Month: October 2023

YES, YES, ANNETTE! (A NEW BEAVER MUSICAL)

I think we found a new best beaver friend, in Golden BC,about 4 hours north of Spokane. Her name is Annette Lutterman and she’s a self employed PhD and Ecologist who happens to agree with us.

Beavers: our unsung climate heroes

Every year in the Kootenays we witness more extreme wildfires, floods and drought. It turns out that a brilliant little animal that we nearly hunted to extinction could play an important role in protecting our homes and the environment from these extreme weather events.

That’s right — not only are beavers brilliant ecosystem engineers that create habitat for countless other species, they also play a key role in the fight against climate change.

Well sure. we had a whole festival about that. It’s nice that we think alike.

Beavers’ rich wetlands are like sponges; they store water during drought and make ecosystems less vulnerable to extreme weather changes. They also keep surrounding areas wet throughout so they don’t readily burn, and instead act as firebreaks.

Not only do beaver ponds resist wildfire, they also mitigate flooding by controlling and releasing water more gradually. “They slow the water as it comes down the mountainsides,” says ecologist Annette Lutterman, who has spent years researching beavers, particularly around her hometown of Golden.

These dams often work in conjunction with one another. Near Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, one beaver complex has seventeen dams in a row along one stream! Together, they allow raging spring snowmelt to be absorbed into the soil and surroundings rather than causing flooding.

Communities that have suffered extreme flood events over the past few years are concerned about logging in upper parts of the watershed because it also increases flash flooding. Beaver infrastructure helps.

Sponges and superheroes. That’s it exactly. Slow the water down and manage it safely over the long term. That’s their motto.

With only their bare paws (and incisors!), beavers shape freshwater habitat — building wetlands and marshes that are incredibly rich in biodiversity. These beaver-built ecosystems create invaluable habitat for other species including fish, mammals, waterfowl, songbirds, amphibians and insects.

Beavers have incredible foresight, ensuring their ponds have sufficient depth so as not to freeze to the bottom in winter so they can forage underwater for food all winter long. This depth also helps to regulate water temperatures during summer, which benefits other aquatic species, such as salmon, that could overheat in shallower waters.

They are also big on excavating. “They’ll dig canals going out from their pond so that when they forage for food, they can cut down a shrub and float it back to their lodge, rather than dragging it across the land. They prefer to float the food back because it’s easier, and they’re less vulnerable to predation. So they dig these canals, which are really important nursery areas for small fish,” Annette explains.

Hardly anyone makes that point about small canals and fish nurseries. Well done Annette.

Not only is the water table higher in the forests surrounding beaver activity, but the microclimate is more humid — which, in times of chronic drought, leads to healthier forests and ecosystems. Active beaver ponds also sequester an impressive amount of carbon. Each year, beaver wetlands (like our Columbia Wetlands) store about 470,000 tons of carbon globally.

Wow Annette, you are hitting all the points on our bookmark this summer. Nicely done.

Given how instrumental beavers are in protecting our landscapes — and our homes — it’s clear we should be doing our best to keep them around. North America’s beaver population has rebounded since protections were introduced in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but it’s still estimated to be about 10% of what it was prior to colonization, and human activities continue to threaten beavers’ survival.

One of the single biggest threats to beavers is trapping. ‘Problem’ beavers are regularly killed for impacting human infrastructure. When beavers’ handiwork floods a road or property, a permit will often be issued to dispose of the animal and destroy its habitat. If they compromise industry (by burrowing into the rail-bed within the wetlands or threatening a piece of road, for example) CP or the Ministry of Transport will hire a trapper to get rid of them.

Annette has tried to inquire as to how many permits are given out annually to kill beavers, but the government has refused to provide any information. Beavers are frequently trapped or killed illegally without permits as well, sometimes just to use the castoreum (castor sacks), or their meat as bait for hunting.

Hydroelectric dams pose another significant threat. Young beavers stay with their parents for about two years before venturing out to find habitat of their own, usually a few kilometres away. They’ll settle on what they think is a normal water body and try to establish a new lodge. But when water levels change quickly – from water being let out of a dam or building up inside it – the young beavers are wiped out.

Well I’m not that worried about hydro dams. Beavers are pretty darn good at floating. Even newborns. But this last section is straight from my heart!

How can we help beavers help us?

Practices can and should be in place to mitigate beaver conflict. Research has shown that relocation can be effective when done properly. There are also ‘beaver deceivers’ (aka pond levellers) which only allow beaver ponds to reach a certain depth, preventing flooding upstream. These contraptions trick beavers into thinking that no water is exiting their pond, simply because the flow is silent. They were developed based on an experiment done years ago to better understand where beaver’s instinctual desire to block water comes from. Scientists recorded the sound of running water on a cassette tape, played it on dry land near the stream overnight, and came back to find that the beavers had packed mud and sticks on top of it.

Much is left to be done to protect beavers and their ecosystems here in BC. “We’ve got all kinds of mountain bike trails and new roads and infrastructure that’s being built, and we have to figure out how we can adapt to that so beavers can come back,” Annette says.

As communities, we can anticipate locations where human-beaver conflicts may arise and pre-emptively install levellers that both meet beavers’ needs and mitigate flood risk.

If you happen to hear of a beaver conflict, inform people about positive alternatives to trapping or dam destruction. Suggest pond levellers or point them in the direction of helpful resources. Most importantly, share your knowledge: tell your friends and family how invaluable beavers are, and explain how they help preserve landscapes and homes. Now more than ever, it is time we stopped working against beavers — and started working with them.

12th Martinez Beaver Festival 2019. Photo by Cheryl Reynolds 6/29/19.

THE STATE OF THE BEAVER 2023

heidi08 Beavers October 25, 2023

We are just three weeks away from the conference that started it all. The state of the beaver (November 13-15) was the proto type and the inspiration for the Maryland conference, the beaver institute and so much more. It’s where I met Sherri Tippie, Mary Obrien, Glynis Hood, Derek Gow, Paul and Louise Ramsay,Mike Callahan, Kent Woodruff. Suzanne Fouty. and so many other beaver founding fathers and mothers. If there is any single way you can get yourself there you should try. It’s that good.

The Beaver State of Mind

A rural town in Oregon became an unlikely epicenter of global efforts to restore the semi-aquatic rodent. Starting in mid-November, the State of Beaver Conference will host beaver experts and conservationists from all over the world.

Oregon’s state flag features a beaver on its back side in honor of the state’s nickname, “The Beaver State” – a moniker it earned when trapping beavers for the early nineteenth-century fur trade played a large role in the exploration and settlement of a territory that became a state in 1859.

So, it is appropriate that Canyonville, Oregon, a small town with a population of 1,660 located in the Klamath Mountains of Southern Oregon is the global locus of efforts to restore beavers throughout their traditional range in the wild. The 2023 State of the Beaver conference (November 13-15, 2023) will draw up to 300 beaver restoration advocates and re-wilding movement activists from all over North America and Europe.

Interest in beavers has been steadily increasing over the past thirteen years due to the low-cost and extensive benefits to the environment and wildlife that they bring when planted in streams. Water storage, in these times of increasingly frequent drought, is one obvious boon to farmers, ranchers as well as rural towns and cities.

That beaver-dam water also helps restore anadromous fish runs. It provides homes for waterfowl and aquatic creatures such as frogs and salamanders as well as drinking water for other wild creatures. Beavers are remarkably efficient in this.

What a wonderful beginning. Lois and Leonard Houston are the nicest hosts you could ever hope to meet and by the end of three days taking care of every persons needs so profoundly, Lois is often exhausted and hanging on by a thread. But they have kept it up, year after year. And the effect is measurable across two continents.

According to Stanley Petrowski, one of the founders of the conference, “Seventy-five percent of the artificial wetland restoration projects done in America over the past thirty years have failed but when beavers do it, they do it perfectly.”

The conference is an annual event that began in 2010 after two local neighbors, Stanley Petrowski and former logger Leonard Houston attended a government agency working group meeting in which representatives of state and federal scientists were at odds about efforts to restore beavers with the timber and agricultural faction in opposition to the fisheries and wildlife crowd.

“We were really disappointed by all the wrangling and decided to host our own get-together to try to get past that,” Petrowski said in an interview for this story.

With the support of the South Umpqua Rural Community Partnership through grants obtained for the purpose and the help of the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians, who supplied the use of Seven Feathers Casino and Resort, SURCP was able to bring together about 150 scientists and restoration advocates from all over North America and Europe for a three-day conference.

The Cow Creek Tribe offers up the Casino conference room and starts the event off with a traditional blessing. There generosity makes the conference possible and Stan Petrowski dogged technology and emcee efforts keep it moving. I missed the first one that Skip Lisle attended, but I didn’t that make that mistake again.

That first conference brought together people from agencies and scientific disciplines who had never met but who discovered there that they had a common interest in beaver ecology. This year’s event is also being sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Maine Community Foundation, and seven other organizations dedicated to beaver restoration.

It may seem odd that European visitors are among the participants but restoration efforts for the Eurasian Beaver, a close cousin to the North American Beaver that Canadians and Americans are familiar with, is a growing field in several nations such as Britain, Norway, Belgium, Germany, Lithuania and Poland with some of their efforts underway at scales that are often ahead of those here in the New World.

Hosting the conference has brought an economic boon to both the tribe and the small town as well. The arrival of hundreds of scientists, activists, and lecturers who spend both their time and their dimes in the community is a significant help to the small town. Lodging at the casino and local motels for the event by itself brings in tens of thousands of dollars from outside the area.

In addition to the presentations by ecologists, wildlife and fisheries biologists, and activists this year’s conference will feature a panel of representatives from eight East Coast indigenous tribes who will speak of the role of beavers in their culture both traditionally and about their current restoration efforts. The keynote speaker will be Leila Phillip, a professor of Environmental Studies at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and author of Beaver Land, How One Weird Rodent Made America.

That panel discussion of eight tribes sounds very interesting.

South Umpqua Rural Community Partnership, centered in tiny Tiller, Oregon (population 186) is involved in several areas of conservation such as stream restoration and monitoring, promoting biochar production from logging slash and other forms of rural economic development.

In addition, under an agreement with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife SURCP members Leonard and Lois Houston go out to look into complaints about beavers from landowners and, if necessary, they trap and relocate them.

But after learning about the many benefits that they provide, in about 80% of those cases, the landowners decide to keep them in their place

That might be my favorite sentence in this whole fabulous article. To say that the State of the Beaver conference was seminal in my growth is an understatement. To say that it triggered the powerful book by Ben Goldfarb is a given. To say that it laid the groundwork for the beaver institute’s conference in Maryland is only the truth.

Don’t miss this opportunity if you can help it. It’s kind of weird being in the conference shot above with the famous others. I guess I’ve kind of become a founding daughter of sorts…

UGLY BEAVERS SAVE WATER?

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers October 24, 2023

Well. well, well…Canada took it’s own sweet time to get there, but look who’s joined the party!

Beavers in Canada Help Improve Drought Conditions in Rivers in British Columbia, Report Shows

Beavers could help restore and improve the drought problems in waters in British Columbia, especially in the Fraser and Nechako Rivers, according to new reports.

The dry conditions and soaring temperatures can be a significant concern in Canada. Nature World News (NWN) reported the recent wildfire concerns in the country due to dry vegetation and strong winds.

In addition, rivers are also affected by drought problems in the region. Prolonged drought and low water can significantly affect the river’s marine species, communities, transportation and water supplies. As a result, river restoration is vital to prevent devastating impacts on the environment.

Experts were looking to tap the role of beavers to restore and improve the waters in B.C. in Canada. In California, beavers are recognized for their ecological roles as natural engineers. The animals will be vital to improve water quality and conserve dams.

In addition, beavers can help maintain ecosystem habitat. It benefits insects and other species for food sources. As natural engineers, beavers can become effective and inexpensive in terms of protecting the environment.

Sheesh don’t compare your self to us. that’s like trying to be as well behaved as Dennis the Menace…compare yourself to Washington or Utah.. This video bears Glynnis Hood’s name, I guess she thinks it sounds more scientific if the beavers aren’t cute in any way?.

It’s actually very interesting to watch this accurate video and think about how UGLY these beavers are. I’m not sure why but I think Canada only likes them a little bit and isn’t quite sold on the whole idea….

BEAVER RENAISSANCE IN NEVADA

heidi08 Beavers October 23, 2023

Will someone please make sure to hand Ted Williams this with his coffee? I’ve been waiting for just the right response and this is close…

Rehydrating Nevada’s riparian areas, one beaver at a time

Three decades earlier, in the late 1980s, Susie Creek was just a sliver of water slicing through a barren gravel bar. There was not a willow or sedge in sight. That was before the beavers returned.

Native to North America, beavers once covered much of the continent, including portions of present-day Nevada. Estimates put the number of beavers nationwide at about 55 million before European settlement.

Where the beavers remained, they were often viewed as nuisances to ranchers, given their propensity for damming up moving water.

But over the past few decades, beavers have bounced back as most public and private land managers now realize the rodents are more than a source of fur and oil — they are a critical component to healthy riparian ecosystems. They can reduce erosion, raise the water table, improve water quality and expand floodplains and wetlands — many of the same goals of riparian restoration projects.

Many Nevada ranchers are realizing that if they want healthy waterways on their grazing allotments, they need to also want the large rodents – or at least a simulation of them — on their property.

Ho Ho Ho. This just the Nevada article I was looking for. The only way it could get better is if It interviewed Carol Evans and Jon Grigg…

This realization has given beavers a new reputation in agricultural areas across the West. In a generation, the rodents have gone from being perceived as pesky nuisances to critical landscape components.

“It’s hard to talk about beaver without talking about taking care of the streams,” said Carol Evans, a retired Bureau of Land Management fisheries biologist who spent her career helping restore overgrazed creeks throughout Elko County. “You just can’t have one without the other.”

In Nevada, beavers naturally occur in the Humboldt River Basin, along the Colorado River and in the streams and tributaries of the Snake River.

In those watersheds and beyond, the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) is building beaver dam analogs — mimicking the beneficial effects of the rodent’s dams —and taking the first steps toward reestablishing habitat to support beavers where populations had been driven out.

“We’re kind of in the midst of a beaver enlightenment. It’s neat,” Evans said. “People are understanding all the ecological benefits of the beaver.”

Beaver renaissance! I like that!

Driving a load of dynamite back to Elko’s Maggie Creek Ranch from Battle Mountain, Jon Griggs knew one thing: Keep the dynamite and blasting caps separate.

It was around 1990, and he’d just been hired at the nearly 200,000-acre ranch — the same one Susie Creek runs through — as a cowboy. One of his first jobs at the ranch was to blow up a beaver dam on Maggie Creek.

The general attitude of ranchers toward beavers is changing, but for a long time they were “the devil,” according to state biologist Madi Stout. This was largely due to the rodents’ proclivity to build dams wherever they found water, including irrigation ditches and canals designed to deliver water without barriers.

“Anytime they hear running water, it’s a bat signal to them to build a dam,” she said.

Beavers build dams to create ponds where they can construct lodges. The ponds and lodges provide protection from predators.

In the early 1990s, Evans approached Griggs to talk about the way cattle grazed on Maggie Creek Ranch. The ranch operated on a rest-rotation grazing system, but riparian areas including Susie Creek were almost always grazed all season long. Formerly lush riparian areas had morphed into barren patches of dirt around the creeks.

What if, she proposed, the ranch avoided grazing cattle along the creeks during the hottest months of the year? Plants along the streams would have an opportunity to regrow, the land could start to recover and the streams could heal.

The first year, native grasses came back. The second year, other flowering plants returned. It takes about eight to 12 years to restore a riparian plant community back to a level that attracts beavers. By the early to mid-2000s, Susie Creek was increasingly healthy and beaver populations were rebounding.

Griggs was hesitant to let the rodents return but did so at Evans’ encouragement.

“We let ’em go,” he said. “And thank God we did. They did some phenomenal work for us.

There you go. My favorite duo. Both the ones you’d never suspect of protecting beavers. I’m so glad they are still talking to reporters…

Fast forward three decades, and Griggs is now the manager of Maggie Creek Ranch, president of the Nevada Cattlemen’s Association and one of the most prominent voices in Nevada ranching. He still wears a beaver felt hat, but he’s also somewhat of a spokesperson for the positive work beavers do.

“It took all of us a cultural shift. We just didn’t get it,” said Griggs, 60, who has spoken at environmental symposiums across the nation. “My generation and probably the generation before me kind of got here when beaver were gone.”

Over time, Griggs came to see beavers as a way to restore wetland areas, a sentiment he says many ranchers now share.

“You think of the creek just as the water you can see, but a healthy creek is the water you can see and a big sponge of water beneath it that hydrates the whole flood plain,” Griggs said. “Beavers, when they slow water down and back it up, they hydrate that sponge, and it allows for riparian vegetation to expand. For us, that means we get areas of green when nothing else is green.”

That’s it. The great sponge beneath the water. If we keep working on taking care of this everything will be better…

TRANSFORMATION BY ANOTHER SPECIES

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers October 22, 2023

Laurie from Rocklin sent this my way yesterday and I was literally blown away. At first I sniffed diffidently and thought “Beavers are nothing like platypuses” and then I realized that the similarity wasn’t in the animal but in the human who allowed his life to be transformed and built his new world around helping others learn about this amazing animal.

I cried through most of it. But really it is the best kind of documentary. If you didn’t see it or it hasn’t aired in your area yet, make time for this.