Category: Attitudes towards beavers

FLOOD THE ZONE WITH BEAVERS

May 4, 2023

I’ll Be Dammed: Beavers Fighting Climate Change

by Science Vs

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Intro: How beavers “beaver away”

(02:22) Chapter One: How beavers can help

(06:18) Chapter Two: Can we move beavers for the better?

This episode was produced by Disha Bhagat, with help from Michelle Dang, Meryl Horn, Rose Rimler and R.E. Natowicz. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Wendy Zukerman is our Executive Producer. Gimlet’s managing director is Nicole Beemsterboer. Fact checking by Eva Dasher. Mix and sound design by Catherine Anderson. Music written by Bumi Hidaka, Emma Munger, and Bobby Lord.

Science Vs is a Spotify Original Podcast and a Gimlet production. Follow Science Vs on Spotify, and if you want to get notifications every time we put out a new episode, tap the bell icon in your app.

ANOTHER BEAVER MAVEN

Maven’s notebook is a website that has been fairly excited about beavers for a while. But now they really have something to celebrate.

As evidence for the wide-ranging environmental benefits of beavers has mounted, champions of these 40-to-70-pound rodents have increasingly clamored for restoring them in California. Now, the state has finally joined others, including Oregon, Washington and Utah, that are putting these furry ecosystem engineers to work. This year marks the launch of a $1.44 million per year California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) program to bring beavers back to watersheds throughout their historic range in the state.

“We agree: time for California to embrace beavers,” CFDW director Chuck Bonham wrote in a January 2023 op-ed in Outdoor California.

Well well well, the beaver chicken comes home to roost. We are grateful he finally saw the light. Now lets just hope it catches onto the whole department.

The agency is in the process of working out the details of its new beaver restoration program. Goals include moving beavers from places where they cause harm, such as flooding on farms or roads, to places where they can do good, such as mountain watersheds. “The program funds dedicated scientists who, once hired by CDFW, will begin working on projects that help the environment by bringing beavers back to California rivers where they once thrived,” Bonham wrote.

Another goal is to “identify and support non-lethal deterrent methods to help mitigate human-beaver conflict,” CFDW staff wrote in an email. Under current regulations, the agency issues permits for killing beavers provided that “all alternatives are exhausted and beavers are continuing to damage or threaten to damage land or property.”

This is the best goal. Solving problems instead of killing problems. Putting beavers in the sierras is okay and good for us I guess, but moving beavers out of problem areas is pretty much a waste of time. And probably only slightly better than being killed from the beavers point of view.

Best practices honed over the years include catching and relocating entire families. Beavers are monogamous and mate for life, and young typically stay with their parents for two years to help maintain the living quarters and raise the next generation of kits.

Utah’s program has expanded the traps used to include both live clamshell traps, which completely enclose beavers, as well as humane snares, which allow some freedom of movement. “We used to use clamshell traps exclusively but changing water levels can pose a danger to beavers,” DeBloois says. “Utah State researchers showed you can use snares that are long enough to accommodate rising and falling water levels.”

The next step is quarantining the trapped beavers on site to reduce the risk that they will carry fish pathogens like whirling disease—which causes spinal deformities in trout and salmon that make them swim in circles—to their new home. Whirling disease is spread by worms living in mud, and beavers scoop up mud when making and maintaining dams.

To see if relocated beavers stay where they’re put, veterinarians fit the tails of some with radio tags. Picking the right release location makes them less likely to stray. “Beavers need willows and slow-running streams with reliable water running year round,” DeBloois says. “The streams can’t dry up in the summer.”

Demand for beavers is high. Other federal and state agencies “are really excited about it but our folks are more aware of the possible conflicts,” DeBloois says. “The biggest hurdle is that you need to make sure beavers won’t cause a problem—you need to check the release site, and what’s upstream and downstream.”

Hmm I’m less excited about the Utah program than Methow, is that really who california will be modelling themselves after? Is that where this whirling nonsense comes from? I wrote they author and she said no, CDFW never called her back, she reached out to Utah on her own.

Julie Fair, Director of California Headwaters Conservation for the nonprofit American Rivers, is thrilled at California’s change of heart on beavers. “It’s going to be awesome,” she says. “It’s a super fundamental change.”

Fair is helping to lead the charge to restore meadows in Sierra Nevada watersheds, which provide much of California’s drinking water in the form of snowmelt. Beavers could be key to this effort. About half of these high elevation meadows are degraded by historical grazing, roads, and stream channelization. Beaver dams slow stream flows and reconnect them with meadows.

Healthy meadows are a priority because they are biodiversity hotspots that attract an abundance of wildlife, and they serve as natural reservoirs. Meadows spread and slow snowmelt, soaking it up like sponges and releasing it gradually. Meadow restoration will likely become even more vital as the world warms, shrinking the snowpack and making it more critical to pace the release of snowmelt over the dry season.

“They’re a pretty important form of alternative water storage in the upper watershed,” Fair says.

It’s DAM important. In fact it was a forest service worker years ago who promoted the work that spurred the archeologist from BLM to actually carbon test that wood in the old beaver dam which inspired us to do the paper and allowed CDFW to stop lying to themselves about where beavers should be in the first place.

Beavers could also be key to restoring meadows in headwaters of the Colorado River, which begins in the Rocky Mountains and is a major source of drinking water for Southern California. “They can help us recreate meadows faster than we can do it artificially,” says Felicia Marcus, a former California State Water Resources Control Board chair who is now a fellow at Stanford University’s Water in the West Program. “The more meadows the better.”

The Rocky Mountains have even more potential for meadow revitalization than the Sierra Nevada due to differences in terrain. “The Sierra are steep with small but important spots of meadows, while the Rockies have massive sweeps of meadows,” Marcus explains. “The scale for restoration is astonishing, it’s a huge opportunity to slow down and store water.”

“Beavers are the ultimate nature based solution,” she continues. “They do all the work—it’s free help.”

Let’s hear it for the beave!

THE SECOND BEST BEAVER ARTICLE IN POPULAR SCIENCE

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver ecological impact May 2, 2023

Once upon a time, a long, long, time ago, positive beaver articles used to be few and far between. One dropped every other year or so, and I was powerfully happy to see them. Now everybody and his mother seems to have something nice to say about beavers. Even Popular Science wants a seat at the willow table.

Beavers, snails, and elephants are top grads from nature’s college of engineering

Beavers, like humans, shape their ecosystems not just by eating or excreting, but also by building and tearing down. And because of those similarities, the rodents have become North America’s best-known “ecosystem engineers.”

But the scientific idea of ecosystem engineering wasn’t born in a beaver lodge—it came from Israel’s Negev Desert. The pea-size rock-eating snail sticks to the underside of limestone boulders and has a peculiar means of accessing food: It chews through stone to get the lichen living inside. The tiny mollusks then poop out so much of the rock that they literally build the desert soil. Measurements taken by ecologists in the 1980s showed that their gritty feces add as much sediment in the course of a year as windblown dust.

When one of those ecologists, Clive Jones of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in New York, visited the desert in 1987, he saw that snails weren’t the only animals shaping the landscape. Most of its organisms, from animals down to bacteria, changed how water flowed in the arid environment. Porcupine pits and anthills trapped runoff. Bulbed plants broke up hard-packed earth, trapping moisture. Colonies of microbes covered slopes in waterproof sheets.

And beavers! Don’t forget the beavers, Doing their part to keep North America Green and lush. I mean snails and oysters are cool and all, but I don’t see any one rushing to form the nonprofit “Worth A Shell” any time soon.

Jones and his colleagues coined the term ecosystem engineering in 1994 to connect the processes they saw in that desert to similar ones all over the world. Kelp forests create calm nurseries for fish and crabs on coasts. Terrestrial forests collect water. In all these cases, the actions, or even the body of an organism itself is reshaping the world—and not as part of a food chain. An elephant eating leaves isn’t engineering—but as soon as it rips down a tree, it is.

Since the idea entered the scientific mainstream, ecologists have debated what counts as an engineer, given that almost any organism could conceivably qualify for the definition. Does an action have to be intentional, as beavers’ dam-building appears to be? Does it need to shape the lives of other organisms immensely?

Jones says no to both. From the perspective of an ecologist, it doesn’t matter whether an elephant means to rip up a bush or eat a specific plant—the fact is that it does. And the effect doesn’t need to be earth-shattering. An animal’s shadow is the most trivial example of engineering. “No other organism cares about the ephemeral shadow caused by the cat walking outside my window,” Jones says. But the shadow has the same type of effect as a beaver’s dam in that they both change the heat, light, water, and air that other organisms depend on.

Well I believe it was Frances Backhouse who first called beavers “unintentional philanthropists”

“To understand how an ecosystem works, you need to take all those things into account,” Jones says. If you think about beavers’ eating habits—consuming the leaves and soft inner tissue of wetland trees—you’d assume they were an engine of environmental destruction, leaving clear-cuts in their wake. Instead, studies show that these rodents create stunningly biodiverse wetland habitats. Similarly, tens of millions of bison once roamed from what is now Louisiana to the Canadian boreal forest, engineering the plains differently from the cattle that replaced them. Bison, unlike cattle, plow snow on the winter prairie and wallow up huge sand pits in the summer, helping create grasslands that support more birds and native plants.

Understanding how species alter landscapes isn’t just an intellectual exercise—it’s critical for figuring out how to preserve fast-disappearing habitats, or how to restore lost ones. “Humans can imitate the way in which ecosystem engineers do their work,” Jones says. “Of course, why bother to build a wetland when you can conserve beavers, and they’ll do it for you?”

Of course beavers need most for us to get out of their way and stop bothering them. They need for us to appreciate the changes they make and stop complaining all the time. Still, as nice as it is to read this article in popular science it is still only my second favorite.

THE PRAIRIE STATE SAVES BEAVERS?

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers April 30, 2023

Just in case you forgot, it was Illinois that gave us Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama and Ms Rachel Siegel, beaver advocate extraodinaire. Lest you think I exaggerate, check out this article.

Joyce Advances Bill to Protect Beavers, Regulate Wildlife Operators

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Illinois State Senator Patrick Joyce, D-Essex, has proposed a bill aimed at protecting beavers and regulating the activities of nuisance wildlife operators.

On Thursday, the Senate Agriculture Committee passed the measure.

The bill would prohibit the destruction or disturbance of dams, lodges, burrows, or feed beds of beavers while trapping them. It also requires that any person who acts as a nuisance wildlife control operator for a fee must obtain a permit.

Joyce stressed the importance of protecting beavers and trapping them correctly without destroying their homes. “Some people don’t realize that beavers provide benefits to humans, such as improved water quality and flood control,” he said.

How cool is this? In addition to going to school for environmental law, Rachel has worked literally nonstop at building the Illinois beaver alliance, building a team of allies and partners that would make your head spin. Looks like she made friends in all the right places.

The proposed legislation aims to ensure the beaver population thrives and provides important benefits to the environment. It also aims to ensure that only qualified and responsible operators are performing correct trapping services.

Joyce acknowledged that wildlife operators provide an important service by removing unwanted animals from homes and other properties. However, he emphasized that the bill aims to ensure that ethical practices are followed and that only necessary wildlife removal takes place.

House Bill 2461 passed the Senate Agriculture Committee and will now be heard before the full Senate.

Wooohoo team Beaver! We need everyone to sign and about million more of these measures out there, But things are slowly moving in the right direction.

PUBLIC EYES MATTER TO BEAVERS

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beavers, What's killing beavers now? April 26, 2023

Isn’t that a weird coincidence? Rob Schroeder was the mayor of Martinez since forEVER and during that time every single group and nonprofit and team and hobby was invited to display in the artifact case at city hall except for you know, Worth A Dam and those very famous Martinez Beavers. But now for the first time another nice lady is mayor and we’ve been invited to display items and photos for the beaver festival for the entire month of June.

Isn’t that just a weird coincidence?
I think we will have some great ‘artifacts’ to add along with this, maybe a lunch bag beaver puppet, a charm bracelet and our congressional record certificate?

The other bright spot in my day today was reading this gruesome article which gave me exhilarating domestic terrorism fantasies because if a few believers paid trappers to do this in a few more state parks all our troubles would be over.

New Hartford Town Board bans trapping in public parks after skinned beavers found

NEW HARTFORD — Members of the New Hartford Town Board engaged in a tense discussion about trapping and hunting in public parks after several skinned beaver carcasses were discovered on the Rayhill Trail in New Hartford.

The meeting room in New Hartford’s municipal building was filled with concerned and angry New Hartford residents who pushed the town board to pass a resolution to ban trapping in public parks at the town board meeting on Wednesday, April 19.

The board held the public comment period at the end of the meeting. Town Supervisor Paul Miscione wanted to postpone the discussion about the beavers until the next meeting, when council had time to review the report from the DEC investigation that has been closed.

Yup. Drop a few skinned beavers on a nice family trail near the kiddie park and get yourself some popcorn to sit back and watch the drama unfold before your eyes.

Attendees were unhappy with this, saying that they went to this night’s meeting to discuss the beavers, and that the board does not need to review the report to listen to how the attendees feel about the slaughter of the beavers.

“I understand your concern and I think it’s appalling,” Miscione said. “I spoke to other people that are trapping … and you don’t leave anything like that. There’s trapping, and then there’s that. Again, I agree, but there’s other people that’s going to be here, the state official will come to the next meeting.”

The board allowed Judy Cusworth, founder of the Woodhaven Wildlife Center, a nonprofit wildlife sanctuary in Chadwicks, to speak. Cusworth has been working with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and received the initial complaint about the beavers.

“Unless you take the initiative to post every park in the town of New Hartford, this can go on,” she added. “Do you want your kids to see this? To walk off the trail and step in a leg-hold trap?”

Cusworth had pictures of the dead beavers, and presented the graphic and upsetting images to the board.

If a few fliers and a video is upsetting, a family of dead skinned beavers has got to be be an alarm bell. Ohh and a few dead skinned kits laying along side their parents. Now that would be a five alarm fire.

“I’m not asking you to start saying, ‘No hunting, no trapping in the entire town. Listen, I’m not that stupid,” Cusworth said. “I understand that people who own property, who pay taxes, if they want to give somebody permission to hunt and trap, I’m not asking you to shut them down. I’m asking you to shut your parks down.”

Cusworth said that in the investigation, the DEC determined that this was not done by any government entity.

BOCES, which has property that closely borders the Rayhill Trail, is posting signs that ban hunting and trapping on its property.

Miscione said that none of the board members have experience in environmental conservation, so they would like to speak with a DEC representative to learn more before making any decisions. This led attendees to become upset and raise their voices at Miscione, urging the board to ban hunting and trapping in the parks that night.

Yes please. Go on. Tell me more about how this never happens and how its a very unprofessional mistake from a careless recreational trapper. I’m pretty sure dead beavers wind up looking the same where their carcasses are left in the trail or buried without a trace.

“The frustration is that it’s the will of the community, and we’re being overspoken repeatedly,” an attendee said.

“Why not make a motion tonight to post signs” Why not?” another attendee asked.

Town Attorney Herb Cully attributed his hesitance to the uncertainty of the legality of this decision.

“Normally there would be some kind of a public hearing, these parks are in part funded by state and federal funds, … these folks are asking this board, and no one has presented this that I’m aware of prior to today, saying ‘OK, you guys pass it right now.’ I’d like to make sure it’s done legally and properly,” he said.

Dave Liebig, executive director of the New York Trappers Association, said that he walked the trail that day, and that both sides of the Rayhill Trail are private property — only the trail itself is public property.

Liebig said that beavers are trapped in the water, and so they would not have been trapped on the walking path itself. The carcasses were left by the trail on BOCES property.

“Trappers do not condone dumping carcasses anywhere,” Liebig said. “We do not condone that. … the only other time that happens is if they have a long walk back, and say if it’s an elderly gentleman that’s trapping, so they can’t carry the beaver that distance.”

The board passed a motion to post signs on public park land that ban trapping, which garnered a round of applause from attendees. The meeting adjourned shortly after.

If the people lead then the leaders will follow. Here’s proof of that once again. These people were riled and spitting mad that their nice park was polluted with dead beaver carcasses and they were on display for all their children to see. I actually wonder who took them away eventually? Did some one step up or call public works to do the deed?

Who ever did I want to personally thank that family of dead beavers. They selflessly changed the world for beavers in that park for a good long time. People always say when they trap and eat beaver isn’t it good that they didn’t go to waste? Well these beavers definitely didn’t go to waste.

They changed the world.