Category: Attitudes towards beavers

PALO ALTO BEAVER SHOWS UP IN LA TIMES

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers September 11, 2023

Wow! That popular little Stanford beaver has made it all the way to the LA Times. Congratulations Bill!

Baby beaver sighting inspires hopes of a California comeback

Bill Leikam was reviewing footage from a wildlife camera he placed along a Palo Alto creekbed recently when something unfamiliar scampered across the screen.

“I have enough experience with the wildlife out there to be able to identify every one of them just by their movement — this one had me baffled,” said Leikam, president and co-founder of the Urban Wildlife Research Project. “I’d never seen a critter out there moving like this little guy did.”

Leikam, who is better known as The Fox Guy, watched the clip over and over. Eventually, he recognized the mysterious creature as a critically important species that has long been missing from his beloved Baylands — a mammal that California wildlife officials have hailed as a “climate hero.”

“I just stopped and said to myself, ‘Is that a baby beaver?’” Leikam said.

It’s always good news when folks are excited about beavers. Never mind that Bill actually sent this video to beaver expert Heidi Perryman for verification and SHE confirmed it was a beaver. We don’t have any time to talk to people who actually observe beavers. There’s only time to talk to people that STUDY beavers.

The kit sighting in Matadero Creek has been confirmed by local wildlife experts and even a historical ecologist. It marks the first time in decades — if not more than a century — that a beaver colony has taken up residence in this region south of the San Francisco Bay.

For state wildlife officials and “beaver believers,” the camera trap images are cause for celebration. After being hunted and harassed for hundreds of years, the North American beaver is poised to make a comeback in the Golden State, and its resurgence could help fight certain effects of climate change.

While there have been other recent reports of beaver activity across the Bay Area, Leikam said this is the first concrete evidence. More importantly, it suggests a successful re-population of the area.

Last fall, Leikam spotted a pair of beavers along Matadero Creek and hoped they would settle in and create a beaver pup.

“It’s unique that they’re establishing,” said Emily Fairfax, a longtime California beaver researcher who now works as an associate professor at the University of Minnesota. “This is a stamp of approval to have a beaver move in.”

Since the mid- to late 1800s, when California beavers were pushed nearly to extinction by the fur trade, the semi-aquatic rodents have made small inroads into the Bay Area and other regions — a process complicated by the lining of tributaries with concrete, making them inhospitable for the flat-tailed animal.

Hi Rick! Nice to see them discuss your work. So we have discussions with the cancer researcher and the man who studies foxes, who else can we get?

“It’s one thing if you find a dispersing beaver somewhere, it’s a totally different ballgame when you find that you have an established, reproducing population,” said Valerie Cook, manager of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s newly established Beaver Restoration Program. “It really reflects that shift in perception and people starting to recognize that these are not a nuisance species.”

For decades, developers, municipalities and farmers focused on beavers as a problem that required mitigation or removal. Now, the species known as Castor canadensis is seen as offering myriad benefits: It can help to mitigate drought and wildfires through natural water management; it is considered a keystone species for its ability to foster biodiversity; and it can restore habitat through its ecosystem engineering.

“They can create wetlands in basically any ecosystem,” said Fairfax, who described beavers as a free workforce that California has yet to take full advantage of. “The fires are catastrophic and the droughts are widespread and unrelenting — it feels like we have to exhaust all options.”

While experts have known the advantages of beavers for decades — a 1950 Outdoor California magazine highlighted a short-lived effort to move beavers via parachute to improve water supplies — it’s only in the last year that state officials have formed a new beaver restoration program.

Oh excellent! Tdhey got Valerie to weigh in! Did I mention that her other job is head of the nutria eradication program?

“California is paving a pathway forward for beavers to have a much better future in this state and to actually be part of dealing with things like droughts and floods and wildfires,” Fairfax said.

There are no population estimates for California beavers, but Fairfax said the numbers statewide are “relatively tiny.”

“Everywhere could use more,” she said. Other western states, such as Colorado and Utah, have supported beavers more aggressively in the last few years, and Fairfax said she is hopeful California can begin to catch up.

For Leikam, who has been monitoring this area of Palo Alto Baylands for more than a decade, the new beaver offspring is the latest sign of an improving ecosystem.

“I’m optimistic about wildlife,” said Leikam, who has spent years tracking gray foxes.

While he has yet to see evidence that this new beaver family is building a dam — he suspects they are living in deep burrows within the creek’s bank — he’s hopeful he might see one in the future, which would support a host of new animals.

“This new beaver family is really imdportant if they survive and reproduce,” said Lanman,d who hopes they expand their range in the Bay Area. “It’s just remarkable.”

Good, You’ve spoken to the hydrologist too. That’s a complete set of folks that haven’t spent a significant portion of their life observing beavers. You know what I would have said if they asked me? In the last decade 34 of the 58 counties in California have sought depredation permits for permission to kill beaver so I’m going to say if there are enough beavers to kill we can probably assume they are reproducing in the area.

Just like they were in Martinez.

Welcome to the neighborhood little Matadero creek beaver.

INSIDE A BEAVER POND

September is my birthday month. It has always held an air of excitement with the faintest whiff of fall in the air. So it seemed completely appropriate that this new book just arrived on my doorstep. I couldn’t wait to dive in.

The author is Becky Cushing Gop, the head of Massachusetts Audubon West Pleasant Valley Wildlife Sanctuary which jostled my mind to remember that one of the very first photos sent to me by Mike Callahan in my panicked trying-to-save-beavers days was a flow device install he had done for them back in the day.

The artist is Missouri based illustrator Carrie Shryrock and while her beavers aren’t exactly as breathtaking as Kay Undwewood or Gerry Wykes (Probably because given her location she hasn’t spent hours and hours in their presence) her style of dynamic panels does a fantastic job of engaging and telling the story.

The book is full of accurate ecosystem details like what beavers eat and what birds live in their habitat. At the end there is even a glossary of terms and an invitation to go back through and find the included species.

The book is hardbound and oversized so it’s not cheap but it is a beautiful beaver guide for any child or any adult wanting to teach about why beavers matter to the ecosystem.

You can pick up your copy at Amazon or the publisher here: Hatchette Book Group Publishing

SKAGIT IS AFRAID OF CHANGE

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Flow Device Installed September 4, 2023

Beaver news today from Skagit Island in Washington state where neither the county nor the land trust wants to be responsible for beaver damage. Both think that beaver and habitat are GOOD but that flooding and spending money is BAD.

I say bite the beaver bullet already!

Skagit County, property owner disagree over who’s responsible for protecting county road

Guemes ISLAND — Arguments over liability have brought to a standstill negotiation regarding a Skagit County-owned Guemes Island road that’s surrounded by 90 acres of wetlands, and regularly floods during the winter.

Edens Road is a primary east-west route on the small island north of Anacortes, and residents are worried that continued flooding could cut off access to the most populous part of the island.

Stakeholders are considering installing in the wetlands a device called a pond leveler, which would allow water to flow through adjacent beaver dams along Cayou Creek and control the size of the wetlands that flood the county-owned road.

Both the property owner and Skagit County are on board with installing the pond leveler. But neither thinks it should be their responsibility to pay the cost, or to accept liability, if something goes wrong.

What a bunch of Washington sissies. They know better than we EVER did in Martinez why beavers matter an how flow devices work. There is even a grant promised from TU to pay for professional installation BUT they’re afraid cuz maybe the dam will wash out a they’ll be liable for the damage.

David Clifton, whose mother-in-law owns the property, said he’d gladly allow a pond leveler to be installed. And the nonprofit Ducks Unlimited has received a grant to pay for installation.

But whenever you mess with a beaver dam, there is always the possibility of it bursting, Clifton said.

He doesn’t live on the island full time, and can’t guarantee he would be available to maintain the pond leveler on short notice.

Flooding from the wetlands affects only Edens Road, and the county should be willing to protect it, Clifton said.

That’s like telling your daughter she shouldn’t ever get married because if she has a son he might grow up to be a serial killer. That’s like never learning to drive because you think that if you do you might get a traffic ticket. That’s like deciding to never have sex so that you have zero change of contracting aids.

You can’t reverse engineer your way out of risk without also preventing some pretty dramatic rewards.

“If you don’t have that full buy-in from the county, it feels a little precarious,” he said.

But Skagit County leadership says there’s no room for negotiation on the issue of liability. County Commissioner Peter Browning said it’s not fair for the taxpayers of Skagit County to pay to fix a road that gets damaged as a result of inaction of one property owner.

“If one person can make a decision that impacts those 135,000 (county residents), is that right?” he said.

If Clifton is concerned about maintenance, he should hire people to be on-call if emergency repairs are needed, Browning said. If the road floods again, with or without a fix, the county will hold the property owner financially responsible for repairs, he said. The county will employ “whatever means necessary to get compensated,” he said.

So if Clifton does nothing, he will be held accountable if Edens Road floods again. And if he installs a fix, he will be held accountable in the event of a burst dam.

And if Clifton traps the beavers to eliminate the risk will he be liable for the loss of salmon that follows or the shrinking water table that dries neighbor wells next year? Or the reduced avian population that means all the audubon visits are cancelled and no one buys coffees from the nearest starbucks?

He won’t? Wow. It’s almost like landowners are only expected to pay for damage when beavers bring changes, not when the death of beavers bring changes. Huh.

Molly Doran, executive director of the Skagit Land Trust, said the county’s position stands in the way of preservation of habitat. The trust owns property adjacent to Clifton’s, and has a conservation easement on Clifton’s property in order to preserve the natural

But the easement grants the owner the freedom to manage parts of the property in such a way that would protect other’s land and infrastructure. Doran’s organization supports the installation of a pond leveler, but like Clifton, won’t accept legal liability.

By Doran’s reading of state law, Clifton’s family can’t be held liable for a natural occurrence on their property. “(The county is) saying if you protect natural habitats and natural things happen, you’re held responsible,” she said.

Since 2010, the county has paid to raise the road three times in an attempt to keep it from flooding, at the cost of about $250,000, according to a letter sent Aug. 11 to the property owners from the three county commissioners.

How many l.awyers live on this island anyway? Yes Martinez was worried about liability. That’s how the whole beaver drama started and what brought the lovely sheet-pile wall into existence. But counties are also responsible for what they take away. And remember that CDFW and metro power had to pay all the court costs for the friends of lake skinner case because they trapped out beaver that should have been left to improve things.

A 2019 preliminary study commissioned by the county indicates diverting Edens Road out of the wetlands is complicated, because the county would have to acquire property to the north.

CK Eidem, regional biologist with Ducks Unlimited, said he’s inspected the dam and a pond leveler is “definitely feasible” there.

“But the downside is it’s a beaver dam, and those can still blow,” Eidem said. “It’s a lot of liability for the landowner to take on without support from the county.”

Ducks Unlimited has a grant to put in the pond leveler, and has volunteers lined up to help. But that’s as far as things have gotten with the potential fix.

“That’s the sticking point,” Eidem said. “We have this little bit of money, we’re excited to test it out, but we don’t want to put the landowner in a bad spot.”

The nature of Cayou Creek presents a chance to experiment with limited risk, so he’s hopeful Ducks Unlimited has the chance to put in the pond leveler.

“We could teach the community how to build and maintain this, and it could avoid problems in the future,” Eidem said.

Despite the current disagreement, Doran said she believes there is room for compromise.

Ultimately, climate change will continue to change our natural environment and threaten man-made infrastructure. This sort of thing will keep happening throughout the county, and will force the hand of policymakers sooner or later.

“We just have to realize that’s the future,” Doran said.

What a bunch of beaver sissies! Afraid to fix things because they might be liable for the improvement if they are ruined. By the way, exactly how many beaver dams HAVE blown out because a professionally engineered flow device was installed? What’s that you say? Zero? Maybe your cousin Pete tried something once and it caused flooding but that’s not the same thing.

I will tell you a mystery. Listen closely. Martinez had a very very very flashy creek. And the very first day Skip Lisle put the flow device in it blew out from the flooding. And then he realized whoa, we need to anchor the hell outta this thing. So he did by double staking metal stakes all along the pipe and the filter.

And once he did that it NEVER blew out.

In fact. his flow device was so secure that it actually held the entire dam in place. Sometimes in high flows it was the ONLY thing that held it in place.

MARTINEZ BEAVERS IN SLATE MAGAZINE

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver ecological impact, Beavers, Urban beavers September 1, 2023

Last month I spoke to a Ethan about the Martinez beavers and his idea for beavers in New York city. I wasn’t sure what would become of our conversation, but I was very pleased to see this last night.

Hot Dam

A radical, beaver-filled idea to improve city parks

Imagine a New York City brimming with life. A city where bullfrogs sing in marshes, where otters and muskrats frolic along the waterfront, and where kingfishers perform aerial acrobatics into ponds thick with fish.

This may seem like a distant dream. But what if I told you that New York could take a meaningful step toward this urban paradise with a little help from a humble rodent?

I’m talking, of course, about beavers.

People all over are starting to think about beavers in their neighborhoods and whether that could improve biodiversity. Well yes it could. But beavers aren’t throw pillows. You can’t just tuck a few where you want them and expect them to brighten the space.

They might have their own ideas.

But beavers, I realized one day, are not particularly large—and they prefer to stay in the water, away from dogs and small children. The question was: Would it be possible to introduce a small population of these semiaquatic rodents somewhere like Prospect Park?

“Oh, I think it’s possible. I totally do,” Benjamin Dittbrenner, a beaver expert at Northeastern University, told me.

Beavers can live in a relatively small area, Dittbrenner said, as long as there’s enough food and water. Prospect Park has plenty of water in its creeks, ponds, and lake—and those waterways are full of potential beaver food like pondweed. Beavers will also gnaw down trees along the water to open up space and stimulate the growth of the shrubby vegetation they love to eat, Dittbrenner said.

It was Ben who suggested the reporter might want to talk to me about what happens when beavers move into a city. Which I was happy about because I think Martinez makes a fine test case story.

That’s not to say bringing beavers to the big city would be easy.

In a place like Prospect Park, if a beaver were to dam up a creek, those creeks could flood, submerging nearby trails and amenities. Plus, the beavers would go to town on some of the park’s trees.

But these problems are manageable. To start, beavers don’t like to move very far over land, Fairfax said, meaning that only the trees closest to water would be at risk for gnawing—and the city could wrap fences around more important trees. The park could also plant some of the beavers’ preferred species, like willows, to supplement their food options, Dittbrenner suggested.

When it comes to flooding, as dedicated to hydrological interference as beavers are, humans are also pretty crafty. “Beavers: amazing engineers. People: also amazing engineers,” Fairfax said.

We’ve invented various ways of outsmarting beavers with contraptions like “pond levelers,” which drain water out of beaver ponds and limit flood potential. When trails do flood, the park can build signs to help people understand why the trails are flooding—Fairfax noted that ongoing environmental education is important for any urban beaver population. And when in doubt, the city could always build a boardwalk to help parkgoers cross over newly muddy patches. “People love boardwalks,” Fairfax said.

Happy that this got worked into the conversation. People need solutions when coexisting with urban beavers. And do they work?

Martinez Children watching Beaver- Suzi Eszterhas
Children watching beaver in urban environment
Martinez, CA

Beavers can also bring a lot of joy to a community. In 2006, beavers moved into Alhambra Creek, which runs right through downtown M.artinez, California. Initially, the city wanted to kill the animals because of flooding concerns, but many Martinez residents quickly protested the removal plan. This was partly because of local political quarrels, Heidi Perryman, a Martinez local and beaver advocate, told me—but at a 2007 City Council meeting to discuss the beavers’ fate, many locals also expressed their appreciation for the animals.

Eventually, the city installed a device to prevent the creek from flooding and wrapped some of the trees to prevent gnawing. The beavers, meanwhile, got to work transforming Alhambra Creek into a lush, vegetated habitat filled with animals like otters and green herons. Even though the beavers moved away from Martinez a few years ago, the city still hosts an annual Beaver Festival.

Tadaa! Martinez beavers in SLATE! Our little story and beaver festival in Slate! This must be kind of a big deal because Mark Ross himself wrote me back last night when I sent him this article.

What if, instead of trying to manage around our local ecosystems, we let our ecosystems manage us for a change? What if we let some beavers chop down a few trees, creating little glades of open sky next to our ponds? What if we embraced some flooding around our parks as biodiverse wetlands and vernal pools replaced sterile, trimmed lawns? What if, as Fairfax suggested, we reconnected Prospect Park to New York harbor by digging a canal through Brooklyn toward the East River or the bay?

Four hundred years ago, beavers covered New York City, building dams and engineering wetlands that shaped and nourished the local ecosystem. In our own efforts to manipulate and control nature, we’ve driven countless species toward extinction and pushed the world into climate crisis. Beavers are, in Dittbrenner’s words, “chaos-makers.” But maybe it’s time to stop separating ourselves from the chaos that is ecology, and instead embrace something disorderly, bold, and revolutionary—something, dare I say, bucktoothed.

Sounds plenty good to me.

IDAHO AND THE BEAVER-DAM JAM

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver Art August 29, 2023

One of the very first beaver stories I remember reporting on from another state with real admiration was the story of Mike Settell leading beaver count for Audubon in the city of Pocatello Idaho. I was so impressed that he had even managed to get a grant from Audubon to count beavers because they meant so much to birds. I was trilled to meet Mike at the State of the Beaver C0nference and pass on anything we had learned in Martinez.

And now look.

10th annual Beaver Dam Jam Idaho set for Sept. 9 at FMC Park to benefit Watershed Guardians

POCATELLO — The 10th annual Watershed Guardians Beaver Dam Jam Idaho, to support beaver conservation, will be held from 4 to 9 p.m. Sept. 9 at the FMC Park west of Chubbuck.

“We’ll have organizations with booths, activities for youth, live music, food trucks, raffles and fly-casting seminars,” said Mike Settell, Watershed Guardian founder. “It’s in a beautiful setting and we are offering special pricing for car-pooling. Hope to see you there.”

There will be games and activities for kids. Up to three local bands will be performing. No dogs are allowed except permitted service dogs.

GO MIKE and the Watershed Guardians! You continue to be an inspiration!

Tickets are $40 a carload and are available online from Brown Paper Tickets at BeaverDamJam tickets, https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/6113273.

Watershed Guardians helps the Portneuf Watershed, by helping beaver. Proceeds from the events will support BeaverCount, a free winter event to census beaver colonies in the Portneuf Watershed.

Funds raised help us pay for snowshoe and ski rental for our annual BeaverCount,” Settell said. We don’t have a city, agency or corporate entity covering operating expenses. We are 100% volunteer. Your support goes a long way.”

Funds also support beaver mitigation projects in rural areas such as BeaverDeceivers, pond levelers and tree coatings.

For more information, visit the website WatershedGuardians.org

More information on the event is also available by contacting Mike Settell at 208-220-3336 or mike@watershedguardians.org.

Idaho officials have been gradually stepping up to the idea that beavers are worth having ar0und and it is no exaggeration to say that Mike is the Endless Pressure Endlessly applied that got them there. He has been a voice for beavers and a burr under the saddle of every oblivious trapping advocate for more than a decade.

Congratulations Mike for all that you’ve accomplished.