Category: Attitudes towards beavers

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.

A BEAVER ADVOCATE IN FAIRFIELD

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beavers December 30, 2023

So on thursday of this week three very important things happened at once. The first was that I finished writing about American Prairies suggesting beavers live in the dam and got a few comments from kindly readers who thought they were well meaning and my post was too snarky and should be softened.

Well yes I am snarky about beavers not living in the dam. it’s a failing I cannot fix. Unless they fix it first I offered helpfully.

At at the same time I was reading Ben’s fantastic article about google and realizing what that meant for California and then the phone rang.

And it was Virginia Holsworth sitting in a tree in the beaver dam because the city contractor was trying to cut the willow out of the dams and what did I thmk she should do?

Because its the week between Christmas and New Years and if there is one thing I learned in my many years battle with the city over beavers is that this is the week city contractors are brought in to do squirrely bullshit to the beavers because staff will all be gone, people are sleepy with eggnog or visiting relatives and the city phone lines are going to voicemail.

I told Virginia to call some friends and send me a photo of herself in the tree.

Advocates for Laurel Creek beavers concerned with tree removal

FAIRFIELD — Virginia Holsworth had planned to go shopping on Thursday.

Instead, she found herself sitting on a willow stump – the remains of a tree the local Laurel Creek beavers had built a dam around – and watching the city’s contracted workers as they cut down a second tree that was not part of the dam structure.
I think it would have looked a lot different,” Holsworth said if she had not protested to keep the beaver dam from being compromised.

She said the workers told her they were just paid to do a job by the city, and she told them she was not moving until the Fairfield representatives came out to talk to her.

Sniff, I’m do proud of Virginia She is a beaver heroine! Better than that. A Willow heroine! See that tree was sitting smack dab in the middle of one of the largest dams. It was the dams anchor and without it, well things just might wash away, lowering the water level and uncovering the beavers lodge.

Holsworth has been advocating for the local beaver population since 2020.

“I came out, sat down and they stopped working. The city manager came out and talked to me and a few neighbors, and the end result is they stopped cutting down trees that could compromise the integrity of the dam,” Holsworth said.

She said over the years she has developed a pretty good relationship with Fairfield, and was very pleased with the response from City Manager David Gassaway and the offer from Public Works Manager Daniel Camara to continue the discussion at a later date.

One thing Virginia is excellent at is incorporating very polite smoothness into her resistance. She acts like a professional and like a mom and city leaders aren’t sure how to fight back.

City officials could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

ead out of Laurel Creek in Fairfield, Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021. (Aaron Rosenblatt/Daily Republic)The offer to do a walking tour of the creek area and to talk about their differing perspectives on the creek and beaver issues came after another creek neighbor, David Pratt, started asking questions about the city’s rational for cutting down the trees and about why those particular trees were selected.>Holsworth said Pratt has a history in the forestry industry.

The dam is still up. We did stop them,” she said.

Hurray for tree roots that hold dams steady. Hurray for Virginia and all the residents of Laurel Creek that care about beavers and trees in their neighborhood. We are with them in spirit!

Heidi Perryman, leader of Worth A Dam, a beaver advocacy group out of Martinez, also was on site.

“Residents are concerned that the trees anchor the dams and their removal could cause a washout – threatening the beaver safety and wildlife that depends on the dams … Research has shown that willow trees actually increase flow and help prevent flooding,” Perryman noted in an email to the Daily Republic.

Ohhh well if we have any weight to toss around we are happy to do it to save beaver dams and beavers. To be fair I didn’;t actually say I was THERE but maybe in some sense I was.. I was on the phone. :Listening to Virginia and the contractor. I was on facebook., Posting about it so that folks in Fairfield could know what was happening. Maybe I’m like Elijah, The unseen guest at every water table..

“Where ever there’s a city taking out a dam and a woman sitting in a tree, look over your shoulder and I’ll be there”