Because the beaver isn't just an animal; it's an ecosystem!

Month: April 2025


Maybe you remember our buddy at in Oakland Michigan that started his own beaver festival a few years back. Well apparently he was so effective he got followers. Here’s a great opinion piece from last week.

Opinion: Dam good engineers — The unsung architects of the wild

By now most of the campus community is aware that Oakland University is home to a mated pair of beavers who’re living in a beautiful new wetland next to the bio-preserve.

Imagine the lull of a babbling brook, the chirping of birds, and the soft whispers of wind. OU’s beaver wetland is a peaceful and wonderful space that is enjoyed by all the new species it has brought — as well as the humans who are lucky enough to experience it.

However, many are still unaware that beavers were added to the Michigan “nuisance” kill list in 2023. That means that it is legal to trap and kill these animals without a permit by landowners for the crime of being “physically present where it could imminently cause damage.”

Since it is easier to kill an animal rather than find a better solution, Michigan encourages killing for the sake of convenience, which is ironic when people are the ones who irresponsibly extract from our environments, making us more of a ”nuisance” to the environment than beavers. 

But we can stop this – we can fix this.

We can start by coexisting with two innocent campus beavers and advocating for their safety and right to live at home on their own land. This is important to us, so it should be important to you. The popularity of our two beavers is growing, but we need to have a conversation about coexistence. 

Their names are Waabi and Sookaa (Ojibwe nicknames meaning “flower” and “soft and fluffy,”) and they’ve reclaimed a small bit of land and creek that was stolen from their species by colonization and suburban sprawl.

Excellent work! I am a crazy fan of a anyone that proclaims that fixing a problem is better than killing it!

They live on our campus now and are quite in love with each other and their home.

One thing that we would like to point out, in light of their species being put on the nuisance kill list, is that removing these beavers would mean breaking a commitment that Oakland University made to Native peoples in their land acknowledgment. It would mean that students are being taught it is okay to abolish coexistence, and it would mean that the biodiversity on our campus would be threatened. 

The irony in making a commitment to Native peoples while actively seeking to remove a treasured animal in their culture is stark. Beavers, otherwise known as “Amik” in Ojibwe, are revered in Native culture for their intelligence, hard work, and diplomacy. They are an animal relative that represents the power of adaptability.

When Oakland University created their land acknowledgement, they also created a bond with the beaver. You can’t make a commitment to Native peoples without making a commitment to Amik as well. 

Here is the most important excerpt from the land acknowledgement that really illustrates the gravity of the recognition:

“Oakland University sits on traditional and ancestral lands and waters of the Anishinaabe people, also known as the Three Fires Confederacy comprised of the Ojibwe, the Odawa, and the Potawatomi. I recognize my privilege of learning and teaching in this space and commit to aligning my work with acts, words, and deeds that illustrate my solidarity with and acknowledgment of the sovereignty of Michigan’s twelve federally recognized Tribes.” 

Notice the wording here: “recognize,” “privilege,” “solidarity.”

Our land acknowledgement means that we should look carefully at how it includes species that are an important part of Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Potawatomi cultures. They live on the ancestral lands of these Tribes, the ancestral lands that Oakland University sits on.  

It is always a good idea to loop in native peoples and folks that were smart enough to coexist long before trappers.

We want you to understand that coexistence is possible, and it is incredibly easy to achieve. The university should use this as a teaching opportunity to educate students on coexistence rather than seeing them as a “nuisance.” There are many reasons to adopt this approach, including honoring Native people, using the wetland as a classroom, adapting means for coexistence, and encouraging biodiversity.

Beavers deserve to be advocated for because they are – contrary to popular belief – beneficial for the environment.

According to The Beaver Institute,“their dams create wetlands that are among the most biologically-productive ecosystems in the world.” Beaver presence in North America also has the potential to reverse the devastating impacts of human-made climate change, just by going about their daily routines. 

The Beaver Institute enumerates some of these effects as well:

“Beaver dams improve water quality through filtering out contaminants and heavy metals, reduce downstream flooding damage from large storm events, restore watershed health, replenish drinking water aquifers, and even lessen the impact of wildfires.” 

Unfortunately, people fear beavers because their dams create ponds and wetlands. However, there are ways to combat this fear without removing the beavers, such as flow devices, which Ben Goldfarb describes as “pipe-and-fence systems that partially drain ponds by creating a leak that not even a beaver can plug.”

If we want to coexist with the beaver and keep reaping the benefits, we need to implement a strategy that doesn’t require taking them out of their environment.

Waabi and Sookaa have brought biodiversity and beauty back to our campus and they can help us maintain it. Beavers are a keystone species, which means that they are a species on which ecosystems heavily rely, and if they were to be removed the ecosystem would be damaged.

All of these additional species Waabi and Sookaa have brought to campus are necessary for a healthy planet, and if we remove the beavers, we are chasing these other species away.

Even here at Oakland, we have a community of beaver lovers who understand the importance of Waabi and Sookaa being here with us. There have been two Beaver Fests, which are celebratory events dedicated to beavers and their importance.

Nicholas Skinner, the director of sustainability for OU’s Student Congress, shared thoughts with Matilde Rabajoli of The Oakland Post about the festival.

“We’re celebrating the beavers on campus, which have done a wonderful thing, they’ve brought back a wetland in the bio preserve.”

In addition, we have a growing coalition of faculty and student members called Team Beaver who are advocating for them. They have installed a staff gauge in Galloway Creek to monitor water levels, as well as a weather station to monitor precipitation and other factors that impact the area.

These actions are important because they assist in maintaining the wetland for beavers, in addition to providing data that can be used to reach the goal of coexistence. 

Students can also be a part of Team Beaver, and there is no better opportunity than now to join. There is already a positive sentiment towards Waabi and Sookaa among both students and faculty, so let’s continue that trend and prove to Oakland University that we need Waabi and Sookaa here, and we are going to find ways of not simply coexisting with them, but of embracing them on our campus. 

Amik is a testament to the power of working together toward a common goal, so let’s honor them by working together to keep Waabi and Sookaa thriving and showing students how unity can form ripples of change, both within ecosystems and communities.

Beavers remind us that collaboration is not just a tool, it’s a way of life. Let’s build a bridge between nature and humanity and celebrate our industrious engineers by embodying their spirit in our efforts to protect the world we share. Every dam built by a beaver is a reminder that together, we can shape the future for the better. 

 

Build bridges not walls. Beavers can help. Great lettter  I want these letters  on every campus.


Twenty days ago CDFW released the two year summary of their highly acclaimed “beaver relocation plan”. It was hailed with a reception of cheer and inspiring footage of Mr, Bonham  himself saying we were better with beavers on the land. Our beaver friends around the state high-fived each other and drank in the success.

I was not among them.

I carefully viewed and reviewed the report, talked to colleagues and researched details, then I wrote a two page review of their report. I carefully sent it it to all the right places and gave them time to respond. I heard nothing back so I waited.

And waited,

Two weeks later I’m assuming they tossed my remarks in the circular file and I’m instead going to share them here. I cannot  guess whether they will ever be read, but I can no longer keep them silent. I can only hope that one of the reasons Molly Alves was hired to direct this team is because at some level folks saw this was as much of a clusterf*ck as I did.

The painting was a special favor by Erika and I thought of it later but may still send it If I don’t talk myself  down from the ledge.



Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the

 wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

One can read this quote and easily replace the word “Advice”  with the word “Beavers”. Because even when translocation is done in the best way for the best reasons things can still turn horribly wrong.

Reading your April report on the beaver releases proves the point: the high mortality rate of  “40-60” percent and perceived lack of clarity on beaver biology and behavior is disappointing,  I realize this project is a work in progress and you are learning as you go, but the effort is using limited taxpayer dollars  and finite human goodwill so of course everyone wants that learning curve to be as brief as possible.

The best parts of the report focus on restoration and hydrological gains attributed to the beavers. This made the mostly hopeful minds that reviewed it feel cheered by the projects success. However, since my perspective is wholly beaver-centric I am much more alarmed.

Other than stating that the beavers in question were “causing depredation” on municipal state or conservancy land you do not clarify who did the trapping. I assume they were not very good at it because it took them 561 days to trap 30 beavers. And one was so traumatized that he died of a heart attack.

At a rate of  a single beaver every three weeks we can assume your trappers were mostly doing something else on those 561 nights, maybe even lethal trapping. Their  success rate suggests that the skill sets for the two are very different.

In the maidu release you say that “7 members of the same family” were taken including

an adult breeding pair, one subadult, and four kits from two litters; three were larger, early-season kits and one was a small, late-season kit.

Kits born to the same family are all from a single season. Female beavers enter estrus only once a year and all their litter is born at the same time.  The only way there could be two litters is if there were two females. Certainly over the 10 years we closely observed our family of beavers we occasionally saw a litter with beavers of very different sizes but they were still from the same season, as all yours were unless you accidently ‘kitnapped’  a beaver from another family.

When tagging the beaver for data collection  the burden on the animal must be weighed against the usefulness or value of the data given. Certainly providing an animal with different color eartags that will never be visible on night cam (which since beavers  are nocturnal is the only time they’ll ever be filmed) is of limited value. Tail monitors, while convenient, are cumbersome and often torn loose by an animal that is constantly moving and removing brush.

Of course any reader Is likely to be alarmed by the high predation rate. it is neither humane nor cost effective to reintroduce beavers solely to enrich the diet of black bears. It is concerning that you were so unaware of predator population in the selected release sites. Moreover,  the photo provided of the perhaps well meaning ‘temporary lodge’ reflects a deep ignorance of beavers and the purpose of a lodge in the first place.

Obviously in order to provide safety of any kind the entrance of that lodge must be UNDER WATER, The report indicates you stopped offering lodges because

we ultimately found that these likely increased the risk of predation by attracting predators

No kidding!

Maybe the  lodge in the photo was pre-manufactured before you knew the depth of the water. As a result  it sits  neatly on the soil and means that any beaver can get in but is ruthlessly trapped in the lodge if pursued. The notion that you would include this photo in your report suggests that even now you don’t understand why its so inadequate and  you assume no one reviewing the report will understand it either.

I saw this summary  covered in the news in celebratory tones and watched my creek-restoring colleagues high-fiving at the successful dams and water storage. To my reading that means that the dislocated beavers that were lucky enough to avoid predation did an excellent job adapting to their new surroundings and forcing their new surroundings to adapt to them.

However, the educated  professionals paid by the state of California were less successful. You are charged with protecting  the public interest in wildlife, preserve natural resources that benefit our streams and woodlands, improve biodiversity  and restore beaver presence on the landscape in a way that benefits their repopulation and our own interests in sport  fishing, duck hunting, and fire resilience. This report indicates that to date you have not yet got it right.

It is my strongest recommendation that you have this report reviewed by beaver relocation experts in both Washington state and Oregon where this work has been well understood for decades. I recommend Alexa Whipple who runs the beaver reintroduction program at the Methow Project and Vanessa Petro with  Oregon forests who did beaver relocation research under Dr. Jimmy Taylor at USDA. I also advise that you bring an experienced rehab practitioner to both wildlife holding facilities to evaluate the best ways to minimize trauma during capture and housing. Both Sonoma Wildlife and UCDavis have extensive experience rehabilitating beaver and can help improve your efforts.

The state of California has come a very  long way in a very short time in recognizing why our state  deserves and is benefitted by a healthy beaver population. We still have a long way to go and  years of catching up to do.

Keep trying and do better.

And just in case you have a hard time remembering the original, here it is in all its scientific gory glory.

2024 Status Report on Beaver Restoration Pilot Projects_ADA

 

 


Well those around Okanagan B.C. anyway…

Got beavers? Okanagan landowners wanted for program that can help

Anyone with busy beavers on their property knows their natural activities can be a hassle, as the critters can plug up culverts and build dams that cause flooding and elevated water flow.

Some property owners respond by setting kill traps to remove beaver colonies, but Kelowna resident Eva Hartmann is working to change that, as she completes her studies with the Beaver Institute, an organization in the United States.

“Through my program I’m becoming more knowledgeable in helping property owners resolve beaver conflicts without resorting to kill-traps,” Hartmann told iNFOnews.ca said. “The problem is always increasing as our urban spaces expand.”

Hartmann is the executive director of the Interior Wildlife Rehabilitation Society in Summerland and has years of experience working with wildlife, including orphaned beavers, but said this project is separate from the society, and she can’t complete the program without the public’s help.

She is looking for a property owner in the Okanagan who needs help dealing with beavers that have dammed a creek or blocked a culvert on their property, posing a flooding risk for roads or nearby buildings. 

“Beavers live in smaller streams or rivers where there are culverts installed under the roads for the stream to flow through and if the beaver plugs the culvert it causes flooding,” she said. “The roads flood frequently if the culverts are unprotected, which can be mitigated by putting the correct kind of fencing on it.

Here that girls and boys? She’s working with the beaver institute and can help you! This is my favorite part:

Through her role with the Interior Wildlife Rehabilitation Society, Hartmann and her team have rehabilitated and relocated beavers to suitable habits along with help from local conservation groups and First Nations, projects that are lengthy and complicated.

She is working to prevent beavers from being killed, injured or orphaned in the first place. Beavers do important work in the environment by slowing and spreading the flow of water with their dams, making water tables higher.

Hear that? NO MORE ORPHANS!!! Finally a rehabber who doesn’t just put videos of cute babies on Youtube. She’s trying to prevent orphans in the first place!

Headquartered in North Vancouver, the Fur-Bearers is a wildlife protection charity that works to protect fur bearing animals through conservation, advocacy, research and education.

So far, Hartmann hasn’t found a property owner to collaborate with.

“It’s a little tricky as beavers are still mostly kill-trapped if anyone in B.C. has issues with them,” she said. “Installations like this are happening all over Canada and the states, there are companies with experience in doing this, but B.C. is lagging behind.

“It’s time we catch up and stop taking the easy way out by defaulting to kill-trapping.”

If you’d like to reach out to Hartmann to see if your property is a fit for the program send an email her at Eva@interiorwildlife.ca.

Be brave. Flow devices work longer that trapping. We solved our problem in Martinez for a decade. How long does kill trapping guarantee you won’t have beavers?

I thought so.


I’m having an exciiting keyboard morning at the moment so I’m going to entertain you with a charming beaver meet and greet for the time being.

BEAVER FESTIVAL XVI

DONATE

TREE PROTECTION

BAY AREA PODCAST

Our story told around the county

Beaver Interactive: Click to view

LASSIE INVENTS BDA

URBAN BEAVERS

LASSIE AND BEAVERS

Ten Years

The Beaver Cheat Sheet

Restoration

RANGER RICK

Ranger rick

The meeting that started it all

Past Reports

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