KIDS STEM – SOLUTIONS – BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers January 31, 2024

I don’t think, in the history of this website in 17 years there has ever come a day when I was forced to choose between TWO fantastic articles about managing beavers by using flow devices and keeping their benefits on the landscape.

TWO!
Same day. Different countries. Different problem solvers. But since the first is from the Sierra Club about Vancouver and we’ve covered that story many many times I will focus on the second.

Last week I got an email from Felicia Evans who was looking for ways to mitigate beaver issues and help her students using Stem learning principals. I wrote her back and introduced her to some local resources and told her about Martinez and also that the next beaver con will be held in Colorado.

I’m guessing she and the students found their way.

Stem kids find solution to help beaver family habitat

(DENVER) — Students from a STEM Launch program in Denver are attempting to help a family of beavers that live in a creek that flows behind their school.

The third and seventh-grade students of STEM Launch K-8 of Adams 12 Five Star Schools in Thornton, Colorado, are teaming up to find solutions that will preserve the beaver family’s habitat while also protecting the ecosystem. Beaver dams can add stability to—and also inadvertently create problems for—their surrounding environment. The kids are looking for ways to support the ecosystem without disturbing the beavers’ peace.

Third-graders in the STEM Launch program are focusing on understanding ecosystems, and how the beavers fit into, and affect, their surroundings. Seventh-graders are looking at how beavers’ dam-building activities inadvertently affect their surroundings. The kids are studying a specific family of beavers who have made their home in Niver Creek.

How many parts of this story am I in love with? First that the creek in question is by a SCHOOL and that the two groups are third and 7th grade respectively. What a perfect mix. Old enough to help wrap trees and young enough to still be cute. Perfect!

According to a press release from STEM Launch Coordinator Felicia Evans, the kids are learning something from this project that goes beyond science. They are learning responsibility and kindness.

The students are preparing to present their findings on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 2024. “While their dam-building activities are causing environmental concerns, our students are exploring solutions that protect both the beavers and the local ecosystem,” explained Evans. “What better day to showcase their love for nature and wildlife than on Valentine’s Day?”

i am thrilled that they found solutions, and thrilled that someone understood this well enough to involve young people. Remember Colorado is where Sherri TIppie has worked for decades so if there aren’t some hearts softened towards beavers there there is zero chance for the rest of the nation.

Good work, Felicia!

Martinez Children watching Beaver- Suzi Eszterhas
Children watching beaver in urban environment
Martinez, CA
*Model release available – #Martinezbeavers_3

POINT PINOLE: BEAVERS IN TRANSIT

heidi08 Beavers January 30, 2024

Someone wrote me yesterday about how sorry they were to find a dead beaver on the shoreline back in December. They were wistful about finding live beaver and being able to watch them.

I personally was delighted. Point Pinole is in the middle of San Pablo Bay which is just a short hop from Marin where they are waiting impatiently for their beaver delivery. Although we don’t know where this little guy died in transit of was washed downstream in a storm I’m going to take it as a good sign.

NOSE TO NOSE

heidi08 Beavers January 29, 2024

This to me is the best beaver photo I have ever seen. It is from Pamela Adams of Beaver Insights in Oregon. She maintains several trail cams to observe beavers living near her home. I just can’t believe this is from a trail cam, do you?

IDAHO KNOWS BEAVERS ARE BIGGER THAN CHICKENS

heidi08 Beavers January 28, 2024

I like to imagine a better world for beavers. You know one where every culvert installed comes with its own built in beaver deceiver. Where farmers and ranchers get dollar incentives for every beaver dam on their land.

Where volunteers use welded wire to wrap trees in IDAHO. Oh wait, that’s not a dream

Volunteer program protects some Boise River trees from browsing beavers

BOISE — The remaining snow on the ground along the Boise River on Tuesday provided a snapshot of the local wildlife scene.

Small clusters of four prints? Squirrels. Clusters of two prints with elongated toes and webbed feet? Beavers.

Beavers make their homes along the Boise River, and are well-known for engineering the river ecosystem by felling trees, building dens, and creating ponds that provide habitat for lots of different species, said Kristin Gnojewski, community volunteer coordinator for the city of Boise.

In the winter, they switch from eating grasses and reeds to tree trunks. A beaver can kill a tree when it gnaws a continuous ring around its trunk, even if it doesn’t topple the tree.

Idaho!!! The state where obstetricians are afraid to work becaus3 the laws about pregnancy are too dangerous to practice. Fencing trees for beavers!And its not even chicken wire! Be still my heart!

The city manages about 12.5 miles of riverbank on either side of the Boise River, and on Tuesday, Gnojewski was leading a group of volunteers in protecting black cottonwoods and other tree species along the river from hungry beavers. The program, which has been ongoing for more than a decade, involves volunteers placing a loose cage of chicken wire or other wire around the base of trees, preventing the beavers from approaching it close enough to chew it.

In late December, a Facebook post from the Boise Parks and Recreation Department inviting the public to sign up for volunteer slots to wrap trees elicited impassioned comments from beaver detractors and advocates alike.

“Do you one better and bring in trappers,” one poster said.

“Excuse my ignorance, but is it not the beaver’s natural habitat … wiring the trees won’t that cause harm to these beavers?” another said.

The post was soon updated to clarify the reasons for the city’s program.

Though the Boise River may seem like a wild or semi-wild area, it is a highly engineered environment, Gnojewski said. As the city of Boise developed, having a river that regularly changed course and burst its banks became a liability. Engineers at the time worked to straighten and channelize the river, adding levees, to keep it on the same course.

Ahh that’s the kind of fevered snark I’d expect. But would trappers be better They will only fix the problem until the next beaver comes along. This will fix it long term. Well done!

But the lack of regular flooding has impacted the ecology of the trees that line the river’s banks. Black cottonwoods, one of the beavers’ favorite foods, is a keystone species, meaning that it supports many other species in the river ecosystem, Gnojewski said.

The trees grow tall, providing shade that cools the river, keeping it habitable for different fish species, she said. The nutrients from its fallen leaves provide food to aquatic insects, and its roots prevent erosion, she said.

Though the cottonwoods are known for their copious, fluffy seed production, baby black cottonwood seeds sprout best in areas that have flooded recently, something that doesn’t happen along the river regularly any longer, Gnojewski said. The city’s goal is to protect cottonwoods of many ages, which means identifying some trees to wrap, encouraging the beavers to move on to other trees, Gnojewski said.

“We’re trying to do what we can to preserve some of the genetic diversity of the mature trees, as well as some of the younger trees, so we constantly have this maturing forest,” she said.

The goal is not to wrap every tree, just some, she said.

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game believes the beaver population along the Boise River to be healthy, Gnojewski said.

Gnojewski is leading volunteer workdays for tree wrapping most Tuesdays at various locations from 10 a.m.-noon this winter. Interested people can check the schedule and sign up through the city’s website.

You know Martinez made us all sign a “hold harmless” contract to have volunteers planting trees of wrapping trees. Do you think Boise does that ?

“It just feels good, and it’s important work,” Rohlfing said, noting the river’s importance to recreation and agriculture. “I think anything I can do if I have time to help give back is just the right thing to do.”

Howard Sheppa, another volunteer, said, “We’re so fortunate to have all of this — the beavers, the birds, the fish, and everything else. That’s pretty special, very special. Well worth the effort to protect.”

TORONTO TO HOUSTON BELIEVERS

heidi08 Beavers January 27, 2024

Two wonderful beaver stories broke yesterday. One from Toronto and one from Dallas. We could probably wait for the rest of our lives and the next one before something like this ever happens again.

Houston’s bad beaver is California’s good beaver

You might recall my blog from November about the Idaho Fish and Game 1940s project to relocate bothersome beavers.

They parachuted beavers to a new home and that proved effective in more than one way–the nuisance from the beavers disappeared and the beavers did great work on a part of southwestern Idaho’s forests and rivers.

In fact, today some eighty years later, the beavers’ home is lusher, greener, and more full of life than surrounding areas thanks to all that dam building and reforestation. Proof positive: in 2018 the Sharps Fire burned some 65,000 acres of that Idaho refuge and did NOT affect the beaver’s home of wetland complexes.

Boy it’s true what they say. A picture really is worth 1000 words. That one has sure ;left a mark on society. Thank you Joe Wheaton.

Given all this in Idaho, I was delighted but not surprised to see an article where the California Department of Fish and Wildlife released a small group of beavers to their native habitat for the first time in 75 years!

Beaver populations were decimated by the fur trade a hundred years ago and, as we know, beavers can be brats when it comes to damaging trees and building dams where we don’t want them.

In fact, just this week, neighborhoods in Livingston were cut off due to high water because beavers had dammed up the culvert! When our heavy rains came, the drainage system had fallen victim to beavers doing what beavers do.

Clearly, beaver shenanigans can be a pain in the fur. So this new attempt in California to co-exist with these rascally rodents is refreshing! Valeria Cook, who manages this beaver restoration program, says: many government agencies statewide are spending hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year just to mimic what beavers naturally do to restore the natural ecosystems they live in. The animals are capable of reconnecting streams to floodplains and can help recover near-extinct species like coho salmon by creating new wetland habitats and encouraging the growth of the plankton and insects they feed on. Beaver dams can also slow down water flow and improve water quality by preserving sediment and nutrients in streams.

Valeria? Really? Just to be clear. moving 7 beavers from Sutter to Plumas isn’t trying to “Coexist”. Coexisting is what Martinez did and what Napa and Fairfield doing. Unfortunately there aren’t big news cameras and photographers to document that.