Lots of peddling and back-peddling lately about when life begins and whether it takes an actual woman to make a baby but this is a much better origin story.

Enjoy

Okay, my radical thought that beavers do not notch their dams created some argument on the beaver management forum. Including this comment from Emily Fairfax which I repost here:

I’ve seen beavers pull sticks out of their dams and “notch” them. They’re pretty good about moving water through their wetland complexes, and hydrologic extremes like drought and flood are good motivators for the beavers to try to move water around. There was a pretty big dam in Colorado that I studied during grad school that the beavers removed sticks from the same notch each year before snowmelt, presumably to give the water a spillway and take pressure off the rest of the dam face. Definitely could use some more research on how common this is, but I wouldn’t say it’s impossible or something that never happens.

Hmm. Its an  interesting idea of course. And I have great respect for her observations and research. But it requires that beavers know when the snow is going to melt,  Also since the effect of removing a stick would be exactly the same as the effect of a stick getting washed away so I’m choosing to remain censorious.

It makes as much sense to me as suggesting they notch them so the salmon can get over easier. Or that spiders destroy their webs so that moths can pass thru at night. Or that animals remove their footprints after a fresh snow so that hunters can’t find them. Its  a cause and effect problem.

I know that all beavers are not the same. And that our beavers didn’t know everything or show us everything. I remember the difference between the “Useless bookends” and “Reed” for example. I even have seen beavers get smarter over time.

I had the odd fortune of watching beavers construct dams directly under me for a decade including little dams and failed dams and trial dams by kits that were made with reeds.I’ve seen dams wash out in storms and get ripped out by kayaks and even watched otters poke holes in them with their heads. I’ve seen Dad beaver move sticks his kids placed to better locations and bring larger trunks for kids that refused to work with wood. One morning I even saw Dad actually lift one end onto the dam to strongly suggest wood was used. and watched that stubborn little iconoclast push it off because that kit [referred reeds.

I have never seen beavers notch a dam before a storm and until I do I’m not going to believe it happens. I love beavers enormously and am their greatest admirer but I do not think they watch the weather channel.

This is a fun new series rom the beaver trust that started yesterday with basic beaver biology. Now a look at why the build dams.

I’m enjoying this series but I think they are wrong to credit the beaver with “making notches in the dam” during storms. I’m pretty sure its the increased water pressure during a storm that makes the notches.

Sheesh.

You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it: I loved you not.

Sometimes good news just laps in waves on the shore of our awareness, and the bulwark of primitive thinking does everything it can to resist. You can see the timeless struggle acted out on the page and even in the same paragraph sometimes! We know better but we do the same old thing because, well. its easier.

Letter to the editor: Beaver benefits

Happy New Year to all. Perhaps this new year will bring more attention in Colorado to the benefits of beavers helping solve our environmental problems. The following videos are convincing stories of how other nations and states are doing just that.

Please, let’s start building Beaver Dam Analogues (BDAs), especially in our fire-stricken streams. Government employees, especially firefighters and volunteers should do this if we want to help save our ecosystems.PS: Our nation’s trout, salmon and ranchers will also greatly benefit.

That’s sees pretty straight forward right? There’s even a helpful video to guide folks…

So you’d think, wow the information is OUT there. People can know just what to do. So it must be easier to do it, right? Well. not so easy as you might think…

Busy beavers gnawing away at New Jersey man’s patience, one tree at a time

“Arrogant” and “selfish” beavers are gnawing away at Chris Ritter’s peace of mind.

While North America’s largest rodent is generally considered to be one of earth’s master architects, building whole aquatic ecosystems from felled trees, the beaver is the destroyer of Ritter’s world, particularly the swampy backyard beyond his pool and hot tub in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens.

Selfish? Beavers are selfish?

“That’s not a pond, that’s my lawn,” Ritter said on a recent February afternoon.

“Beavers are just doing what beavers do, realistically. It’s hardwired into them to create this perfect atmosphere for themselves,” said Adam Burnett, executive director of the Beaver Institute, a nonprofit that aims to resolve “beaver-human conflicts in a science-based manner.”

Okay so you are talking to the experts. that;s great. Someone to tell you how to solve these issues and why you should coexist. I”m so glad Adam is on the case,

Biologists, state and federal agencies, and nonprofits acknowledge that the beavers can become a nuisance and require management. Helping landowners with downed trees and flooding is a large part of the Beaver Institute’s work, Burnett said.

“We aim for coexistence and this is the main complaint,” Lambert said. ”With New Jersey being so densely populated too, that’s the challenge.”

The Beaver Institute recommends “pond-leveling pipes” to keep water flowing between flooded areas and fences to protect trees over the alternative: trapping. The institute will even financially assist landowners with their problems as long as they commit to allowing beavers to remain on their property.

Okay, so experts and expert solutions. Great; Lets ,bring in the right tool for the job and solve this thing.

Ritter, 53, said there’s a downside to that, noting that flooded land and felled trees displace deer, mice, racoons, and countless other animals and insects, including rare birds and snakes. He reiterated that in a recent Pinelands-related Facebook group post that generated hundreds of comments, in which he called beavers “selfish” animals that “can’t live with others.”

Some accused him of anthropomorphizing animals.

No I think he’s on to something. Someone is definitely being selfish. Hmm let me think who it might be.

“An old cranberry grower once told me that ‘people either want beaver around or Atlantic white cedar, but they can’t have both, there’s no in between’,” Moore said.

Moore allows licensed fur trappers to take beavers off his land every year. He said beavers are “dumb.”

Oh. The article starts of with wisdom and flow devices but it still ends up here. At the trappers doorstep. Gee what a surprise.

Trapping, in New Jersey, is regulated by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection via its Division of Fish and Wildlife. There are beaver and otter trapping seasons, broken down by geographic zones, with limits on the number of animals a licensed trapper can take in a short-time span.

Trapping enthusiasts believe there’s not enough permits issued and noted that in 2020, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy vetoed a bi-partisan bill that would have “removed statutory limitations” on the number of beaver that could be taken in the state.

More dead beavers. That’s what we all need. Forget the wildlife and water that depends on them. Forget the firebreaks. We need more dead beavers.

“There’s beaver everywhere,” said Robert Staudt, a former field and education director for the New Jersey Trappers Association.

Ritter’s a fisherman and hunter, but he’s not interested in trapping beavers himself or even paying a pest control service to do it. It’s illegal to shoot them, he noted.

Potential fur trappers must take an education course in which they have to demonstrate being able to skin an animal. Trapping enthusiasts say that’s done to weed out anti-hunting and trapping activists who, in the past, would try to get beaver permits, which are limited, and never use them.

Trappers say beavers aren’t that hard to catch — they swim through a submerged trap that, ideally, kills them instantly when it slams shut — but the work is cold and wet.

Oh poor babies.

“It’s probably the most physically demanding of all fur trapping,” Staudt said.

Ritter, a security technology consultant, was able to obtain a special out-of-season depredation permit for beavers that cause damage. That will permit him to allow trappers on his property to take the beavers out. That process involves an inspection by the the United States Department of Agriculture looks for evidence of flooding to roads, homes, septic system, wells, agricultural fields, or majority of lawn/landscaped area.

“My grass and my property’s gone and my trees are getting destroyed. Not to mention the mosquito problem,” he said, motioning to his swampy yard. “I don’t want to kill a ton of beavers, but something needs to be done because next year it’s going to be worse and the year after it’s going to be worse.”

Trapping and relocating beavers, while difficult, is often the ideal solution for those seeking coexistence but in New Jersey, it’s illegal to relocate most wildlife. Trappers, historically, often sold beaver pelts and at their meat. One trapper said they taste like beef and make a great stew.

Ritter, who has a stuffed beaver in his “man cave,” said he doesn’t want to skin one or eat it.

“I just want to get them out of here,” he said.

Can we just stop for  a moment and consider what a fine specimen of humanity this man is? With his MAN CAVE and STUFFED beaver. I’m sure there is nothing small or mishapen about his wide-ranging ecological understanding, his deep compassion or his own genitals.

Aren’t you?

 

 

Sometimes we get positive beaver articles from doubtful places. Like when people can’t quite believe their own eyes about the differences beaver-pests can make. This article struck me that way. Damming with feint praise?

Backyard Naturalist: Audrey Dunn – Beavers can provide a great benefit

Turning my attention to a certain semi-aquatic mammal, on the other hand, has been more gratifying. I’m referring to an animal with webbed hind feet, a slap-happy tail and a notorious reputation for causing floods – the North American beaver.

First of all, you don’t have to wait for snowfall to create a canvas for tracks in order to find signs that we share our landscape with these stout little engineers. And because evidence of beaver activity doesn’t quickly disappear, you can visit the same beaver marsh in every season and take note of slight changes. Walk along the banks of a beaver pond in late summer, for example, and you’ll be able to make out beaver-sized channels running perpendicular to the bank — pathways out of the water and onto land.

Beavers definitely have an address you can return to. That’s nice of them.

Take the same walk in winter, and you just might find that these channels have turned into snowy, two-foot-wide trails that lead all the way to the beaver’s next felling project or favorite grove of tasty trees.  If you’re lucky, you might see drag marks from a branch or sapling that was brought back to join the other birch, willow or maple meals cached outside their den in preparation for ice-over. train helps rescue Mt. Washington hiker in brutal conditions

Alright brace yourselves:

I admit that they can make kayaking difficult, and if I owned a home near one I might be worried. We have to keep in mind, though, that beavers are ecosystem engineers. They aren’t simply creating dams; rather, they are creating entire ecosystems which are, by and large, beneficial.

By and large beneficial. Did you get that? Mighty white of her to offer such effuse praise. Don’t you agree?

Beaver dams obstruct the movement of a river or brook, forcing the water to spread over the landscape. The result is a shallow, slow- moving and nutrient-rich marsh or pond where plant species can take root and thrive in places they otherwise could not. This creates a complex vegetative structure that attracts a diversity of fauna. In effect, when beavers create habitat for themselves, they are creating habitat for countless other species too.

An additional benefit of beaver dams is, perhaps counterintuitively, flood mitigation. Because water moves at a slower rate and lower volume through beaver habitat, their dams actually serve as a stabilizing force, protecting downstream communities from flash flooding while also reducing erosion and improving water quality.

Yes these annoying little kayak-blockers save water and prevent flooding. Can you believe it? It’s like finding out that  using roundup cures cancer!

With that in mind, let’s zoom out for a moment, all the way out to the scale of satellite imagery. Yes, that’s right — evidence of beavers is visible from space. The very hydrological changes that mitigate flooding also make their habitat relatively drought-resistant, to the extent that their watery ecosystems have even been observed functioning as firebreaks and likely wildlife refuges during wildfires out west.

For instance, after a fire swept across Idaho in 2018, charring 65,000 acres of land, one lush pocket of emerald green was observed by satellite — a beaver wetland. Ensuing studies found that, post-wildfire, beaver ponds improve water quality and promote native plant species recovery. Scientists are now optimistic about the role that beavers might play as a nature-based climate-change solution.

Well well well. Who would have guessed that this water rat can actually help the planet. I mean other than anyone who has been paying attention and all of us.

So, the next time you come across an approximately five-inch-long, webbed footprint in the snow, I hope you’ll take a moment to observe not only the nearby gnawed trees and fresh wood shavings, the lodge and the dams, but also to look around and wonder what else is beaver evidence. To question which plants became established there because of beavers, which animals took up residence there because of those plants, and which species might be able to thrive there in the future, despite a changing climate. And, finally, to understand that you are simply one of many individuals who has entered the domain of the beaver.

To answer my oft-asked tracking questions, Where are they now? What are they doing? In winter I like to imagine beavers warm in their lodge, surrounded by all they’ve created, taking a well-deserved rest.

Beavers hunker down in winter and bide their time. They know spring is coming soon. Yesterday we could feel it and birds started looking thru the nest boxes, When I watched this melting wonderland I had to smile very wide indeed.