I woke up excited for day two of the beaver conference. You should be exited too, because if you;’re not going at least you get to hear about it. There is nothing quite like eating your lunch while really smart people talk to you about beavers. Imagine someday all of California might get the opportunity to find out!

Meanwhile there’s good news in Oregon and Wyoming. so that’s on the list of morale boosters.

Petition Calls to Protect Emblematic OR Species: Beavers

Organizations have submitted a petition to the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission calling on the state to prohibit commercial and recreational beaver hunting and trapping on federally managed public lands.

Sristi Kamal, senior Northwest representative for Defenders of Wildlife, said that, added together, these lands make up about half of the state’s acreage. She said Oregon ecosystems depend on beavers.

“Beavers improve water quality; maintain or increase stream flows; create and increase the amount of distribution of wetlands, wet meadows, ponds; create refuge and fire breaks during wildfires, like the one, we saw recently; and store carbon and increase and diversify habitats,” she said.

Where do I sign? Of course you’re right. Public lands are for the public, which last time I checked drank water. They also need more fish and birds so it follows that they need their beavers. Whose life do you improve by allowing trapping?

Kamal said hunting and trapping season lasts from November to March, overlapping with the beavers’ breeding season, which is January through March. She said she believes the benefits from beavers outweigh the benefits for hunters and trappers, of which there are fewer than 170 registered in the state. Kamal added that Oregon doesn’t offer protections for this species.

“It would be the first measure we are taking in the state to do something about the one animal that’s actually on our state flag,” she said. “I mean, we are the Beaver State, you know? So, we should do more than just have the animal on our state flag.”

If the commission accepts the petition, it would begin a round of rule-making on regulations. Kamal said the public can participate in the hearing by registering on the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife website, or submitting comments to the commission.

Those 170 can go have their important day of father-son bonding trapping something else, like muskrat or raccoon. And yes I like both of them but we have to start somewhere. In the meantime public lands seems like a good place to let beavers exist without the threat of killing. Oh, and word to the wise. When you’re writing about Defenders of Wildlife on your beaver blog it’s best not to call them “Wildlife Defenders.” Because then you get an email.

Just so you know.

Meanwhile in Wyoming the department of Fish and Game is relocating beavers into parkland to restore habitat. There’s a vote of confidence for you.

There were 1,077 press releases posted in the last 24 hours and 191,339 in the last 365 days.

Beavers relocated in Sheridan Region

In late September, in cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service, Sheridan Region Aquatic Habitat Biologist Travis Cundy live-trapped several beaver from private property east of Sheridan and relocated them to a site above Buffalo on the Bighorn National Forest.

“We began live-trapping and relocating beaver in the 1990s as a way to improve riparian habitat,” said Cundy. “The goal is to use the dam-building activities of beaver to help detain water longer on the landscape. We are just trying to slow down water movement so it can help build up water tables and create more vegetation.”

Well that’s interesting. How many and how were you trapping them? I’m curious.

Five beavers were trapped over three days. Cundy targets mated pairs when identifying potential trap sites, increasing the likelihood that the animals will stay in the release area. He believes the five trapped in September are a family unit including the mated pair along with kits from this year and last.

Gosh. That’s remarkably responsible from a state agency. Did you drop them from Airplanes or shoot them from cannons then? Years of writing about this has made me somewhat cynical.

The trailer was later taken to a release site on Sourdough Creek and parked with the doors left open for the animals to disperse at their leisure. The Sourdough Creek area was chosen as a release site because it supports good resources of aspen and willow and is closed to public trapping, but no beaver activity has been documented there for more than a decade.

Now that is one I haven’t heard of. Kind of civilized. Were they on their own from there?

Some beaver dam analog work, which is a small debris dam and pool feature, had also been completed at the site, so there were some ready-made pools available to provide them some security until they can start creating their own,” said Cundy. “In the short term, from immediate transplant time to a couple years afterwards, we usually see a colony become established a little over half of the time. But, they have never established right where we release them. They usually go a half mile to two miles from the release site.”

I’m blinking at the bright sunlight. That’s pretty darn responsible, Travis. I’m thinking this may be the start of a beautiful friendship.

“Through their activity, they can help reconnect the floodplain and spread the water out. It is probably the cheapest way to improve riparian vegetation and floodplain connectivity that we have,” he said. “I think it is a phenomenal way to increase green vegetation development in streamside areas to help fish, moose, mule deer and all riparian-dependent wildlife.”