Category: Attitudes towards beavers

MICROTHERIOMYS ARTICULAQUATICUS

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver Behavior, History September 18, 2023

So the birthday beaver bash continues with beavers on CBS news over the weekend and a fine appearance with Leila and Emily to boot. I will share that soon but this news has waited 30,000,000 years already so it gets to go first.

30-million-year-old amphibious beaver fossil is oldest ever found

A new analysis of a beaver anklebone fossil found in Montana suggests the evolution of semi-aquatic beavers may have occurred at least 7 million years earlier than previously thought, and happened in North America rather than Eurasia.

In the study, Ohio State University evolutionary biologist Jonathan Calede describes the find as the oldest known amphibious beaver in the world and the oldest amphibious rodent in North America. He named the newly discovered species Microtheriomys articulaquaticus.

Calede’s findings resulted from comparing measurements of the new species’ anklebone to about 340 other rodent specimens to categorize how it moved around in its environment – which indicated this animal was a swimmer. The Montana-based bone was determined to be 30 million years old – the oldest previously identified semi-aquatic beaver lived in France 23 million years ago.

Watery beaver! Just so you understand this isn’t a new FIND but a new understanding of the previously found fossil because god knows people get the wrong ideas about beavers all the time. This little beaver adapted to life in the water SEVEN MILLION YEARS earlier than we used to think. And it happened in north America, not Europe.

The scientists, including Calede, who found the bones and teeth of the new beaver species in western Montana knew they came from beavers right away because of their recognizable teeth. But the discovery of an anklebone, about 10 millimeters long, opened up the possibility of learning much more about the animal’s life. The astragalus bone in beavers is the equivalent to the talus in humans, located where the shin meets the top of the foot.

Calede took 15 measurements of the anklebone fossil and compared it to measurements – over 5,100 in all – of similar bones from 343 specimens of rodent species living today that burrow, glide, jump and swim as well as ancient beaver relatives.

Running computational analyses of the data in multiple ways, he arrived at a new hypothesis for the evolution of amphibious beavers, proposing that they started to swim as a result of exaptation – the co-opting of an existing anatomy – leading, in this case, to a new lifestyle.

“In this case, the adaptations to burrowing were co-opted to transition to a semi-aquatic locomotion,” he said. “The ancestor of all beavers that have ever existed was most likely a burrower, and the semi-aquatic behavior of modern beavers evolved from a burrowing ecology. Beavers went from digging burrows to swimming in water.

As I have painfully learned this year, anklebones are very important and understanding the right way to use them so they do not break is even more important.

Microtheriomys articulaquaticus did not have the flat tail that helps beavers swim today. It likely ate plants instead of wood and was comparably small – weighing less than 2 pounds. The modern adult beaver, weighing 50 pounds or so, is the second-largest living rodent after the capybara from South America.

It looks like when you follow Cope’s Rule, (Keep getting larger as you evolve) it’s not good for you – it sets you on a bad path in terms of species diversity,” Calede said. “We used to have dozens of species of beavers in the fossil record. Today we have one North American beaver and one Eurasian beaver. We’ve gone from a group that is super diverse and doing so well to one that is obviously not so diverse anymore.”

Less than 2 pounds! That’s the size of a baby muskrat! I wonder what they looked like. And would still like to know when they started building dams…

Now because we all were good and did our science lesson for the day we get to go to the movies. Enjoy…

IDAHO: AND THEN THERE WERE TWO

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, BDA's, Beavers and water September 13, 2023

We all know the wonderful story of Jay Wilde and his work with Joe Wheaton to bring back beavers in his farm. But did you know there are others? This story has a fantastic video introduction to Jason Fellows and his appreciate of beavers but I can’t embed it here. Click on the headline and watch it for yourself. I promise it’s worth it.

Idaho farmer forges a sustainable future for his land with Beaver Dam Analogs (BDAs)

When beavers and their dams disappeared in the 90s, the land around Jason Fellows’ Idaho farm started losing water because the stream was moving too fast down the hill. Jason remembered where those dams were and has built Beaver Dam Analogs (BDAs) to bring sustainability to the soil, and the water, and to attract beavers back into the area.

Did you go watch the video? It’s worth it just to hear a man say “Crick” and “Riparian” in the same sentence. I’m telling you.

Four years ago, the Fellows noticed a decline in stream flow on their property. It was a concerning trend that led them to reminisce about days past when beavers inhabited the creek, and their presence had a positive impact on water retention.

The brothers decided to install BDAs in their creek to address the issue, aiming to replicate the beaver’s natural water management.

“Our goal in doing the Beaver Dam Analog projects was to make our place more sustainable,” Jason said.

This innovative approach to water management proved to be prophetic during a year with a high snowpack and intense runoff. The BDAs, filled with sediment, showcased their effectiveness in preventing soil erosion and maintaining creek stability. In contrast, other creeks in the area without BDAs experienced significant erosion and deepened channels.

BDAs conserve water as well as foster biodiversity. Riparian areas along riverbanks where water dissipates are critical for wildlife. Beaver presence in these areas—or the implementation of BDAs—significantly reduces the risk of wildfires, as they remain moist and act as natural firebreaks.

I always get a little nervous in these kind of articles because I’m not sure how they feel about ACTUAL BEAVERS but Jason is our kind of man and he reassured me:

However, while implementing this man-made fix was vital, Fellows also recognized the larger goal of the project as a way to attract beavers back to the area.

“The big thing about a BDA is you want to attract a beaver back in,” he said. “But if you don’t have a pool of water where a beaver feels safe, the beaver won’t come.”

For Fellows and his fellow farmers and ranchers, sustainability is not an abstract concept. It is a daily practice rooted in the land and its future.

“As farmers and ranchers, we focus on providing for future generations and taking care of the land,” Fellows said.

Jason you are a wise man and we salute you.

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

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver Art, Beavers September 7, 2023

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.