Category: Beaver Chewing

The Perfect Beaver in a Storm

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Chewing, Beavers, Beavers and water, Tail slap, Who's saving beavers now? March 11, 2016

When that I was and a little tiny boy,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

A foolish thing was but a toy,

For the rain it raineth every day.

William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

The rain in Martinez has been weak but constant,. Our friends near by in Napa have endured a deluge. Poor Tulocay creek where the beavers reside has seen more water than ever before

and Rusty and Robin were out bravely trying to see if they made it through. The dam was quickly topped, and the lodge soon followed. This is what the lodge looked like by afternoon.

FSCN5841 — *Flooded lodge: Robin Ellison*

Fortunately their lodge is anchored to a tree, but I certainly remember when ours was entirely swept away. With conditions like this you could see why a beaver might decide to just be a bank dweller after all. Here’s footage Rusty caught of a beaver cautiously grooming on top of the lodge. I’m starting to think that beavers save that spot for the pregnant matriarchs because someone looks a little round even for a beaver!

Beavers are nothing if not practical. They groom in the face of adversity in exactly the same way as your neighbor makes you a casserole after a tornado narrowly misses your barn. Yes it’s terrible and disruptive, but you still need to eat (stay dry). Looking at the way beavers adaptivley use the top of their lodge I’m reminded of folks escaping to the attic during Katrina, or chapter 9 of Winnie the Pooh.

In which Piglet is Entirely Surrounded By Water

“Now then, Pooh,” said Christopher Robin, “where’s your boat?”
“I ought to say,” explained Pooh as they walked down to the shore of the island, “that it isn’t just an ordinary sort of boat. Sometimes it’s a Boat, and sometimes it’s more of an Accident. It all depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“On whether I’m on the top of it or underneath it.”

One could worry about all that rushing water sweeping the beavers away like it nearly did pooh, but I’d advice everyone to watch this beaver, powerfully swimming against the roaring current. He or she doesn’t even look like it requires effort.

Robin just wrote after a trip to the pond this morning. The waters has receded, the lodge is standing, and all the beavers tucked safely inside. Well, we started with this post with 12th night, we might as well end with Alls Well that Ends Well.

Tune in next storm!

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Okay, I’m slowly learning things about my new toy. Double click to see the whole thing. Did you know you can fold down the corner to preview what’s on the next page? This took me way too long to finish but I’m inordinately pleased with it. It even has links to the resources described. I used up every inch of my ‘free’ 15 pages. You should try one, it would make a great baby album!

Make New Friends, but Keep the Old

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Chewing, Beavers, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Tail slap, Who's saving beavers now? February 27, 2016

I noticed this winter that we had a new dove sound in the garden. The call has the quality of a regular mourning dove with a marching cadence. It was quite unmistakable.

Like all good mysteries the internet helped me solve it. I was hearing a “Eurasian Collared Dove”, which happened to be news worthy because the bird was introduced in Barbados in the late 1800’s and creeped to Florida and then across the United states. Apparently it got to the Bay Area around 2008, but I was busy with beavers so I didn’t notice then. Have you seen or heard this newcomer? He’s apparently well adapted to city life and folks are unsure whether he’s a competition to our other doves. It’s fun hear that new call though, like having a new kid move in across the street and wondering if they’ll be fun to play with.

Speaking of fun, Minnesota is about to have a tail-slapper.

‘Leave it To Beavers’ March 8 at Headwaters Center for Lifelong Learning

This 60-minute 2014 video from PBS will be shown on Armory Square’s 25-foot wide screen, with sound enhanced by a new wireless microphone. The stunning photography and important subject matter present an opportunity for the audiences to get a close up look at this once nearly extinct rodent at work.

“The beaver is nature’s original water conservationist and land and wildlife manager,” the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources explains. “Many biologists believe that the beaver pond supports a greater variety and abundance of wildlife than any other ecosystem in the forest. The ponds also control spring runoff, thus lessening the possibility of downstream flooding.”

While climate change, pollution and other negative impacts on ecosystems are much in the news these days, positive developments such as the useful work of the resurgent beaver population tend to receive less notice.

Ahh wonderful to hear such good praise out of MDNR And wonderful to see Jari Osborne’s well-crafted documentary continuing to do its job. You know, she just wrote the other day to congratulate us on our Conservation Education Award. Obviously she’s busy doing other things now that are not beaver related. But she’d be thrilled to know her work continues to entertain and educate.

Sigh. This remains one of my favorite parts of the documentary, I admit.

Muhammad goes to the Mountain House

heidi08 Beaver Chewing, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Dispersal, Environmental, What's killing beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? January 29, 2016

If the name Moutain House sounds vaguely familiar it should. In the turmoil of 2008 it had the dubious distinction of appearing in the NYT as the community with the most homes “Under Water” financially. More recently they had other water issues to deal with, when their historic source was cutoff and they had to scramble to find a new one.

I wonder if you can guess how they feel about ‘watersavers’?

Yesterday I received a panicked email from a resident worried that the beavers in Mountain House creek were going to be trapped. Of course the creek was being used by the planned community as a handy drain, and they didn’t want anything backing up the water. She didn’t know who was in charge of the decision to depredate but she said Brian Lucid was on the Community Services District and interested in learning about options.

The appropriately named Brian Lucid is a native San Franciscan and 20-year veteran who served in Iraq before running for a seat on the board. When he actually contacted ME yesterday I was starting to get a little hopeful.

He told me about their concerns and talked about beavers blocking the water and nibbling neighbor’s trees. And I told him how Martinez had dealt with similar concerns a decade ago, and how downtown businesses were worried about flooding, and how we had studied the issue and decided what to do. I told him about the beaver population rebounding all over the state, and getting new beavers very soon if he gets rid of these ones. And I told him how when we decided to install a flow device and let the beavers stay they kept any other beavers from moving into our creek.

“Flow device?” He asked. “What’s that?”

So I told them about controlling vertical growth of a dam, and protecting culverts, and how 10 years ago there was no one trained in this work in the state and we had to bring in Skip Lisle from Vermont to do it for us. But now, there were several people trained in CA and the whole thing would probably cost about 500 for materials. Worth A Dam could even help with a scholarship. I even sent him a copy of Mike’s DVD.

He mentioned that he was a backpacker and appreciated wildlife, and was interested to hear about the role beavers play for salmon, steelhead, groundwater recharge, biodiversity, nutrient cycling, and climate change resilience. We talked about the controversy and the resolution, how our creek never went dry when the beavers were here. How beavers were great for teaching children about nature and science and mentioned our annual beaver festival. Then I sent him a big care package of information and said I would be happy to answer questions or connect him with the answers. I also suggested he might talk to Mark Ross or Lara Delaney to get the city’s perspective. He was eager to talk with his general manager, because in his words “it sounded like a no-brainer”.

Heidi Happy!

Not that this means everything’s solved and Mountain House beavers are out of the woods. It’s just a beginning.Lots of obstacles could hinder Mr. Lucid along the way. One swallow doesn’t make a summer, they say.

But summer has never come without at least one somewhere. So it’s a start.

Then I arranged a speaking date with Pinole Rotary who wanted to hear about the Martinez beavers and get the story first hand. Since there are eager beavers in Rodeo they must be on their way to Pinole next – I say not a moment too soon!

It’s not just for polar bears anymore.

heidi08 Beaver Chewing, Beavers and climate change, Beavers elsewhere, What's killing beavers now? January 13, 2016

Hmm. Phys.org might just have offered us an important clue about our beaver deaths. Not surprisingly the research comes from the University of Utah. Thanks BK for the lead!

Poison warmed over: Climate change may hurt animals’ ability to live on toxic plants

University of Utah lab experiments found that when temperatures get warmer, woodrats suffer a reduced ability to live on their normal diet of toxic creosote – suggesting that global warming may hurt plant-eating animals.

“This study adds to our understanding of how climate change may affect mammals, in that their ability to consume dietary toxins is impaired by warmer temperatures,” says biologist Denise Dearing, senior author of the research published online Jan. 13 in the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

“This phenomenon will result in animals changing their diets and reducing the amount of plant material they eat, relocating to cooler habitats or going extinct in local areas,” says Dearing, a distinguished professor and chair of biology at the university.

The new study’s first author, biology doctoral student Patrice Kurnath, says: “We found that desert woodrats have a harder time eating their natural diet at slightly warmer temperatures. In terms of climate changes, this study suggests that plant-eating animals all over the world may have problems dealing with their preferred food sources.”

While not all animal diets are as toxic as those of woodrats and other rodents that eat plants like creosote bushes or juniper, most mammals eat some toxins in their diet. In an ongoing evolutionary battle, plants evolve chemical defenses against being eaten and animals evolve liver enzymes or other ways to overcome or avoid plant toxins.

Dearing notes that “over 40 percent of all existing mammals eat only plants” and many more eat some plants. “Most plants produce toxins, so the majority of plant-eating mammals eat toxic compounds, and this may become more difficult to deal with as the climate warms,” she adds. Birds also might be affected, she says.

Now just sit back in your chair and think about that for a moment. Most plants contain toxins that animals have adapted to be able to digest.In normal conditions their complex systems can take out the nutrients they need and get rid of the bad stuff. And it looks like higher temperatures make that harder for them to do.

Think about the bad stuff that might be in willow (that produces the compound for aspirin) or in cottonwood (that has been studied to release chemicals to discourage insect browsing) or in Coyote Bush, which has such an acrid small that sap on pets and horses that it has been known to cause skin rashes. Think about what beavers take on every day – and not just in Martinez. And the leaves they eat are so poor in nutrients that they have to eat A LOT of them.

You know this summer in the Bay Area was record breaking hot. I’m trying to find the stats for how hot – but the reports out of the National Climate Data center say that the closes reporting station said that in June, July and August we endured 63 days over 90 degrees and in Martinez, which is usually cooled by breezes off the strait we had 34 days at or over 90. When it comes down to it, beavers are probably more affected by water temperature than air temperature, but obviously they’re related.

We aren’t the only ones who had mysterious die-offs. Think about that sick kit at Mountain View Sanitation, or the unexplained deaths of beaver in Oregon and Washington this summer. What if climate change is partly responsible for their deaths? I truly hope that’s not the case, because it’s not going to get better any time soon.

But beavers are pretty adaptable. If they can deal with nuclear fallout at Chernobyl, they can probably find a way to manage more toxins in their diet. Hmm I’m going to be thinking about this for quite a while I can see.

Damming Gets Faint Praise

heidi08 Beaver Chewing, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers elsewhere, What's killing beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? January 11, 2016

Do you remember that grumpy english teacher who never said anything nice, always brought a thermos to work and marked your papers down on purpose so you wouldn’t feel cocky. Except for that ONE moment in time he complimented your Dostoyevsky essay with a single muttered adjective?

Well I guess Mr. Reid is the Beaver’s english teacher.

Exploring The Last GreenValley: Beavers are nature’s engineer

I have to admit to a love-hate relationship with Castor canadensis, the largest rodent in the United States, and the unparalleled builder of dams.

Too often, however, my amazement at this industrious animal turns to frustration when I have to haul my canoe or kayak out of a river and around or over yet another tree felled by the busy beaver.

Over time and through personal experience, I have come to appreciate beavers not only for their industrious, wood-gnawing construction abilities, but also for the positive impact they can have on our natural world and habitat. This understanding and appreciation took time.

About 15 years ago, my father returned from a walk in the woods to declare that he had found a beaver pond right smack in the middle of the forest. The beavers had built a dam across a small stream, were busy felling valuable trees and had flooded trails and logging roads. In all, they had created two separate ponds covering several acres of land.

Trapping and removal of the beavers was recommended by our consulting forester, so we filed applications with the State of New Hampshire and hired a local trapper to remove the animals.

The trees were spared, but not for long. Two years later, the beavers were back. Since then, we have kept an irregular schedule of trapping and removing the beavers depending on their numbers and amount of tree damage.

The result of having beavers on our property is the same as what has occurred throughout history in North America – beavers play an important role in the ecology of the land by creating enhanced wetlands that benefit a variety of wildlife species.

When I walk in our forest, my first stop is always at the beaver pond to check for damage to valuable trees as well as to look for salamanders, turtles and frogs. Our pond attracts all sorts of wildlife and on its muddy banks I have found tracks from deer, fisher, coyote, black bear and moose.

It took a while, but I have found a greater appreciation for what the beavers brought to our land. We try to keep a happy medium by maintaining the pond, but keeping their numbers in check to minimize their damage to our important tree crop.

Hmm. It is so tempting to be heartened by this article, from the wilds of New Hampshire where beaver activity is never beloved. He looked up the phrase ecosystem engineer and has noticed positive changes on his land. You have to admire that. But I can’t help but resent his grudging appreciation. I think a beaver would say ‘that’s mighty white of you to value my work while you insist on controlling my pond and killing my relatives’.

But maybe that’s just me.

Let’s have something adorable to brighten our horizons. H/T to Robin from Napa.