Category: Beaver Chewing

CANADIANS APPRECIATE BEAVERS IN THE SNOW

It’s getting colder and beavers are busy all over trying to keep up with their demanding lives and jobs. We are starting to see more and more articles like this one from Alberta Canada.

Busy beavers chew down trees in Weaselhead Flats for new dam, winter prep

It’s an especially busy time to be a beaver in Weaselhead Flats. So busy, in fact, that trail enthusiasts who have recently visited the area might have noticed that many trees have been chewed to the ground, and water in the park’s popular beaver pond is shallower.

According to Lisa Dahlseide, a naturalist with the Weaselhead/Glenmore Park Preservation Society, this is because the beavers-in-residence are hard at work to prepare food storage for winter — and have built themselves a brand new dam.

It led to the need for some at-home repairs, she said.

“[The new dam] altered the water levels quite a lot in the beaver pond,” Dahlseide said Tuesday on the Calgary Eyeopener.

“And so, they’re also doing some renovations on their lodges as a result of that … [and using] a little bit of extra trees for those two construction projects.”

There is lots to be done in the winter. Keeping ponds deep enough to avoid a solid freeze requires adjustments. And stocking the larder is a mountain of work, especially when you have teenagers and kits and yourselves to feed for four months. How do beavers do it? It’s hard enough on us to limit our shopping to once a week during the pandemic. We’re always running out of something we wish we had like cilantro or green onions and wishing we could sneak to the store and get some more. Beavers make it an entire winter without going the store.

Beavers have their benefits.

For example, their dams, which are built to provide a habitat and protection for their young, also create ponds and wetlands that provide habitats for wildlife, and water moving through them is purified.

“At the Weaselhead Preservation Society, we honour the beaver. We want to promote coexistence with them, because we recognize that they are a very critical keystone species,” Dahlseide said.

“Without them, we don’t have that wetland, and the wetland is what provides an ecological service to humans. And especially in that area, that wetland there is filtering and cleaning the water very close to the ring road.”

That’s a nice start of the list of ways those beavers are helping you. Dahlseide isn’t burdened overmuch with beaver ecology knowledge, she says they are crepuscular and thinks their are 5 families living in the little park so we’ll just leave that for now an say, thank goodness for the handful of Canadians who appreciate beavers.

This from Valemont B.C., about 500 miles northeast of our friends in Point Moody. Not much of an article but a dam pretty photo shoot.

Busy beavers on Dominion Creek walking trail

The Dominion Creek walking trail is not passable due to a large beaver dam. The dam spans both the creek and the path creating a pond on the other side. There is evidence of busy beaver construction on the banks as well.

Isn’t it beautiful to see what beavers do in the winter? I never tire of looking at it, And our Saskatchewan friend Mike Digout’s movie of the beaver breaking through ice hit 11.1 million views this week, which is probably never gonna stop surprising him. I’m just glad so many people have a single moment where they enjoy beavers instead of killing them.

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SASKATCHEWAN’S BEAVER CHAMPION

Well. That was fun. I got a day filled with the cutest craziest beaver cards a person could imagine. Gosh, looking at them all together you people would think I’m obsessed with beavers or something. What ever would give someone that idea?

I am obsessed with this though. It was posted on the beaver management forum page yesterday by Mike Digout of Saskatchewan. It is pretty amazing that anyone living there is a fan of beavers, because they are so notorious for killing them. But here’s his comments.

Thought you all would enjoy this close up video I took in August. This beaver chewed through a poplar limb in 40 seconds, then flung it over her shoulder and headed for the beaver pond. Tonight I had a front row seat to watch and videotape this beaver gnaw through a poplar limb in about 40 seconds. Soooo cool (note: FYI, this was the adult female of the family)

When you see how FAST that beaver is chewing, not pausing to enjoy a single bite and scurrying off with her branch you realize how very unsafe she must be feeling. She’s totally exposed. In daylight. Away from the water. In Saskatchewan. That’s pretty vulnerable.

But boy does she get the job done.

Mike has been watching a family of beavers all summer long and taking photos and video. Obviously we know just what that was like. He has fantastic stuff and hopefully when all his friends and neighbors get to watch how cool beavers are they will think twice about killing so many. I’m also hoping that we will become best friends and he’ll be guest posting here soon.

For now you can see the collection on his facebook page here.

Mike Digout Beaver Videos

“PARDON OUR DISARRAY WHILE WE TRANSFORM THE ECOSYSTEM”

heidi08 Beaver Chewing, Beaver ecological impact February 10, 2020

Speaking of trees, Judy Atkinson of Port Moody wrote yesterday about an idea she was trying to finalize for how to talk to people about the trees beavers felled. She noted the people seemed to get anxious about beavers ‘killing’ everything and was working to replace the concept with language emphasizing transformation instead.

The trees aren’t being hauled off by a contractor or the municipality, they are still there in the wetland, but either laying at an angle, laying on the ground or sitting in the water. Each one of those places is important for the wetland and the wildlife.

If a beaver felled tree falls in the pond it adds nutrient to the water, raising the complexity. These trees make shaded, safe spots for fish to hide. If the tree falls at an angle and becomes a snag, mother ducks and their ducklings roost on the trunk at night for safety. Trees are vital to wildlife even when they are dead or dying. If tree that doesn’t like wet feet drowns, it becomes a nature tree for cavity dwellers.

I could see what she was getting and why it was important. I reminded her to educate the city workers too and make sure they LEFT the fallen trees in the first place. I suggested she might want to introduce some kind of interpretive sign to help observers understand what they were seeing. Something like

“Pardon our disarray while we rebuild the ecosystem”

She like the idea very much and we were both surprised to find that with no input from us, the Rugged Individualist dropped a third post, dedicated to that very topic.

The Paradox of A Rotting Forest

Dead trees are essential in more ways than this brief article can cover. They are in many regards the lifeblood of the forest, just as important as their living brethren. They are a natural part of a dynamic environment in which all trees age and eventually die….We need to reconsider these integral and indispensable parts of the forest for what they are.

Let us start with dead trees as the irreplaceable substrate for woodpeckers to perform their role as an integral keystone species. Woodpeckers, like beavers, perform functions that have a disproportionate effect on the ecosystem they live within and the species that reside there. When a dead or dying tree is left to the forces of natural processes, it attracts bug life that utilizes the weakened internal structure. This is the impetus for woodpeckers to hammer into the tree, seeking out the cloistered invertebrates. What is left over after the woodpecker’s persistent chiseling are cavities that serve as homes, both permanent and temporary, for an astonishing array of wildlife. Small mammals, like squirrels, raccoons, opossums, martens, fishers, and bats, take advantage of the woodpecker’s hard work. This hard work is just as cherished by the 40 or so (probably more) different bird species in North America that cannot excavate their own cavities and rely exclusively on woodpecker borings for suitable homes. These birds range in variety from songbirds to wood ducks to raptors.

I’m sure you get the idea, and AJB describes it very well. Too often people look at beaver activity as destruction, when what it really is is TRANSFORMATION. Remember, that which a caterpillar calls the end of the world, the creator calls a butterfly.

It’s hard in today’s supremely flammable world to convince people to leave dead wood anyway on a property. My parents home in the sierras was told they would lose their insurance carrier if they did not removal all wood, trees and leaves within 500 feet of the dwelling. I can imagine well that one of the unintended effects of climate change is that as people get more afraid of fire their is less dead or decaying wood left around which induces a trickle down of negative effects for insects, cavity nesters and hungry wildlife.

Dead trees don’t just need the expert craft of a woodpecker to provide refuge, though. Depending on the size, trees produce large, natural cavities capable of supporting creatures from rodents to bears. Not only are they directly beneficial to certain species as shelter, many of these species are prey creatures that support predators. Unfortunately, there are a very limited number of trees remaining that are of a size to produce large cavities caused from internal decay. In fact, this is so drastically true that according to a study by Frontiers in Ecology and The Environment, 99% of the cavities in North America used by birds and small mammals are created by woodpeckers.

And what about the trees beaver fell?

Downed trees lying prostrate on the ground provide plenty of moist, decomposing detritus. This is where severely imperiled amphibians like salamanders, frogs, etc. can find protection and sanctuary. The stumps that may remain if a dead tree snaps usually retain an intact root system that provide lodging/hibernacula for many species. Downed trees in and around water sources serve as crucial basking sites for turtles, snakes, and more. Dead trees, standing or fallen, are a treasure to our herpetofauna that can be the difference between preservation or total collapse of populations.

So the next time you start complaining about all that ‘destruction’ beavers are doing on your land, try thinking about it as transformation. Beavers change things. It’s what they do.

IN FEBRUARY A YOUNG BEAVER HITS THE ROAD

heidi08 Beaver Chewing, Dispersal February 7, 2020

Guess what month it is? February. And what is it that happens in February from a strictly beaver point of view? Oh that’s right. Ten years of living with beavers teaches us what happens in the west: DISPERSAL!

Beaver holds up traffic for ten minutes on Princeton bridge

Groundhog Day was February 2.

However, for at least one local man, the first day of the month was The Day of The Beaver.

Jim Dixon, and several other motorists, were held up at Princeton’s Brown Bridge for approximately ten minutes Saturday morning by a beaver who was taking its sweet time crossing the river.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Dixon.

Well. maybe not Dixon, but we have. Thank goodness folks were content to slow down and snap photos. Beavers and roadways are a notoriously bad combination. Think about how annoyed that poor beaver will be when he realizes all this effort just brought him right back to the same dam river he thought he left behind.

You will recognize the presenter in this fine video from our Scottish friends.

All I can say is they have some DAM fine trees in Scotland! That is Louise Ramsay and her daughter, Sophie, singing at the end. I think this is on their estate in Bamff. What a beautiful slice of nature they steward!

A friend re-posted this recently and I thought I had died and went to heaven.

MEMORIALIZED BY BEAVERS

heidi08 Beaver Chewing January 10, 2020

So yesterday I was home alone, minding my own business, when the phone rings and it’s an NBC reporter wanting to ask about the chewed tree photos I put on FB. Turns out one of their reporters reads the site and told her to follow up. So over she comes and we waltz into an interview on camera in my living room. About whether or not I think the beavers are ‘back’, why cities get upset about them and what people can do to help. That’s all fine with me. I expect to be on permanent beaver call.

What I didn’t expect was that the camera man (child) would – after the interview and after removing the camera – set down his 4 heavy 4 foot tripod 4 feet away and it would fall with a lumbering CRASH because he hadn’t set it down properly and it would miss my very important baby toe by a fraction of a fraction of an inch.

Honestly the noise it made when tipping alone – not to mention his hunched Igor status – told me how very, very heavy that thing was. I would be have spent the afternoon in the E.R. And I suppose it would have been fitting in a way, To be injured by a cameraman while talking about beavers.

But my house was built in 1898 and has at least one very friendly spirit who makes himself known in various mostly friendly ways from time time to time – one of which being the habit of dropping things in very dramatic ways without hurting anyone. Once every single one of our plates and cups fell from the wall and the cat, who was in the tiny kitchen at the time, was mercifully spared and when we ran in alarm to check coolly picked his way across the shards.

And once a heavy tripod fell a millimeter’s distance from my bare toes and missed me by the scant thickness of a hair and I was fine. Thanks Friendly Spirit.

So the interview was on the TeeVee last night, and a kickstand of concern has been artfully laid to protect the beavers by making them visible to the people that saved them last time. She wanted to talk to the city too so I gave her Mark Ross’s cell phone; On a whim Jon went down scouting for beavers last night but he saw narry a one. I suppose we shall see what transpires. This may turn out to be nothing, but it might be a beaver shot across the bow, so to speak.

At least our beavers will get slightly better odds than these in Missouri:

Twin Lakes Memo

Beavers have chewed their way through trees at Twin Lakes Recreation Area — including some planted as memorials for loved ones. Families have paid $250 each for these trees to memorialize family members or friends and work colleagues who have died.

The affected trees lie along the southeast corner of the lake inside the recreation area. The stumps can be found just outside of a gate to a fenced-in dog area and continue further inside. Dave Dittmer, forester for the city Parks and Recreation Department, said that department crew members first reported the damage to the trees in December.

Sorry about Grandma, but PLEASE PLEASE can I have my memorial tree eaten by beavers? Can’t you just imagine my plaque next to that whittled beaver chew. Maybe with some artfully scattered woodchips?

“Here lies Heidi, she truly gave beavers all she could”

In a post on Facebook showing the damage to the trees, one user commented that beavers have been doing similar damage to trees around Cedar Lake, which is located just south of Southampton Drive a few blocks west of Providence Road.. Discussion in the comments of the same Facebook post contained some users calling for the beavers to be relocated, and others urging that the beavers be left alone.

Dittmer talked to the Conservation Department about relocating the beavers, he said. He was told it’s not possible to relocate them at this time because the beavers would starve, as they store and hide their food for the winter season.

I guess beavers don’t walk around or go to coffee houses anymore to find stories. They just scan facebook. There but for the grace of everyone in town go our beavers. Martinez has some lucky little flat-tails,that’s all I can say. Here’s a reminder from our friend Emily Fairfax why we were also lucky to have them in the first place.