BEAVER IN YELLOWSTONE

heidi08 Beavers January 16, 2024

Way back when the beavers were first a stirring stick for controversy in Martinez, we came across the friendship of Phil Price. He was an environmental scientist and longtime conservationists with a real job in the field. who helped us get the story out. 15 years later he and his wife might might have stopped coming to visit our beavers but beavers are still on his radar. This is what was sent last night:

Juliet and I just got back from our winter trip to Yellowstone National Park — we go for ten days or so, most years. Here’s a very very short video we took, of a beaver climbing into its den (or do you still call it a ‘lodge’ even if it’s built into a bank?). You can hear Juliet exclaim in surprise: we had no idea the hole was there.

Well lodges can be in banks. but I don’t think this looks like a lodge unless the water was drained away recently. I don’t think that”s keeping any beaver safe in yellowstone, that’s for sure!

WALLOWA COUNY WELCOMES BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers January 15, 2024

What are your plans for lunch tomorrow? Maybe you can squeeze in a discussion about beavers and fish with your turkey and swiss on whole wheat…

Tuesday talk examines beavers in Wallowa County

Fish biologist Ian Wilson has a long interest in stream and habitat restoration, and a growing interest in the role of the humble beaver in shaping and managing ecosystems.

Wilson will speak about “Beaver in the County — Then and Now” during a free talk at noon Tuesday, Jan. 16 at the Josephy Center for Arts and Culture, 403 N. Main St., Joseph.

The Wallowa Valley, like most of North America before the plundering of beaver for European hats, was a series of beaver ponds, marshes, and playas. It is estimated that there were over 300 million North American beaver before the trapping frenzy.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about fish biologists over the past decade plus. it is that they mare, pretty much always very interested in beavers.

What did the Wallowa Valley look like 150 years ago? What happened to our ponds and marshes? And what will the reintroduction of beaver to our environment do?

Wilson is a project coordinator for the Grande Ronde Model Watershed, working on public and private lands with agency partners to plan, implement and monitor stream restoration projects in the Grande Ronde basin.

Before joining the Grande Ronde Model Watershed, he worked for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Nez Perce Tribe and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, implementing stream restoration projects and studying chinook and steelhead populations in Northeast Oregon. He has a bachelor’s degree in fisheries and wildlife from Oregon State University with a specialization in fisheries.

I sometimes get ruffled that beavers are only seen as a “means to an end” and not regarded in their own right. But mostly I am really really grateful for the folks who say that the best way to protect fish is to protect our beavers.

DO WOLVES EAT ANYTHING ELSE?

heidi08 Beavers January 14, 2024

As if we haven’t already seen enough footage of wolves eating beavers…..

Minnesota hunter catches unbelievable video of wolf catching a beaver

WCCO’s Jason Rantala breaks down why this video is such a big deal, and how it’s giving the Minnesota DNR new insight into our native wildlife.

FSRMERS WOULD RATHER BURN THAN BEAVER

heidi08 Beavers January 13, 2024

I was actually happy to see this articl from Dan Keppen. At least its honest and lets us know what we’re up against. The headline says it all

Leave it to beavers? Meh.

Talk to ranchers about water conservation instead.

According to the feds, NbS “use or mimic natural features or processes to improve biodiversity, strengthen resilience for disaster and hazard-risk management, support climate adaptation, and address carbon management to offset greenhouse gas emissions, while also benefiting both people and nature”.

That’s a lengthy definition, so it’s easy to understand why NbS means different things to different people. NbS recently funded by the Interior Department included projects like floodplain expansion and connection, fish passage development, and habitat repair.

NbS proponents in the Upper Colorado River Basin are promoting projects that “protect, restore or mimic natural water systems” by restoring high elevation headwaters, wet meadows, wetlands and floodplains.

That’s a slightly different take on NbS than what is being pushed in California. There, much has been made in the past year of the perceived supernatural engineering skills of one particular

NbS – beavers. The media – especially in the Bay Area – are really lapping this stuff up and think that reintroducing beavers (even in urban areas) is going to somehow help solve water challenges.

“California aims to tap beavers, once viewed as a nuisance, to help with water issues and wildfires” (AP), was just one of many such headlines we saw last July.

Oh get me some popcorn. This is going to be good and I want a front seat. Yes it does sometimes sound too good to be true, Dan. And it is both harder and easier than it sounds to cooperate with beavers.

Do we really believe that a few beaver dams are going to prevent the infernos caused by dysfunctional, environmental litigation-driven forest management policies over the past 40 years?

Some recent media coverage has even applied the term “ecosystem engineers” to beavers.

No. You can blame the media for lots and lots of things. But is LITERALLY what they are. Whether you write about them or not.

Personally, I don’t want any beavers “engineering” new “fire-proof” ponds, unless they happen to have engineering degrees from Oregon State University.

HAHAHA. Beavers do.

They are rodents, and they are unpredictable, as many Western ranchers familiar with beavers can tell you.

Unpredictable? I think of all the irritating qualities beavers possess, and there are plenty, being UNPREDICTABLE is not one of them. I think we can pretty much know the range of behaviors beavers are likely to do and they will usually do them all eventually.

I do believe that the near extirpation by trapping of Western beavers had a fundamental impact on the regional ecology. However, the modern West is a much different place than it was in the early 19th century; the Colorado River alone now supplies 40 million people with water. Real solutions must blend anthropogenic approaches with nature.

For example, controlled flood irrigation undertaken by many upper watershed ranchers and water managers today mimics historic natural flooding patterns that the beavers once provided.

Flooding often yields better quality and quantity of hay production than other irrigation methods. Flood irrigated lands can also provide vital habitat for migratory birds, sustain floodplain function, and recharge aquifers.

There are good examples of “beaver dam analog” projects undertaken by Western ranchers. The best opportunities to implement these and other types of NBS on public land are to work with ranchers who have permits with the Forest Service / BLM to ensure their interests are addressed.

You know who makes really really good beaver dam analogs? BEAVERS! That’s who.

NbS proponents must be open to having frank conversations about “unintended impacts” of NbS projects, including flooding, debris, and rodent control.

That can best be accomplished by working with those who are intimately familiar with local watersheds – landowners and water managers

Rodent Control! Hey i’m going to guess you think beavers breed like mice or nutria. Several times a year. And if you allow five beavers on your acreage you’ll soon end up with fifty.

Sure. Why should you actually LEARN anything from all this new writing about beavers. Why not just continue to sourly object to change even when it could benefit you to actually learn and try it.

Stick with what you know

BEAVER BENEFITS IN THE BBCC

heidi08 Beavers January 12, 2024

Lucy Sherriff is a smart reporter that used to be a free lance writer in the US that developed a passing interest in beavers. She used to complain that the best parts of her articles in the Smithsonian or the Discovery magazine were taken out. Now she works for the BBC and you can bet how happy beavers are about that.

The US is bringing back nature’s best firefighters: beavers

For decades, beavers were considered pests – trapped and shot on sight. Now the attitude towards nature’s best engineers is changing, and farmers are working to bring them back.

Beavers are vital to ecosystems, as their dam building habits spread water through parched landscapes. This can not only help to regulate the flow of water, it provides another important service – keeping fires under control. Beavers are nature’s firefighters.

Despite their monumental impact on the environment, beavers were almost wiped out in the US during the fur-trapping trade. And the land, like Wilde’s, has suffered greatly due to the decimation of beaver populations. Attitudes that beavers are a nuisance, because of the damage they can cause to human-built structures – such as flooding culverts, the drain pipes that channel water through roadways and other structures, and felling trees – also prevailed long after beaver fur hats went out of fashion. For decades, the animals were trapped, shot, poisoned, and their dams dynamited – all to eradicate the keystone species from their native lands. Landowners simply didn’t want them messing with the ecosystem. Since the battle against beavers began, numbers have shrunk from millions to thousands.

Did you get a second cup of coffee and settle in? Because this is going to be a great read with some of our best beaver friends. I can just feel it.

Now, the tide is beginning to shift, and beavers are making a comeback.

“From the 1950s until this year, beavers have been listed as predators in Oregon,” explains Jeff Baldwin, a geography professor at California’s Sonoma University who has published numerous studies on the advantages of recolonising beavers in the American West. “And in Oregon, if an animal is a predator you can kill it.”

A “beaver believer” bill was passed in Oregon in 2023, changing the animals’ status to furbearers, meaning they cannot be killed without a permit. The bill highlighted beavers’ role as a keystone species “that serves as nature’s engineer…[Their] habitat has the ability to provide refugia, stimulate the recovery of other species, and foster resilience on landscapes impacted by climate change”. But, the bill wasn’t popular with everyone – especially farmers.

“[The bill] creates an unnecessary and complicated system of beaver management for private agricultural landowners,” says Lauren Poor, vice president of legal affairs for the Oregon Farm Bureau, an agricultural advocacy organisation. “Our opposition to this needlessly complicated piece of legislation is no reflection on the value beavers play in the ecosystem or the benefits they have on repairing floodplains, however, the great value of beavers to our environment is best suited for public lands, not privately managed agricultural lands.”

That beaver bill sounds interesting, I’m thinking that Jeff is the right guy to talk about this stuff.

Oregon’s legislative change is indicative of what is unfolding across the American West. For many years, bureaucracy has been a huge hurdle for pro-beaver groups hoping to bring back the animals. But the years of “beaver believer” PR work is paying off.

“There’s been a rapid turnaround and increase in the understanding of the importance of beavers in our ecosystems,” says Peggy Darr, who runs the non-profit Defenders of Wildlife’s Southwest programme, and has been working on beaver reintroductions in New Mexico for the past six years. Darr is talking about the attitude of government agencies, but also says the public’s perception has shifted too. “There are a lot of misconceptions about beavers, but that’s starting to change.” Misconceptions include that beavers eat any kind of tree, when they are actually very picky, and that they compete with farmers for water, when beavers can in fact bring water back into the ecosystem.

“We’ve found that just through opening channels of communication, understanding the rural farming community’s concerns, and showing how we can address the negative things that come with beavers really helps,” says Darr.

Something as simple as installing pond levellers – dubbed “beaver deceivers” – can prevent beaver ponds from flooding houses or other structures, Darr explains. The leveller is a large pipe with a cage around one end that is inserted into a beaver dam. The cage means the beavers can’t plug the pipe up, and so the beaver pond water can’t rise above whatever level the pipe is inserted in at. “A lot of times we saw they came back the next day and started patching all around the pipe,” says Darr. “But no matter how much they patch on the pipe or try to build the dam taller, the water level will stay at the level of the pipe.”

I love any article that mentions flow devices! Lucy mentioned recently that this article was coming out. What a great lead in for 2024!

In northern New Mexico, Darr has seen farmers “drastically” change their perception of beavers. “They were pretty hesitant, but they saw first-hand how the beavers provided sustained, reliable water sources throughout the year, even during the hot dry summer we had. To see it is to believe it. We just have to show people what beavers can do for other wildlife, and humans.”

In December 2022, beavers were released into the wild in California for the first time in almost 75 years.

Really? I’m pretty sure that’s not right. The funding was just set aside in 22. I think she means 23 and that’s not right either because it was REPORTED in December but we found out later it actually happened in October.

State government-level change, like in Oregon and California, is a great first step, says Baldwin, but the reality is that public attitude towards beavers still needs work. In many states, beavers cannot be relocated, even across private land – and historically landowners have simply killed them. “I’m afraid that on the ground it may not mean as much as we would like,” he says. “There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence of people [in Oregon] just driving by beavers and seeing them and shooting them.”

We’re all about attitudes here at Worth A Dam central Let me at em!

California’s beaver reintroduction programme is a promising a step in the right direction, though, says Kate Lundquist, director of the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, the organisation which led the pilot programme. “We’re very hopeful that this is the beginning of a new era of proactive beaver conservation,” she says.

Nature’s engineers

For centuries, Native American tribes understood the importance of having beavers on the land. Not only do the wetland beavers provide a habitat for other animals, such as otters, turtles, and fish, they are also extremely efficient at protecting landscape from wildfires. Beavers create deep ponds by building dams, but they also dig long, thin canals that gradually spread water throughout landscapes. The slow flow of water allows the ground time to absorb it, which both encourages the growth of plants and flourishing of wildlife, but also acts as a firebreak as the ground is wet. In fact beavers are so great at shaping ecosystems, they’re often referred to as nature’s engineers – as well as firefighters.

Ecohydrologist Emily Fairfax studies how water interacts with its surrounding ecosystem. Fairfax examined years of aerial photographs from Western states where major wildfires and droughts had occurred. Amid the black, charred landscape following a destructive wildfire, Fairfax could see vibrant patches of green. Her study found that beaver-dammed riparian corridors are “relatively unaffected” by wildfire compared to other areas without beavers, and the animals play a “significant role” in fire resistance.

“Beavers are a major solution to helping us adapt to future climate change effects,” Darr says. “They’re amazing creatures that can help us a lot if we just learn to live with them.”

Go read the whole rest of the article. I promise you you’ll want to share it with friends and enemies alike.