What am I supposed to do with this beaver shaped chip on my shoulder now?

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers November 10, 2023

Back when the beavers first came to Martinez I imagined all kinds of happy endings with cheerful cookouts where former adversaries drank a beer with me and smile about a job well done. I dreamed that some day this would all be over and I could stop fighting for beavers because everyone would be on the same side. We’d laugh over how crazy things had gotten, braid each other’s hair and talk like old friends. I even listened to this song over and over again:

But then the city wouldn’t vote to keep the beavers even though Skip’s device was obviously working, and then there was the sheetpile and the court case and the mother beaver became ill and staff pulled up all the trees we had permission to plant and then there was never a time for a victory party. Because there was never a “Victory” per se.

And I realized the beaver battle wasn’t something you won, it was just something you prevented losing if you were very lucky by using Endless Pressure Endlessly applied. Forever. Rinse and repeat.

So yesterday when I attended the zoom lecture of Ben’s new book with secretary of Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot I wondered if there’d be any mention of the battle or even a slight allusion to his first book. Did they even read it at CDFW? I used to fantasize about emailing every member a copy.

I mean we all know you can lead a horse to water. But you can’t make it think differently about beavers.

Or can you?

I literally started crying when I realized that the minds at CDFW had actually read and responded to Ben’s masterful book which meant that they were intimately acquainted with the story of the Martinez Beavers which meant that OUR beavers and the wonderful family they raised and the heroic original matriarch we lost were an essential ingredient in the very special recipe that changed California’s mind on beavers.

There is another such exchange about the book DIRECTLY WITH CHUCK BONHAM at the end. More crying. by me. It’s great interview and lots of information about connectivity which is important. You should watch. But I was watching because privately I wondered if they had been affected by Ben’s other book and I was not disappointed.

And at the days end I got a copy of this in the mail which is this issue of Outdoor the official CDFW magazine with a six page article about beavers and how good they are and I realized we had finally hit critical mass in California. There were so many people who knew the right things about beavers it was a different world forever.

Okay. Maybe we’re not in Kansas anymore. But I’m keeping the pressure on just in case.

BEAVERS CHANGE THINGS

heidi08 BDA's, Beaver ecological impact November 9, 2023

This was nice to come across. Enjoy!

Between the removal of the dams downriver that will force colonies of bats to be relocated to allow the salmon to return upstream or the creation of fake beaver dams to inspire the little engineers to help improve water quality and fight forest fires, water is a hot topic in the Klamath Basin. Beavers in particular will change the way our water system works and on Monday we have an interview we shot with Gus Wathen who is in charge of the team on the Sun River building man-made beaver dams to help inspire beavers to return the the region and help restore our rivers. Here is that interview!

BEAVERS CURE COVID?

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact November 8, 2023

Beavers have been called willow-farmers because by increasing the saturation of ponds and spreading the mud and water outwards they actually increase the amount of willow that can grow there and the mud-luscious conditions it loves to sprout in. Then after the new shoots get to sprout out they get to eat it and make more dams that spread the water farther and plant more willow. Pretty smart huh. So beavers make more willow.

And willow cures covid?

Study shows willow bark extract has broad-spectrum antiviral effect

Scientists in Finland have now shown that an extract of willow bark—a plant that has already provided several medicines, including the precursor to modern aspirin—has a broad-spectrum antiviral effect in cell sample experiments.

The extract worked both on enveloped coronaviruses, which cause colds as well as COVID-19, and non-enveloped enteroviruses, which cause infections such as flu and meningitis. There are no clinically approved drugs that work against enteroviruses directly, so this extract could be a future game-changer.

“We need broadly acting and efficient tools to combat the virus load in our everyday life,” said Prof Varpu Marjomäki of the University of Jyväskylä, senior author of the study in Frontiers in Microbiology. “Vaccinations are important, but they cannot deal with many of the newly emerging serotypes early enough to be effective on their own.”

I knew willow bark is what was used to make aspirin but this is pretty amazing. Beavers make willow and willow cures covid? Of course. That makes sense. Do they cure dementia too? Because they;re still a pest…

To make the extract, they harvested commercially grown willow branches. The bark was cut into pieces, frozen, ground, and then extracted using hot water. This produced the extract samples that the scientists tested against enteroviruses—strains of Coxsackievirus A and B—and coronaviruses—a seasonal coronavirus and COVID-19.

The scientists used a cytopathic effect inhibition assay to see how long the extract took to act on infected cells, and how well it inhibited viral activity. The extract did not harm the cells themselves and efficiently protected cells from infection. A binding assay carried out on the COVID-19 samples further showed that although this virus could enter cells even if treated with the extract, it couldn’t reproduce once it was inside.

Catching viruses out

The authors had previously found that the extract was effective against enteroviruses, which meant it could act against two differently-structured types of virus, enveloped and non-enveloped. However, the mechanism of action appeared to be very different, because treated enteroviruses couldn’t enter cells.

The scientists then experimented with the timing of addition of the extract to see if the extract attacked particular stages of the virus life cycle. They found that the extract seemed to act on the surface of the virus, rather than any given stage of its replication cycle.

They also examined the treated virus under the microscope to understand the effects of the extract better. Both viruses clustered together instead of spreading out, but the enveloped coronaviruses appeared to have been broken down, while the non-enveloped enteroviruses appeared to have been locked down, prevented from releasing their genome and reproducing.

“The extracts acted through distinct mechanisms against different viruses,” said Marjomäki. “But the extracts were equally effective in inhibiting the enveloped as well as non-enveloped viruses.”

You know I have been joking for a decade now that when science finds out beavers cure cancer they are still going to be officials saying that they should be trapped because they might cause flooding. This article just piles more fuel on the fire.

The authors also tested existing medical compounds derived from willow bark, as well as commercially prepared salixin extract and salixin powder. Of these, only the salixin extract showed antiviral activity, suggesting that the success of the scientists’ willow bark extract could result from the interactions of different bioactive compounds.

The scientists fractionated their extract to understand its chemical composition, but didn’t get clear answers as to which of the many effective compounds might be primarily responsible for the antiviral effect. Further research will be needed to understand the bioactive compounds involved, their chemical structure, and how they work, potentially leading to revolutionary new antiviral treatments.

More beavers are needed to fully understand the benefits they provide.

A BEAVER-FUL OREGON

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers November 7, 2023

Hey guess what Columbia has to say about beavers?

Discover Beaver Power: Restoring Watersheds with Nature’s Engineers

From Sense of Place:

By Sarah Fox

Hood River, Ore. November 6, 2023 — Sense of Place, will feature Beaver Power: Teaming Up with Nature’s Engineers to Restore Our Watersheds on November, 15th, 2023. This event will be offered in person at the Columbia Center for the Arts in Hood River, Oregon, and via livestream.

The Pacific Northwest has long been a region where the coexistence of humans and beavers has shaped both the landscape and humans’ understanding of ecological systems, but the history is complicated. In Oregon, the Beaver State, beavers are considered a predatory species, and wide-scale trapping in the Pacific Northwest nearly extirpated them in the mid-1800s. In modern times, beavers can quickly wreak havoc by downing trees and flooding roads and property. However fresh research is revealing the ways that beavers can offer innovative solutions to pressing environmental challenges. From mitigating wildfires and addressing the impacts of climate change, to actively participating in landscape restoration and promoting biodiversity. Margaret Neuman and Jeanette Burkhardt will dig into this history and explore how these industrious creatures are emerging as unexpected partners in a more sustainable future.

So I guess Canyonville isn’t the only part of Oregon that will be buzzing with beaver benefits over the next week or so. Good, It is called the beaver state after all.

As the Executive Director of Mid-Columbia Fisheries, Margaret Neuman has been a key part of growing the organization from a small start-up to an important regional partner in salmon recovery in Central Washington. Under Margaret’s leadership, Mid-Columbia Fisheries has implemented more than 90 salmon habitat restoration projects since 2005. The group also reaches more than 2,000 school students annually with field-based conservation education programs. Margaret has more than 30 years of experience in watershed restoration, including organizational, grant, and program management. Margaret helped found the Wishpush Working Group in 2018 and is excited about the benefits beavers provide in improving watershed conditions for fish, wildlife, and people. Margaret loves being in nature and is grateful to call the Columbia River Gorge home.

Jeanette Burkhardt has been working in Fisheries and Natural Resources in the Columbia Gorge for 20 years, the last 18 as a watershed planner for the Yakama Nation at the intersection of policy, planning, restoration, and education. Since 2018, she has been involved in the Wishpush Working Group, working towards more beaver-ful and resilient watersheds in the Tribe’s Southern Territories. As a self-professed plant nerd and admirer of the natural world, she has a personal and professional passion for letting nature do the work—supporting natural processes as they help us recover our impaired ecosystems and the species that depend on them.

Beaverful. Now that’s a word I like. America the Beaverful.

Event Details:

Sense of Place

When – Wednesday, November 15, 2023. Doors open at 6 p.m., presentation begins at 7 p.m.

Where – Columbia Center for the Arts, 215 Cascade Avenue Hood River, OR 97031, or via live stream

Cost – $12 tickets, information at SenseOfPlaceGorge.org

* Advance purchase is encouraged as presentations often sell out. The event and will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Sense of Place host, Sarah Fox.

Sense of Place is a program of Mt. Adams Institute, a Gorge-based non-profit that seeks to strengthen the connection between people and the natural world through education, service, career development, and research.

Love this story and that underwater shot. We need more of these…

BEAVERS OF THE LOST FILES

heidi08 Beaver Art November 6, 2023

The real problem with working the same beaver gig for 17 years is that you have shared and developed and misappropriated so many graphics and artwork over the years that you can’t remember what the file is called anymore and looking for anything in your monster keyboard anymore called “keystone” or “Species” or “archway” is HILARIOUS and causes your entire motherboard to emit smoke from the keyboard.

Recently I was trying to find this picture again and could not for the life of me remember what it was called or when it was from. The image of the girl is from a US artist whose name I can’t recall and the archway is from a graphic I borrowed and the water and fish are things I embedded and the stickers are from Mark Poulin from 2015 the year we did the button activity.

I finally figured out that the elusive image is filed with the name “With Stickers” which I’m sure I will promptly forget again. The base image is out on the internet various credited to a 14 year old girl painting, a greek art instructor and assorted origins. I guess that artist is lost to the layers of time although I think I did write her once suggestion she do the artwork again with fresh water species. You can guess how well that worked.