MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The Bartlett Police Department caught a large beaver that was on the loose inside St. Francis Monday morning.
According to BPD, at around 6:45 a.m., they received a call that the beaver was roaming inside the hospital.
Officials say they made sure the animal found a good home.
Being a dispersing beaver is a very hard job. You have to make it on your own, away from the family that sustained you all those years.. No parents or brothers and sisters to keep an eye on you or point out the best willow. Good luck little beaver.
Which reminds me it’s a great time to remember this old favorite, so you have something to carol to or sing around the piano tonight. A Merry time indeed!
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me A Dam in Alham-b-ra Creek
On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me Two adult beavers and A Dam in Alham-b-ra Creek
On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me Three watching women< Two adult beavers and A Dam in Alham-b-ra Creek
On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me Four furry kits Three watching women Two adult beavers and A Dam in Alham-b-ra Creek
On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me Five City Council! Four furry kits Three watching women Two adult beavers and A Dam in Alham-b-ra Creek
On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me Six baby ducklings Five City Council! Four furry kits Three watching women Two adult beavers and A Dam in Alham-b-ra Creek
On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me Seven on committee Six baby ducklings Five City Council! Four furry kits Three watching women Two adult beavers and A Dam in Alham-b-ra Creek
On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me Eight eager muskrats Seven on committee Six baby ducklings Five City Council! Four furry kits Three watching women Two adult beavers and A Dam in Alham-b-ra Creek
On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me Nine children laughing Eight eager muskrats Seven on committee Six baby ducklings Five City Council! Four furry kits Three watching women Two adult beavers and A Dam in Alham-b-ra Creek
On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me Ten news reporters Nine children laughing Eight eager muskrats Seven on committee Six baby ducklings Five City Council! Four furry kits Three watching women Two adult beavers and A Dam in Alham-b-ra Creek
On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me Eleven cameras snapping Ten news reporters Nine children laughing Eight eager muskrats Seven on committee Six baby ducklings Five City Council! Four furry kits Three watching women Two adult beavers and A Dam in Alham-b-ra Creek
On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me Twelve hatching turtles Eleven cameras snapping Ten news reporters Nine children laughing Eight eager muskrats Seven on committee Six baby ducklings Five City Council! Four furry kits Three watching women Two adult beavers and A Dam in Alham-b-ra Creek
Raise your hand if you remember the report from December 13th where I talked about the gloomy report from the AGU doctoral candidate who presented research that beaver dams release Methyl Mercury. It was very bad sounding news ab0ut beavers s0 of course it was picked by a million scientific and gleeful publications around the state. Well it turns out something else really interesting happened at the conference that got a little less publicity.
That gloomy researcher was a student at CU Boulder where beaver star Emily Fairfax also graduated. And guess who presented some very interesting new research right after his?
Beavers have lived in Grand Teton National Park for thousands of years, according to a new analysis of ancient DNA found in lake beds. The finding demonstrates that beavers—which modify their ecosystems to an extent surpassed only by humans—may have kept plant and animal communities in the Tetons stable over millennia.
Land managers look to the historical record to determine which ecosystems may benefit from beavers. But records are often incomplete: Scientists don’t know much about where or how beavers influenced ecosystems in North America before the fur trade wiped out much of the continent’s beaver population in the 1700s and 1800s. The new finding helps illustrate how these past ecosystems functioned
All living things shed DNA into the environment, through dead skin cells, hair, excrement, and other bodily fluids. Even millions of years later, scientists can collect this environmental DNA (eDNA) and determine which species left it behind. Lake environments are especially great for finding ancient eDNA, because they’re shielded from Sun damage and most microbial activity, Baker said.
There are two prime spots in California that need this research and the Salinas river in Santa Cruz county was a prime suspect. The other of course is San Diego where they are stilling killing beavers because of the danger to the Arroyo Toad. I knew this research was in the works but I’m thrilled to see it come this far.
In their search for ancient beaver DNA, Baker and her team took sediment core samples from three lakes in Grand Teton National Park. One, Lake Solitude, was used as a control. Because Solitude is an alpine lake fed by snowmelt, the researchers didn’t expect to see evidence of beavers there and didn’t find any ancient beaver DNA. But ancient beaver DNA showed up in sediment from the other two lakes: Taggart Lake and Jenny Lake.
In both lakes, the team detected ancient beaver DNA in sediment from 7,250 years ago. Further analysis of the sediment cores showed that beavers have existed at Taggart Lake continuously (at least every 500 years) since about 5,000 years ago. Ancient beaver DNA detections in Jenny Lake were less continuous.
Of course you already know where I want this research repeated and it’s about 300 miles into the Tundra where all these mysteriously new beavers are causing global warming. But that’s just me. I’ll settle for San Diego for now.
The evidence uncovered by the research team showed that beavers were present during a regional shift to more wintertime precipitation and the growth of more water-loving trees such as poplars and willows, Baker said.
Although beavers might be responsible for the shift in vegetation, it’s also possible that they showed up in the region because the climatic shift influenced what was growing. “It’s kind of like, ‘What came first, the beaver or the poplar?’” said Emily Fairfax, an ecohydrologist at the University of Minnesota and a member of the research team.
Baker and Fairfax and their colleagues will present their results on 14 December at AGU’s Annual Meeting 2023 in San Francisco.
Well that must have been an interesting gathering.. I never heard one peep back from Emily about the Mercury findings and thought that was a little odd. Maybe there were clear lines drawn at the conference or food fights in the cafeteria. You never know where beaver disagreements are going to end up.
The new approach to piecing together beaver habitats could be helpful elsewhere. In California, for example, a beaver restoration program created this year is working to establish the animals in some ecosystems to help promote the return and persistence of other important species. But before they can be introduced, policies in the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife require program staff to demonstrate that the area is within beavers’ native range.
“Given the implications of the fur trade and the extirpation[of beavers] from many watersheds, we know that their current range does not reflect their historical, native range,” said Valerie Cook, program manager for the state’s beaver restoration program. Ancient DNA evidence, such as that found by Baker’s team, can provide the scientific evidence needed to allow program staff to introduce beavers, she said.
Are you reading this San Diego? We;re coming for you next.
Looking for ancient beaver DNA can help answer questions about how ancient novel ecosystems arose, too. The existence of beavers in a past ecosystem could explain, for example, confusing shifts in carbon storage in soils or perplexing pollen records. “There’s this missing piece that we can finally characterize,” Fairfax said.
I was thrilled to see this great new report from American Rivers with its smart cartoon and recommendations for the BLM and BIA. I think you will be too.
Freshwater ecosystems provide clean drinking water, reduce the impacts of floods and fires, and are essential habitat for fish and wildlife. Despite these benefits, rivers and wetlands are often undervalued and overlooked, and the rapid loss and degradation of freshwater systems is undermining our ability to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises. Some of the most common sense and cost-effective options to address these crises are nature-based solutions.
Nature-based solutions use or mimic natural features or processes to improve biodiversity, strengthen resilience for disaster and hazard-risk management, support climate adaptation, and store carbon to mitigate climate change. For freshwater systems, these strategies include protecting and restoring wetlands to capture and filter water, reconnecting streams and rivers with their floodplains to increase their ability to refill groundwater stores and dampen flooding, and managing for beavers to create, maintain, and expand wetlands. For example,managing for beavers can increase the health of streams and wetlands when established in the right location with minimal human-beaver conflict, making them one of the most cost-effective restoration practices available.
Well I can just tell we’re in for a good read now, come sit crisscross applesauce on the rug and let’s listen in…
Fortunately, this month, the United States took important steps to stimulate future investment in protecting and restoring these critical freshwater ecosystems. The U.S. Department of Interior, which oversees the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and Bureau of Reclamation, among others, released a new policy designed to prioritize the use of nature-based solutions and a roadmap which will guide investment in our river systems as well as inland and coastal wetlands. The Department also announced a plan to invest $51 million to restore and protect rivers across the country. These actions position the U.S. to accelerate thoughtful and strategic investment in our natural water infrastructure.
Prior to settlement and expansion across North America, healthy rivers and streams were abundant, recharging aquifers, slowing wildfires, and sustaining fish and wildlife. Over time, the stream systems that were once full of water and life have become narrower and straighter and less capable of serving the valuable role as natural sponges and vital habitat. Today, in part due to the absence of beavers on the landscape, most of our freshwater ecosystems are a shell of their former selves, leaving our communities and economies more vulnerable to persistent drought, record rainfalls, and urban flooding. Worse still, one of the nation’s principal tools for protecting and restoring healthy streams and wetlands, the federal Clean Water Act, was dramatically weakened earlier this year by a reckless Supreme Court decision.
I sure h0pe we are going to take this fight head on…If connected streams are the only ones that get protection, lets make some more connections shall we?
The severity of the climate and biodiversity crises requires urgent action backed by national plans and strategies that integrate and accelerate restoration for rivers and wetlands. As the U.S. looks to implement nature-based solutions at scale, here are three areas ripe for investment:
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) should launch a Healthy Riverscapes Initiative to prioritize riverscape restoration on BLM managed lands and partner with states, tribes, and local stakeholders to create good paying, private, non-profit, and public sector restoration jobs in rural and tribal communities. The Bureau should invest where: (a) conditions are right for low-tech, process-based restoration, (b) ecological and hydrological benefits are high, and (c) partner interest and stakeholder engagement is high. Finally, to support such an effort, the BLM should finalize its Public Lands Rule with strong provisions for both conserving and restoring priority lands and waterways.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs and other agencies should invest in and partner with tribal wildlife management programs that are leading the way in restoring beavers on their ancestral lands.Tribal communities have long recognized the value of maintaining beavers on their landscapes and are demonstrating what is possible when beavers are returned to these ecosystems. In addition to making deep and sustained investments to increase the capacity of tribally led fish and wildlife programs and agencies, we all have the responsibility to acknowledge and learn from our tribal and Indigenous colleagues as we seek to employ resilient and time-tested approaches to protect and restore our shared natural resources.
Congress should pass the bi-partisan Recovering America’s Wildlife Act (RAWA) to make a generational investment in state, tribal, and territorially led wildlife conservation programs which include habitat restoration. States like California, Oregon, and Utah have already begun incorporating beavers, and the habitat they create for other fish and wildlife, into their State Wildlife Action Plans—sustained and increased funding from RAWA could empower other states to follow their example.
Give the riverscapes back to the beavers. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s as they say. I like the way that sounds. Could you please add a sentence about not killing the ones that show up?
As the impacts from climate change march forward, our freshwater ecosystems will only increase in importance and value. It’s essential we use every tool in the toolbox, including nature-based solutions, to protect and restore our rivers, watersheds, and the benefitsthey provide.
Bartlett Police capture giant beaver inside St. Francis Hospital
