Category: Attitudes towards beavers

BEAVERS WIN IN CALIFORNIA HAIL MARY-SALMON PASS

When we were getting ready for the Beaver Summit I was surprised to hear how glum Michael Pollock felt about the California Salmon population. Something he said about them suggested that whatever we did to help it was probably too late for these fish, IN 2022 they counted only 500,000 crossing back from the ocean.

Historically, an estimated 5.5 million salmon returned to California rivers. Since the 1950s, less than 500,000 fish, on average, are counted.

Last night word dropped that the new grant program will spend 100 a fish. And 4 of every 100 on beavers. I can only wish we spent this money 40 years ago…

California Distributes $50 Million to Boost Salmon Population

SACRAMENTO — The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has awarded $50 million in grants for 15 projects to support a diverse array of habitat restoration projects in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, McCloud River, and wetland and meadow projects statewide.

Several projects will directly support Governor Newsom’s recently released California’s Salmon Strategy for a Hotter, Drier Future, which outlines six priorities and 71 actions to build healthier, thriving salmon populations in California.

Guess who is one of the biggest winners in this distribution> Go ahead, guess.

$2 Million for CDFW Beaver Restoration Program.

The Occidental Arts and Ecology Center was awarded $2 million for the California Beaver Coexistence Training and Support Program, a first ever project supporting beaver coexistence for landowners. The project will provide financial and technical support to landowners through a new block grant program and California Beaver Help Desk.

“We are excited that our proposal to create a new California Beaver Coexistence Training and Support Program Proposal was awarded by CDFW,” said Brock Dolman, Co-Director, Occidental Arts & Ecology Center WATER Institute. “Our program will allow landowners and tenants to share in the climate-smart and nature-based benefits of living with beavers. This is an exciting win-win for people, beavers and habitats across California.”

2 Million dollars for a beaver program designed to help landowners coexist and keep their streams open for salmon. Thats a heck of a lot of money. That works out to be something like 30000 per county. I guess more because not every county has salmon.

For context the entire budget of CDFW’s beaver restoration was only 2.7 million. They were supposed to use that to educate as well.

I’m guessing they decided to subcontract.

CDFW Awards OAEC Grant to Create Beaver Coexistence Program

The Occidental Arts & Ecology Center WATER Institute is humbled and excited to announce that we have been awarded a $2 million block grant to develop a program to build California’s capacity for successful beaver coexistence implementation.

WATER Institute Co-Director Kate Lundquist said, “This is an immense honor to have been selected by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to receive this award. We are grateful for this opportunity to work with trusted partners at the Beaver Institute to create a comprehensive education and block grant program. A first in the state, this program will provide accessible coexistence information, trainings for installers, and technical and financial assistance to landowners to facilitate the best possible outcome for beavers and humans alike.”

WATER Institute Co-Director Brock Dolman noted, “The development of this program couldn’t come at a better time for California. With the implementation of CDFW’s 2023 Beaver Depredation Policy requiring landowners to implement feasible nonlethal corrective actions to prevent future beaver damage, the program will provide resources to those seeking to mitigate damage while still receiving the ecological benefits from beaver activity.”

Congratulations to our Beaver Buddies at OAEC which I imagine are going to have a very busy time pulling this helpdesk together,

CO-EXISTENCE IS KEY

Thank Goodness! The dry spell is over and we finally have good beaver news to report, This time from West Virginia!

As Beavers Return To W.Va. Wetlands, Conservationists Promote Coexistence

Donning rain boots and gloves, volunteers trudged across a Charles Town wetland Tuesday to prepare the habitat for a pair of unexpected residents.

Jefferson County’s Cool Spring Preserve is currently home to at least two beavers, possibly mates, according to local conservationists. If trail camera photos did not offer proof enough, their presence is made clear through bite marks on trees and a growing number of dams in Bullskin Run, the local stream.

Beavers are native to wetlands across North America, including those in West Virginia. But they were hunted to near-extinction during the 18th century fur trade. With fewer people hunting them for their pelts, beavers are growing in population across the continent. According to many conservationists, that’s a good thing.

Alison Zak serves as founder and executive director of the Human-Beaver Coexistence Fund. The group develops nonlethal strategies to manage beaver populations across the mid-Atlantic.

Zak said that beavers play a key role in bolstering biodiversity, storing groundwater and filtering pollutants in wetland ecosystems. But they also bring what she describes as “beaver problems,” which fall into two main categories: flooding and tree damage.

When beavers build dams, they can redirect the flow of water and prompt flooding. This can disturb roadways and personal property, so conservationists often fence off culverts so beavers cannot disrupt the flow of water with their dams.

Hurray for the Human Coexistence fund. I can’t believe Joe Manchin’s state is wrapping trees for beavers. That tickles my nose like champagne.

Beavers can also chew trees that protect rivers from erosion, as well as saplings planted as part of reforestation efforts. In response, conservationists build wire fences around the bases of trees that need to be protected from local beavers.

That is what brought a team of volunteers onto the preserve Tuesday: to help build fences that ensure trees and beavers can coexist in West Virginia and to strengthen wetland ecosystems.

“A lot of people aren’t aware beavers are around unless, all of a sudden, they come across very obvious signs of beavers, maybe even causing problems on their property,” Zak said. “But also, we’re seeing an increase in tolerance toward beavers, and people wanting to use nonlethal management and wanting to coexist.”

Tuesday’s volunteers placed new wire frames around the bases of trees with overly tight fences or no fences at all. They took particular care to cover saplings, and to give trees enough space to grow freely.

KC Walters, associate director of conservation at Potomac Valley Audubon Society, organized Tuesday’s event. She said that coexistence strategies like these help people come together to solve environmental problems.

“It’s not just conservation, and not just about the relationship with wildlife,” she said. “It’s also about the relationships of the human organizations that exist in keeping us all working together for a common goal.”

Zak said she hopes volunteers left Tuesday’s event with a better understanding of how conservation works.

“I hope they got a little taste of how complex it can be, but how also doable it is,” she said.

Getting audubon involved is smart work. They want those trees for nesting grounds and are motivated to learn about anything that increases the bird population. Good work Alison!

MR. & MRS. BEAVER: DIRECTORS OF SUSTAINABILITY

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers February 22, 2024

There are letters to the editor and then there are LETTERS TO THE EDITOR that deserve to be in the hall of fame. This is in a catagory all of its own. From Andrea Knuston at Oaklend college in Michigan,

Letter to the editor: What Beaver?

Recently the Oakland University community was informed that a beaver had moved into the campus’s biological preserve and made itself at home. Indeed, since that announcement, we’ve been able to confirm that we are now host to a pair. And it’s now likely that OU’s population will grow, come spring, with baby beaver, known as kits. OU’s pair of beaver have offered the OU community their life-giving brilliance and have constructed a dam on Galloway Creek (which creates a pond) and a lodge, where their kits will be born.

It’s ironic that a beaver family would move into Oakland’s campus at the exact moment that we’re doing a search for a Director of Sustainability, and I would like to propose that Mr. or Mrs. Beaver would make an excellent candidate for the position.

Can I say how much I LOVE that idea? If beavers ran the sustainability department things would be a LOT better and wetter around here! There’d be more fallen trees and more birds and more birds and bees! Cleaner water and lots more otter! You know how it works.

One of the priorities that OU has listed in its job description is for the Director to “play a prominent leadership role in integrating academic programs, research projects, campus operations and strategic community engagement sustainability initiatives with communities throughout the region.” As a member of the campus team that has been monitoring water levels at the dam and tracking beaver activity, I can tell you that Mr. and Mrs. Beaver have already brought departments and offices and broader communities together. In order to even begin to think about co-existing with this ecosystem engineer, we’ve had to rally quickly and collaboratively with a variety of experts and communities to understand what their impact is and to act to accommodate them. And that’s just the human community. In addition, 85% of wildlife depend on the ecosystems that beaver create. Beaver are world-builders. And because they moderate floods and droughts and sequester greenhouse gases and increase landscape biodiversity, they make sustainability. No human can create a culture of sustainability (another priority for the Director position) faster than beaver. They’re a keystone species that have had a powerful role in co-evolution. Because of their dams, they taught salmon how to jump. What will they teach us? How can we co-evolve with them?

I am literally IN LOVE with this letter. It is the finest one I think I have ever read. The author needs to come to our beaver festival right away. Honored guest status.

The job description for the Director of Sustainability also lists the work of laying the foundation for a “‘living building’ to be located on campus.” Living buildings are regenerative and connect people to light, air, food, nature, and community. Living buildings are also defined by their self-sufficiency and their ability to create a positive impact on the human and natural systems around them. That is the definition of a beaver dam. If we learn to co-exist with beaver we allow them to make our world one giant “living building.” We wouldn’t need to assign it to the human Director; we would just let beaver be beaver, which is to say, let them make sustainable worlds.

The Director job posting emphasizes “highly collaborative working relationships” with every conceivable staff, faculty, and administrative person on campus and throughout the region. We are, as a culture, I hope, finally in a place of understanding that the nature of sustainability work is collaborative, and, again, beaver are uniquely qualified. In Anishinaabe stories and worldview, beaver, known as “amik” in the original language of this land, is a world-builder because they’re experts at building consent and diplomacy. They are elders who teach humans reciprocity. Beaver are excellent neighbors who open their lodges to their biodiverse ecologies, letting muskrat, mink, and mice dwell and sleep with them. Muskrat, in turn, will help beaver with repairs and upkeep to their dam. They don’t just create new worlds of water, space, and land; they practice sharing and invite others into a world without want. Everyone has what they need. There is no “conflict.”

I swear this letter was not written by me. But if any letter could have been boy this sure qualifies. This paragraph literally made me swoon.

We recently experienced a large snow melt in tandem with (and caused by) a large amount of rain. Those of us monitoring the water levels in the pond and surrounding wetland recorded the event and responded under the supervision of a consultant, who can help us make our beaver family permanent members of our campus. There are many options for controlling water levels and therefore flooding. While the recent floods from the spring melt and rainfall didn’t threaten the campus, the golf course, or any human neighbors, we can use best practices that have proven successes and choose to implement simple solutions to mitigate any fears about those scenarios. There are consultants who know how to install flow devices, diversion fences, and dam analogs. Beaver dams no longer need to be considered threats. Ask the residents of Martinez, California, who decided to celebrate the beavers who moved into the middle of their town. They learned not only how to co-exist but to love their beaver.

Obviously, Oakland will hire a human for its Director of Sustainability, but I hope this human understands how important our beaver family is to the work they’re doing.

And I hope that we, as a community, can learn how to co-exist too.

Oh my goodness. Oh my Goodness. Well I knew this writer was fully acquainted with Ben’s book. Now I can she has visited the website too. We love Oakland University! And especially their sustainability directors!

SALMON TALKS TO THE GOV

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers February 1, 2024

This article made me very happy yesterday. I had once believed that the plight of salmon would change things for beavers immediately. I had no idea it would take this long/ But I’m glad we finally are getting there.

Gov. Newsom releases new plan to save California salmon

Newsom’s new plan puts the governor’s guarantee on actions that only a few years ago appeared radical, such as taking down multiple old dams, or building infrastructure that would allow salmon to skirt them and reach the streams where they lay eggs. The plan also emphasizes creative means of restoring salmon habitat. Many of the projects build on long-term efforts by tribes and conservation groups, and some, like a program in which Central Valley rice farmers allow their flooded fields to be used as rearing habitat for fish, offer hope that agriculture and restoration can be combined.

Well yes there’s a lot of ways we can help are struggling salmon, but here is my favorite way:

The plan emphasizes that dam removal and other salmon restoration efforts should be done collaboratively with tribes. These activities include an idea that came from the Karuk Tribe, as well as other Indigenous groups, to reintroduce beaver, which act as natural engineers of stream habitats that benefit fish.

Chuck Bonham, director of California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), acknowledged that this is a major shift for his agency. Until recently CDFW refused to treat beaver as a species native to California, despite ample historical and biological evidence.

IN OUR PAPER WHICH WE MAD HAPPEN BECAUSE HEIDI MET AN ARCHEOLOGIST THRU WORTH A DAM’S EXHIBIT AT THE FLYWAY FESTIVAL.

When I die just make sure someone says that at my funeral. Okay?

WE WILL LOVE BEAVERS JUST NOT YET

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers January 1, 2024

“Lord, give me chastity and continence, but not yet!” Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

This infamous prayer to be made chaste eventually (preferably sometime around old age) popped in my head when I thought about CDFW’s new found love of beavers and saw this article in lake county news, Maybe they are not in such a hurry to change their ways all at once.

California Outdoors: Beaver observation survey, engaging diverse groups, wildlife officer employment

Q: Is there a way for the public to get involved in CDFW’s beaver restoration program?

A: CDFW welcomes information from the public as the department strives to gain a better understanding of the current range of beavers in California. The first comprehensive beaver population survey conducted in California can be found on CDFW’s website. The California Beaver Observation Survey includes questions on the date, location, type of activity, and the number and size of the beavers observed. Photos of the beaver activity, location and lodge can be submitted through the survey page as well.

This was VERY exciting news so of course I rushed to the website to see the survey.

Um…Crickets..

There was no survey or even a note to say “Survey coming soon”. I can;’t imagine why they decided to release the story before the actual roll out but go figure. So I guess the very minimal effort needed to get other people to count beavers for you hasn’t even begun,.

Oh God make me appreciate beavers. but not yet.

The Beaver Restoration Program is a result of shifting attitudes toward the benefits of beaver families in the environment. There’s a growing recognition of the ecological improvements linked to beaver activity, as opposed to the animal being considered a potential nuisance species by some in the past.

CDFW considers these animals ecosystem engineers by playing a role in restoring watersheds while increasing resiliency to climate change and wildfire.

The development of the survey comes after CDFW launched the initial phase of its beaver translocation activities, recently conducting the first beaver conservation release in nearly 75 years with the goal of re-establishing a breeding population.

Geeze, we just released 7 beavers and Chuck Bonham cried. Isn’t that enough for you people? It takes TIME to do these things. And we all agree that we need to treat beavers like they matter.

Just not yet.