We have entered a golden age of beaver reporting, where suddenly the list I keep of articles to write about is getting longer and longer even after I go through and ‘weed out’ all the depressing ones! I don’t know what could possibly account for this spate of good news unless it’s our festival, blowing beaver-goodwill pollen all across the nation and making people briefly smarter.
I can’t decide whether to talk about Alaska or Nevada this morning, so were doing both. Buckle up!
Nature Notes: Bringing a desert stream back to life
Surrounded by sagebrush covered hills, seeing flowing water is always good. When the small stream is surrounded by sedges and willows, and the air carries the sound of water tumbling over a beaver dam, it looks even better.
We are standing on a dirt road where Dixie Creek passes through a culvert beneath us. Carol Evans first saw this stream in 1988, when it carried no water, had no vegetation and no real streambed. She shows me the left photo above to emphasize what it looked like then.
You remember Carol Evans right? She’s the fisheries biologist advocating for beavers in Nevada that Ben Goldfarb’s book described as having the “Gentle voice of a painting instructor”.
(I believed he described me as “Not having the gentle voice of a painting instructor.” Fair enough.)
Earlier downcutting had dropped the stream between high banks. In a 1980 stream inventory, Dixie Creek was listed as an intermittent stream. But as willows and sedges returned to its banks, water flowed farther downstream and for longer periods. The water table along the stream rose and drowned out sagebrush, replacing it with more water-loving plants.
Today, the stream flows most of the year and even if it runs dry, water is still stored in the soil, among the dense, tall stands of willows. The high retaining walls of that old down cut remain, but between them is a healthy riparian area.
The biggest change came about with the return of beaver. As they dammed the stream, the impounded water collected sediment flowing downstream, sediment that raised the streambed and created deep pools. The water table rose even more, along with the streambed. Carol told me “it just takes backing off, giving it a chance, and it will grow.”
Ahh Carol, you patient wise woman, working over decades with ranchers and cattlemen in the desert to bring back healthy streams for your beloved cuttthroat trout, We salute you!
Beavers brought back other wildlife. During our visit, we saw a merganser adult swimming in front of a line of ducklings, a great blue heron and a chattering kingfisher. We listened to the call of a willow flycatcher perched in the willows. Dozens of bird species have been recorded here, species that would not be found on sagebrush flats. One survey recorded less than seven bird species in 1991, which grew to over 37 bird species in 2010. Several sensitive species have been seen here, including bats, sage-grouse, pygmy rabbits and California floaters (a species of freshwater mussel).
Whatever happens in the future, Carol will continue to come here, to walk the banks, check on beaver families, watch wildlife, and enjoy this healthy riparian area with its flowing water.
The reporter of this story, Larry Hyslop, has written about Carol’s amazing work for more than a decade. You can tell how much affection he feels for his subject matter knowing her stalwart spirit for so long. When you read an article like this it all seems peaceful, gentle and storybook-like.
Be assured that the battle to keep beaver on the landscape long enough to make a difference was a actual BATTLE and Carol just fought tooth and nail day in and day out armed with persuasion and the “the gentle voice of a painting instructor,”
Now lets go to Alaska where the similarly indomitable spirit of Mary Willson has been making a difference in Juneau since 2008.
The Beaver Patrol of Juneau helps maintain balance with wildlife and humans
They call themselves the Beaver Patrol, and they’re on a mission to ensure that beavers coexist in balance with people and salmon. Beavers, of course, intentionally dam streams to create their ponds. But when they block culverts in the wrong place it can cause problems, like flooding trails.
That’s what can happen in the Dredge Lake area near Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau — a network of trails and ponds connected by culverts.
One way to fix the problem is relocating or killing the offending beavers. That option was on the table well over a decade ago if other methods of managing them failed. (No one seems to remember it ever actually happening). But years ago, a group of volunteers stepped up with a plan to keep beaver dams from interfering with trails or salmon — without trapping any beavers.
Mary Willson is a long-time member of the Beaver Patrol. She said the group came together around the idea of balancing all the competing interests.
“We said, ‘Wait a minute, no — we can manage this, and we can try to find a compromise,’” she said. “We can keep the beavers, keep the habitat they make for the fish, allow the spawners to come up, decrease the trail flooding — let’s try to do it all. It’ll never be perfect, but it’ll be a whole lot better.
The trick is to let beavers keep building their dams, but make sure enough water is flowing to keep the trails from flooding and the salmon swimming through. In a natural environment, it’s easier for salmon to make their way through beaver dams — but when beavers jam sticks and logs into a narrow culvert, it can become impassable.r.”
You might remember Mary as the author of the awesome ‘Beavers of the Mendenhall Glacier book‘. She is a retired university professor of ecology that also does a trails column for the juneau paper. The book has amazing photographs by our friend Bob Armstrong – and one of these is STILL my wallpaper on the computer after more than a decade! When I share it you will understand why. I love it because of the color and the amount of hope it communicates – both in the glacial sunrise and in the sturdy nights effort by the beavers who must know FULL well that dam is going to be ‘beaver-patrolled’ by morning.
Armed with saws and gardening tools, the Beaver Patrol trudges along the trails in the Dredge Lake area, checking the dams. Here and there, they dig out parts of dams that are at risk of raising the water level too high. It’s an ongoing task — the beavers are constantly building, so they come out twice a week during the summer to keep things under control.
“We have proved ourselves to be at least as stubborn as the beavers,” Willson said with a laugh.
That’s what it takes to save beavers in this world. Patience. Good humor. And an appreciation of the stubborn.
Repeat as necessary.
