to the list of why beavers are fricking cool because this article just made my day. Nothing I love better than when beavers stump their scientists!

Beaver defies experts by surviving second winter in Polish mountains

A beaver has surprised wildlife experts by surviving a second winter in the Polish High Tatra mountains, where temperatures can drop below -20°C (-4°F) at night. Park rangers now see signs that the animal has been joined by others, indicating that a new colony may be established there.

The creature was first spotted at Morskie Oko, the largest lake in the Tatra Mountains, in August 2021. It was the first case in modern memory of a beaver being observed at such a high altitude in the Polish mountains, with Morskie Oko being almost 1,400 metres (4,593 feet) above sea level.

Rangers at Tatra National Park (TPN) initially believed that the beaver had simply wandered to higher ground in a one-off event, but it soon became apparent that the animal had made its home at Morskie Oko, an unusual habitat for the animal.

Questions were raised about whether and how the beaver, which does not hibernate, would be able to survive the cold Tatra winter. But contrary to reports that the animal had died from a fall, it was later revealed that the beaver had in fact survived its first winter and continued to be spotted by the lake.

In a video published by TPN last week, park ranger Grzegorz Bryniarski revealed that the beaver has now “survived a second winter and is doing well”. The elusive creature is still yet to be caught on camera, but traces of its presence are clear in the area.

Beavers are sooooo damn cool even at 5000 feet where no remembers they ever used to thrive some reintroduced sucker found his ways to the habitat edges and moved right in with the wife and kids. Even thought this beaver might not have been in the habit of keeping a food cache he made do with a hole in the ice that he carefully maintained to bring in supplies.

“Its presence can be seen on the ice, where it has created a hole and dragged branches to this area,” Bryniarski later told the Polish Press Agency (PAP). “Its presence is also indicated by numerous tracks on the snow – it has trodden a footpath and cut down willows.”

Some believe that this could be the beginning of a beaver population in the Tatras. “Beavers are animals that are constantly looking for new areas for themselves. They should feel at ease in the national park,” Andrzej Czech, a renowned expert on beavers, told Gazeta Wyborcza.

“I expect that a large colony of beavers may soon be established in the area of ​​Morskie Oko and they will become a permanent feature of the Tatra wilderness.”

The polish scientists forgot what beavers are made of when they were busy exterminating all of them for their fur. Let;s hope they remember better this time.

Leave to the Miistakis institute to be the first people to ask for help finding the places where there aren’t enough beavers. No I’m not kidding.

Citizen scientists recruited as dam detectives to pinpoint beaver homes from satellite images

The Miistakis Institute and the Alberta Riparian Habitat Management Society are asking citizens to become dam detectives and find beaver homes from satellite images. 

Using Zooniverse, an online research platform, citizen scientists can help determine where beavers are present or absent on the landscape — which in turn will help guide the selection of restoration sites and improve the overall health of streams in southern Alberta. 

“We’re kind of looking for those spots where beavers aren’t currently building dams,” said Miistakis Institute conservation analyst Holly Kinas.

“So maybe we can come in and kind of support them by restoring those stream sections and then beavers can move back in and take over that work for us.”

How lovely is that? We need more beavers and more dams in more streams. And more people [ike H0lly Kinas!

Amy McLeod, who is a riparian specialist with the Alberta Riparian Habitat Management Society, calls beavers ecosystem engineers. The animals have helped shape North America’s rivers and streams, she says.

When beavers build their dams they change the flow of water. In instances of flood, researchers have seen that dams delayed the peak of a flood event, buying time for those downstream. But their dams can also act as what McLeod calls speed bumps, slowing down water so it has a chance to stay on a landscape and seep into the ground — which helps with drought and water scarcity.

“I would say that beaver or beaver mimicry is, you know, one of I think, the most useful climate adaptation strategies for us, particularly in southern Alberta, where we’re experiencing water scarcity,” said McLeod. 

Kinas said they want to do more of this work, but finding the ideal spots for similar people-made dams is labour-intensive. So why not let beavers lead the way from space?

Water scarcity fixed by beaver abundance. That’s the way it should be.

In each satellite image, a 250-metre area, the user checks for beaver dams and lodges and reports back. Each image is inspected by at least eight users so that the data isn’t just coming from a single source. Users record how many dams they see and whether or not they can spot water in the image.

“We have over 30,000 images that need to be classified,” Kinas said.

Can I get an amen? Go here to start your searches.

Just so you know, the depredation rate in California for beavers isn’t going away any time soon. Here are our stats for 2022.

As you can see, Placer is still number one when it comes to doing the wrong thing.

I thought you’d appreciate a closer look at why folks thought killing was the only way.

Damage to trees and crops has moved ALL THE WAY DOWN TO THE NUMBER 2 spot! Imagine that! Although there are 5 permits that say we need to trap beavers because their dams are bad for fish, swainson hawks and vernal pools.

(Cough)

My very favorite permit is the one that says that a beaver recently felled an ELDER.
hahahahahahaha

I’m sure they meant alder. But elder is funnier, did he have a wooden leg?

It was in fact the iconic Sigmund Freud who said that unresolved issues in the unconscious will tend to ‘pop’ up again unexpectedly until they are addressed.(Well, maybe he didn’t say ‘pop’ but you know what I mean.) Things come back around, Even when they feel like they were safely out of the way. Even when a dramatically broken foot and a subsequent case of nursing induced covid knocks them out of commission for 43 days. They come back. I came back. I guess there’s a little more left for me to do. And while ‘repressed’ might not be the perfect word to describe me, oppressed certainly does.

RETURN OF THE OPPRESSED.

Did I learn anything in my time away? Yes Bob Kobres and Rusty Cohn are a fantastic team of helpers and did an amazing job. Thank you both very very much. That Doctors are perfectly confident about doing things that hurt you if they believe it will make you better. That a reduction’ isn’t a friendy word when it comes to broken bones. That Skilled Nursing isn’t all that skilled. And the world is getting better at noticing that beavers matter starting with the festival in San Luis Obispo and
marching towards the festival next month at Carleton university in Minnesota. And the news that a Bay Nature Article on beavers is FINALLY headed for the magazine in the fall.

Things and my bones are slowly lining up.

Thank you for your patience as I try to navigate my way back into the saddle again. Everything is harder than I remember, but I’m doing my best a little at a time. I think we should celebrate my return with a very fun otter and beaver video from my first beaver teacher, Bob Arnebeck from New York. There is nothing about this video that doesn’t make me smile. I wonder if you can spot why.