Nice article this morning out of Ventura County. Never exactly the place you expect to read great things about beavers but never say never. Thank you Emily Fairfax for keeping this at the forefront,
“A BIG WEB OF WATER ON THE LANDSCAPE” | Are beavers our new firefighters?
Communities across California, as well as many Western states, are searching for ways to fire harden urban interface zones and buffer areas. One emerging concept — that seems new but is actually rooted in millions of years of habitat and wildlife evolution — is that encouraging the North American beaver to return or to be reintroduced to historic habitat areas may have a positive impact in terms of fire resistance.
All of Ventura County is part of the historical habitat of beavers. Tsǝ’ pǝk is the Chumash word for beaver, and there are at least two places in Ventura County named after the animal. Beaver Campground and Beaver Camp are approximately northwest of the Ventura River where it nears the Pacific Ocean.
Nice to have proof that beavers were in Southern California, Shh don’t tell Mr. Grinnell.
“I’d be pretty shocked if there was actually zero in Ventura County, but the population is very small if it is here,” said Dr. Emily Fairfax Ph.D., assistant professor of Environmental Science and Resource Management at California State University Channel Islands (CSUCI)…There are confirmed beavers populations today in Santa Barbara, San Luis Opispo and Kern counties. Fairfax thinks it’s likely that at least a few make Ventura County their home as well.
Fairfax has published two studies so far regarding the busy beaver with another in the works.
The epiphany came when she was watching a Public Broadcasting Station (PBS) documentary called Leave It to Beavers. The show aired in 2014 and explained some of what was known about beavers at the time. Fairfax saw beaver complexes in the desert. “It was bright green, the areas around the beaver complexes were dry and in a horrible degraded state, except for where there were beaver dams. I was hooked.
I’m do old I remember working with Jari Osbore the producer of that documentary to get her connected with Carol Evans and Suzanne Fouty but hey that’s ancient history. It’s “Beavers: The Next Generation” now!
“Smokey the Beaver came after that [initial research]. If beaver activity can help keep plants lush and green in a drought . . . the next logical step is that greener vegetation is harder to burn, and it was,” said Fairfax explaining the impetus for her recent research work titled “Smokey the Beaver.” The published, peer-reviewed paper demonstrates how beaver complexes create an area protected from fire for not only the beaver, but other wildfire and vegetation. The beaver complex areas can be seen from satellites.
Her Smokey the Beaver study found that “overall, riparian zones with beaver activity were three times less affected by wildfires compared to riparian zones without beaver activity.”
The beaver complexes were green refuges among the dry, charred surrounding landscape. Fairfax’s research found that this is because the beaver is an expert at the concept of “Slow It, Spread It, Sink It,” a concept some humans in flood management and drought response are working to incorporate into stormwater runoff management. Instead of designing gutters, washes, downspouts and drains to push water out and away as fast as possible, the water is slowed down, spread out and allowed to sink. Fairfax’s research continues. “I’m currently looking at fire refugia that beavers are creating.”
We are happy you are looking. And mostly happy you’re talking about this too.
“If you’re one of those beavers,” living in the wrong place, “a beaver on death row, the options are limited. You can only lethally trap them. I’d love to see this policy change.” According to Fairfax, 1,000 beavers were lethally trapped in California last year. Many of them were trapped in the Sacramento area, the Sierra Nevadas and the Central Valley. Reasons given for the application of permits are frequently that the beavers are chewing someone’s favorite trees on their property, or taking agricultural products, or that the beaver is causing flooding.
Of those, if they were relocated and if only half survived, that is not only a better outlook for those animals, the parts of California where the beaver would be would not be conflicting with people.” She said that while other counties on the Central Coast are seeing a re-beavering through beavers naturally moving back, much of California’s natural historical habitat for beavers is “not fully re-beavered. Relocation should be available in this state.”
Least popular sentence ever delivered by Emily Fairfax? I believe so. I cannot share her plucky appraisal that some beavers surviving is better than none. Plus think about all the people who would be THRILLED to move beavers rather than fix the problems they are causing.
Places like Martinez.
I think the fact that people have only a bad choice and a worst choice works in the beavers favor in California. Or will with a little more education about flow devices and wrapping trees. I think if we offered people a chance to feel good about themselves AND get rid of beavers we would see tolerance go wayyy down. Even further than where it currently is.
She asks the public to make sure to report any findings and encourages the use of the online program iNaturalist, which includes both a smartphone app and website. This allows citizen scientists all over the world to document sightings of both common and rare flora and fauna, documenting biodiversity and changes to habitats. She regularly checks for beaver sightings on iNaturalist in Ventura County and other places where they are rare or haven’t been seen recently, but where she’d expect them to be seen.
“They are in nearby counties. If nearby, they can move in one direction and it’s possible they’ll start coming to this county.”
Well okay. Last year there were beavers killed in Imperial County and San Bernadino County, plus the usual ones that don’t require permits on the military base in San Diego. So I say you’re going to get beavers very soon.
