Category: Beaver Art

Follow-ups and Flourishes

heidi08 Beaver Anatomy, Beaver Art, Beaver Behavior, Beaver Chewing, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Environmental, featured, Who's saving beavers now? September 16, 2017

I thought I’d share a little about the odds and ends that followed my last few postings. One was about the water week events in Whatcom WA. You might remember that the paper said there’d be a showing of the film “Beavers in the Ecosystem” which I wanted to find out about. Turns out the paper got it wrong, it wasn’t actually a film but an event lead by the North Sound Baykeeper for Clean Water Services, Lee First. I got in touch with Lee through our friend Ben Dittbrenner of Beavers NorthWest. Seems Lee contacted Ben looking for properties with beavers on them that might allow a tour for his guided event and talk.

Lee impressed me right away with this response to my letter:

Hi Heidi, it’s not a film, it’s a site tour. I’ll take photos during the tour, and I’ll probably write a little story about the tour. I love beavers!

As far as I know there are two people in all the world who collect a city salary and love beavers. And now I know both of them! There surely aren’t any such people in Martinez.

The other follow up comes from my column on the story accusing the Welsh beavers of ruining the sequel film date. I got an email from Alicia Leow-Dyke of the Welsh Beaver Project thanking me for the graphic.

Thank you Heidi, that means a lot. I was so annoyed when I read the original article, beavers being blamed without any evidence! Someone has to stick up for them! I love the graphic!! That’s brilliant! Would it be OK for me to use that graphic in our talks or on our website? I also love the beaver cushion that has been sent to you from the Ukraine. I am going to have to buy one for myself!

I told her of course she could use it, and showed her the photo of our kit where it’s from. Graphic Designer Libby Corliss didn’t work with us long, but the silhouettes she made that summer from Cheryl’s photos have been a lasting treasure I rely on again and again.

Onto the treats of the day, this time Parks and Recreation Department of Calgary, which is about 400 miles north of Montana across the Canadian border. Seems they just updated their beaver webpage and WOW they did an amazing job. Even when I read it the third time this morning, I was still surprised and impressed.

Beavers

Beavers have found an inviting home in Calgary, with its two rivers, abundant green space, and lack of predators. In recent years, their population has grown, with lodges in various locations along the Bow and Elbow rivers, in storm water ponds and wetlands.

Beavers are good for our environment

Beavers play an important ecological role in Calgary’s waterways. Their dams can create ponds that provide habitat for other wildlife and help surrounding vegetation to flourish. The ponds and wetlands are very good at storing water, and can help reduce the effects of smaller floods and hold water during droughts.

Water flowing through dammed areas is naturally purified, and after a dam has broken, fertilizer created from the decomposing material in the dam will spread downstream.

I promise I haven’t embellished this or edited to make it look better. This is the ACTUAL website for Calgary and it starts by describing how lucky we are to have them. Then it gets around to talking about problems, but in a pretty reasonable way.

Beavers also present some challenges

Because conditions are so good, Calgary’s beaver population has grown in recent years. This can cause problems for our forested areas, infrastructure and property, and the beavers themselves.

A single adult beaver can cut down about 200 trees in a year. With each lodge housing four to six beavers, wooded areas can be devastated in a short period of time. This is harmful to other wildlife that rely on the trees for habitat. Beaver dams can also cause flooding that affects property, and in some cases, can damage storm drains and weirs that can be very expensive to repair.

Okay, that’s most reasonable. People can legitimately have concerns about these animals. There’s only a single sentence I take issue with.

“Without natural predators, beaver populations can grow to be unsustainable.”

Ahh Calgary, you were doing so well up until them. Did you never read that beavers were territorial? Did you never think that when the streams were full of beavers the new ones would have to look elsewhere for a place to call their own? I would be disappointed in them, but they quickly redeemed themselves.

The City’s approach to beaver management

The City’s practice is to try and strike a balance between health of the surrounding areas and the wellbeing of the beavers.

When required, The City uses different measures to protect trees and property to make our river parks unappealing to beavers. Depending on the situation, we may use a combination of the following:

Placing metal wiring around tree trunks.
Planting varieties of trees along the shore that are less palatable.
Placing under-dam drains to control water levels.

We consider all other options before turning to trapping. However, in some cases it is required. When we do remove beavers, we use traps that are designed to kill instantly. The traps are placed under water for the protection of dogs, park users and other wildlife, and are checked daily.

There’s a final paragraph on why they can’t relocate beavers that are causing issues instead of trapping them, but honestly this is ALL I WISH from any city beaver management policy. Protect trees. Plant Willow. Install flow devices.

Consider it my version of “Eat. Pray. Love.”

If every city tried to do these things before trapping I would be over the moon with joy. Honestly, this is the best and most sensibly proactive policy I have ever read.

They even have a video teaching how to wrap trees. Be still my heart.

I expect a mass exodus of beaver supporters moving to Calgary right away. Honestly, my bags are nearly packed.

One more present for Heidi in the Odds and Ends category. This lovely website I came across in my travels is called beaverlikemammals.com, with the actual tagline “A friendly place to post sightings of beaver-like mammals” which she dubs BLM’s.

Really.

Capture BLM
abbreviation
Beaver Like Mammal.

Everyone wants to make a contribution to society, to leave their own little mark on the world. This website is my mark. It provides a public space where people can post sightings of beaver-like mammals (BLMs). Did you spot a BLM at the corner of 10th Street and West Main? Does a BLM emerge from the bushes by your back porch every evening around 6pm? Did you catch a glimpse of a BLM out of your car window on the way home on Thursday night? Submit your sighting to beaverlikemammals.com!

There is a page for submitting a sighting and your observation will be listed by your state. Most of the entries she has look like woodchucks with the occasional squirrel. I don’t see any actual beavers since back in 2007. But she definitely gave me a gift.

From now on, the next photo of a nutria I see on a news article about beavers I’m calling it a BLM.

Sticking Place

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? September 14, 2017

Lovely letter this morning from Caitlin Adair of Vermont about how property owners can help save water and mitigate storm damage. When I looked her up I saw that she was friend and neighbor of Patti Smith, which makes a lot of sense. (Patti is the wonderful artist and writer behind ‘the beavers of popple’s pond.) Caitlin’s letter is full of great suggestions that you should read and implement, but obviously the last one is my favorite.

Individuals can help make area more flood-resistant

What can we do, as individuals, to turn all the rain that a big storm brings into an asset rather than a disaster? You can look at your property or backyard and see what you might do to stop or slow the flow of water into nearby rivers. A few sandbags placed along a natural pathway for water runoff could prevent erosion and slow flooding. A more permanent solution might include building earth berms in these places or directing roof or driveway runoff into a rain garden.

Finally, beaver dams and beaver ponds also help rainwater to stay where it falls, soak in slowly, and restore aquifers. Beavers are the original wetlands engineers. Let’s support their work for the benefit of all.

Well said, Caitlin! And a great time to say it when folks are thinking about the effect of storms. From now on you are officially a friend of Worth A Dam.

Yesterday I was asked by Michael Howie of Fur Bearer Defenders to do a webinar presentation of our story for their Compassionate Conservation Week at the end of next month.

This unique event replaced our traditional Living With Wildlife conference by utilizing webinar technology that can bring together speakers from around the world, with audiences from around the world. Anyone with a computer and an internet connection can attend or participate as a speaker (though speakers will need a microphone, which is quite inexpensive). Each day we will showcase two to three webinars from a variety of speakers, all of which help wildlife advocates, researchers, students, and animal lovers get their communities on track with the concept of compassionate conservation.

We talked about my doing it last year but the timing was a problem. This year things look better so I agreed. I haven’t done a powerpoint presentation since my early days on the subcommittee, so I will need to do a little work to get ready, but I’m happy to help. We are heading for a vacation at the coast next week and I’m hopeful that some ideas can come together along the way. If it all works out, I’ll give you the specifics so you can attend or listen later. Stay tuned!

Every now and then some new gadget or technology catches my eye and I can just see how this could be incorporated into a wonderful activity. Two weeks ago it was the sticker books from Moo printing, which I must have seen on another website looking for information about children’s crafts. Each book contains 90 stickers printed according to your instructions. Everyone could be different if you like. And the entire set costs just 10 dollars.

I thought I’d try one out just to see if I liked it.

How remarkably cute is this little book? The stickers are the size of postage stamps. I know what you’re thinking. How does this relate to beaver education? I’ll tell you how. Suppose each sticker book is a different species, birds, fish, dragonflies, frogs etc. And suppose kids had to ‘earn’ each sticker from the exhibitors by learning how beavers helped that animal. And suppose kids were given a card printed with an inviting keystone image on which to place their gathered stickers. A ‘Keystone Keepsake’ let’s call it. Like this for instance.

The physicality of placing that sticker on the card does a lot to really make the ecosystem connection. As you can see the possibilities are practically endless. I talked with Mark Poulin last week about reusing his very fun images he did as buttons one year. He gave permission and thought it was a great idea. Then I pulled together a keystone image with the fun illustration of Jane Grant Tentas, and it all came together. We could do 15 species for 150 dollars for 90 children, and I bet if I poke Moo a little bit I might get a bit of a donation because look how I’m plugging their adorable product!

Visions of beavers

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Who's saving beavers now? September 13, 2017

Looks like Washington gets to go to the beaver movies for my birthday eve. How is that fair? Not that I’d personally love to be called a resource exactly, but I’m sure it’s better than being called a pest.

“Beavers in the Ecosystem” (Sept. 19);

Water Week

A resource worth celebrating

When rain fell late last week, and again over the weekend, it was the first time in almost three months that Whatcom County had any “wetting rain”—rainfall that was widespread over an extended period of time.

And although the soggy Saturday likely threw monkey wrenches into outdoor weddings, music festivals and other long-planned get-togethers slated for the typically sunny skies of late summer in the Pacific Northwest, the cooler temperatures and consistent moisture falling from the sky were welcome changes from the more than 80 days without any significant precipitation that preceded.

As part of Whatcom Water Week—which takes place from Sept. 16-23 at a variety of outdoor and indoor venues throughout the county—those who get involved in one or many of the lineup of events can find out why it’s important to pay attention to what’s falling from the sky and coursing through rivers, and how water affects everything from crops to fish to beavers.

“Whatcom Water Week is an event that celebrates our local water resources,” organizers from the Whatcom Watershed Information Network say. “Businesses, nonprofit organizations and community groups celebrate the importance of water, share information about the state of the resource, offer stewardship opportunities, and expand awareness and appreciation of our marine and freshwater resources and the role water plays in our lives.”

Don’t you want to go to the water film festival? Or maybe take in a Run with the chums? The tagline of the week is “It’s everybody’s business” because Washington State is just brilliant, ya know? Getting folks excited about water takes all kind of effort, but if anyone could do it it’s them.

I have put out feelers for the film to see if we can share it here. I’ll let you know what I hear back.

Over the weekend I started having an idea for a graphic based on a wheel instead of an arch. It took a bit of fiddling but I’m fairly happy with the way it came out. One of our beaver buddies suggested it might be useful to include a human and some cattle, but I’m not so sure. All in all, it lends itself to pretty straightforward messaging.

What do you think?

Oh and I thought I’d show you our returned beavers little dam in the part of Alhambra Creek we can’t see from the Susanna Street Bridge. If your sound is turned up you will understand why beaver dams are sometimes called ‘leaky dams’. This was filmed by Moses Silva.

‘Lovely Woodland Creatures’

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver Behavior, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Who's blaming beavers now? September 12, 2017

Yesterday Martinez had an Irma sympathy pang. In the evening it got muggy and humid, and then it started to rain! First a few drops at a time, and then a veritable short storm, complete with booming thunder. It was very unlike California in September but I mention it because at the exact moment it started to rain the mail was delivered and happened to contain a very special package all the way from the Ukraine. It was actually the first donation to next year’s beaver festival from an Esty shop called Sho2Shop by Andrey Shokoto. He wanted to help but wrote back too late for this year. His design was such an irresistable pillow I had to buy one myself for a bday present.

He calls it “It’s raining beavers“.

Isn’t that adorable? It’s well made too, with a neatly disguised zipper so you can wash it or tuck in the cushion of your choice. Obviously, with this arriving the exact same moment as the very unusual storm, with the beavers moving in a block from my house, and with articles like this guaranteed to amuse me, I am starting to believe in beaver fate. Or as Hamlet said “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends”. You tell me if someone upstairs wasn’t thinking of Heidi’s feelings when he wrote a headline like this.

Beavers are no longer under suspicion for delaying the filming of the Twin Town sequel

Beavers are no longer under suspicion for delaying the long-awaited Twin Town sequel, with the blame now falling on an unknown group of teenagers. The cameras were due to begin to start rolling last week for the filming of the first scenes of the follow-up to director Kevin Allen’s cult ’90s original.

But the location earmarked for filming ended up submerged under four feet of water. Director Kev Allen was originally told that a rare colony of Carmarthenshire beavers were to blame.

It was thought they dammed up a contributory stream, causing water to swell onto the film set. Mr Allen said last week: “It’s the oddest thing I’ve come across in 20 years of film-making. Having spent months building one of the key sets for the movie, it has taken a bunch of beavers to screw up my filming schedule.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about beavers in 10 years, it’s that they are notorious for ruining film schedules. And the Welsh beavers – well they’re just the worst. Cluttering the set with all their chewed mossy sticks and vowel-less consonants!

But beaver experts were quick to call foul on the accusation.

Alicia Leow-Dyke, Welsh beaver project officer for Radnorshire Wildlife Trust, said: “Whilst the film set might be flooded, beavers are not to blame, I have worked with beavers for almost a decade and I am very familiar with beaver ecology.

No beavers have been reported living near Kidwelly. We have also been to investigate ourselves and found no evidence of beavers in the area.

“Beavers have characteristic field signs and beaver dams are easy to spot. If they were present it is extremely likely we would have found these field signs.

“The only beavers living in Carmarthenshire are in an enclosed area, upstream of

Kidwelly and on a different catchment that is nowhere near Kidwelly. The dams created by these beavers did not cause flooding to the Twin Towns film set.

“It is also well evidenced that beaver dams actually decrease the risk of downstream flooding.”

Oooh snap! Dam straight! You tell ’em Alicia!

Director Mr Allen now believes a group of teenagers caused the damage.

He told WalesOnline: “We have actually learned over the weekend that it was in fact a group of teenagers who had built the sabotaging damn and not in fact beavers after all.

“Whoever blamed these lovely woodland creatures in the first place must have been unaware that beaver has been pretty hard to come by in Kidwelly for quite some time. I personally blame the parents.”

Hahahaha…Me too! I blame the parents too! Ohhh I dearly love this article and the fact that the troubled director in his fancy car actually calls the beavers lovely woodland creatures. I love Alicia’s defense and love the refreshing idea of blaming the parents instead of the beavers. Honestly, if I were dreaming I couldn’t have asked for a better story.

Speaking of getting what you wished for, here are some of Cheryl’s wonderful photos from Sunday’s labor. I especially love the tippytoed beaver, but they’re all perfect. And see how those rascally parents are helping their children cheat?

Piedra Clave

heidi08 Beaver Anatomy, Beaver Art, Beavers September 11, 2017

What did we learn with our event in American Canyon yesterday? We learned that miniature horses are cute. That children (and two adults) love to use the new watercolor markers and make really cute beavers. And that parents cheat and tell their children ‘higher, lower, a little to the left’ when you have them help with pin the beaver on the keystone.

We also learned that American Canyon visitors were a wonderfully diverse mix and parents were very well informed and patient with their children. One father helpfully told us that ‘Keystone’ in Spanish was “Piedra Clave” We learned our new banner was cute and well received, and that at least one federally paid forest service ranger can’t tell a beaver footprint from a badger.

Sheesh!

(They had an interactive game, match the footprint with the animal, where the answer for beaver was obviously wrong. When Cheryl gently explained it to them they said ‘but that’s the way it’s labeled‘ and were reluctant to change it.) Since it’s probably a USFS issued game and everyone uses it, do you think that means the entire forest service can’t tell a beaver footprint from a badger?

Well at least you will be able to.

I will have photos of our day soon, but Cheryl is taking the morning off after working Saturday at the Sonoma event and Sunday at American Canyon. Shhh, Let’s let her sleep in.

Time to make fun of the Colorado project to restore open space by tearing down actual trees and replacing them with concrete trees (no really!) and ripping out an actual beaver dam to replace it with a BDA. Because, progress!

Robert Brakenridge: Boulder County Parks and Open Space has some explaining to do

Most of this property belongs to the public as county open space. However, what is being rebuilt will actually be less”resilient” to coming floods, not more. The process is destroying the existing natural floodplain, in order to restore it.

In May, an experienced birder took groups up the Old St. Vrain road on several weekends and the floodplain wildlife was incredible. The vegetation was already high, tree species were becoming established, there were small local wetland areas: exactly how nature intends floodplains to be, exactly what slows flooding as well. The vegetation and animal diversity were becoming richer with each year. Now much of this has been stripped literally down to bare rock. Old dead cottonwoods that should have been left are gone. Floodplain soils, gone. Raptor habitat, gone. Prime bear foraging areas (and bears), gone. This is public land, expressly put aside to preserve these habitats.

Indeed, the whole concept of “restoring” such an already-beautiful river and floodplain to some idealized “natural” state could have been seen, by the responsible regulatory authorities, by the county, and by SVCC, as plainly inappropriate to start with. Few would argue with local measures to protect dwellings, or to protect public utilities or highways. But employing the same overall river restoration strategy used for urbanized rivers on this relatively natural public land, land that was already restoring itself, is completely inappropriate. Think I am exaggerating? Quoting from the South St. Vrain Design: “Beaver Dam Analogues. Some of the project area prior to the flood was known to hold otter and beaver in small ponds throughout the corridor. A couple of historic beaver ponds were destroyed in the 2013 flood that provided a great wealth of habitat and biodiversity thorough the area. These beaver ponds will be reproduced with the use of Beaver Dam Analogues (BDA) installed as part of this project. BDAs are man-made structures that mimic beaver dams that are found in nature.” This is a very public waste of public funds; the project itself drove away what beavers may have remained.

The project has pulled down giant old dead cottonwoods (important bird habitat): so is now going to erect a few artificial trees. The heavy equipment is stripping and grading the floodplain and channel, and then, because this is an “ecological” design, the same land is going to be roughened up with built riffles and logs dug into the ground to produce local pools and simulate nature. This kind of plan is appropriate when starting with a ruined urban channel. But in this case, the river and floodplain after the flood were more natural than most any other channel and floodplain in the region. For what reasons are they being subjected to this treatment?

Well, I know nothing about this project in particular, but I do know that is a wonderfully well-written letter Professor Robert Brakenridge of Colorado University. And I do know something of the insanity that happens when cities decide to ‘beautify’ and restore rivers by using heavy equipment and ripping the banks and the trees. When man thinks he can outplan nature he is usually wrong.

But by way of comfort I will offer this. Once upon a time, Martinez ripped up it’s creek to protect from flooding and paved the walls with concrete and unnatural surfaces. They shaved the banks and squeezed sheetpile in to keep them from eroding. To make up for the terrible impact they had on the once-natural creek they dedicated one tiny spot to appearing ‘natural’ and planted trees along the newly decimated bank.

6 years later our beaver moved into that VERY spot and built a dam that attracted such wildlife it became one of the most vibrant parts of the city. Be patient.