WHERE HAS ALL THE WATER GONE?

heidi08 BDA's, Beavers and water July 30, 2020

I mean, as long as we understand these things. That’s what really matters. These researchers at Syracuse University are making sure we leave nothing to chance.

Where Does the Water Go?

Beavers play an important role in maintaining the habitat around streams throughout the United States. Beaver dams slow water velocity, preventing stream banks from eroding. Without these dams, the rushing water and sediment cuts the stream channel deeper into the ground, dropping the water table. If the water table drops too far below neighboring plants and shrubs, native vegetation dies off resulting in a barren landscape and a loss of biodiversity, further upsetting an area’s ecological balance.

To replicate the effects of beaver dams, a modern stream restoration technique known as “beaver dam analogues” (BDAs) has been developed. These artificial structures consist of wooden posts woven with vegetation to slow water velocity. The intention behind BDAs are to raise the water table in order to restore or maintain native vegetation and to slow water velocities to reduce erosion.

As populations of beavers have declined, municipalities, state agencies and private landowners in the western U.S. have installed BDAs, but have not necessarily monitored their effects, according to Christa Kelleher, assistant professor from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. As a result, little is known about how these structures function in their surrounding landscape.

Yes yes,no one is researching the BDAs they are so excited about putting in but we’re here to change all that! Ladies and gentleman, may I present to you the amazing BDA researcher!

Through a grant from the National Science Foundation and in partnership with The Nature Conservancy Wyoming, Kelleher and collaborator Philippe Vidon, professor in the Department of Forest and Natural Resources at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, will investigate how BDAs affect the storage and flux of water along stream corridors. The team will look to answer the question: Where does the water go?

Topics Kelleher and her team will investigate include: if water in the stream primarily leaves as evaporation because the dams generate a large pond upstream; if water moves from the stream to recharge the groundwater aquifer (underground rock or sediment that holds groundwater); or if water simply moves around the BDAs into the surrounding land and then re-enters the stream through groundwater-surface water interactions.

“We will accomplish this by field observations and modeling to try to get at not just individual processes, but their interactions,” says Kelleher. “What we learn around these beaver dam analogues will be compared to similar observations and analysis along stretches of river that do not have these structures, to contrast our findings.”

Allow me to say that your important research of whether water in BDA’s get evaporated or hypoheic exchanges itself into groundwater, is the perfect foundation for MY RESEARCH. Which is what the fuck would happen to all that water if we didn’t kill beavers in the first place.

Please stay tuned or our dynamic conclusion.

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OUR FRIENDS AT BLUE HERON PRESERVE GET BDA’S

heidi08 BDA's July 25, 2020

Well, that’s the thing. When you’ve been around as long as we have, you get to watch the evolution of your friends. It was way back in 2014 that I was contacted by Nancy Jones the founder and then director of the Blue Heron Preserve in Atlanta Georgia, because they had some beavers in the area and they wanted to know what to do about them. Nancy came out for a visit and attended a festival in a separate trip, and when she was ready to bring on another director they sent Kevin McCauley out for a visit as well!

Well, they are still doing Georgia’s share of the heavy beaver lifting.

Beaver dams a low-tech solution to stormwater management in Atlanta park

Manmade beaver dams have just been installed along a creek in Atlanta’s Blue Heron Nature Preserve and could offer a time-tested, natural method to manage stormwater runoff.A

The effect of the manmade beaver dams is the same as natural beaver dams – water backs up behind the dam and forms a pond, where some water can soak into the earth and groundwater. Water that does seep through the dam flows downstream at pace slow enough to not erode creek banks.

Beaver dams are a modest method to clean streams, according to Ed Castro, president of ECL, the company that installed the dams at the nature preserve.

They’re so smart they even got the state to pay for the project with a clean water grant. You know it’s a pretty great day for beavers when a bunch of bureaurocrats write a check for the work they would do for free. Now if we could just get them to stop writing the other kind of checks. You know, the ones they pay to BMP or USDA to kill them.

Blue Heron’s system of dams was built with locust trees harvested from Castro’s tree farm in Newton County. They were nuisance trees and he was pleased to find a good way to repurpose them. The tree trunks became the upright poles in the dam, and branches and underbrush were woven in a horizontal fashion among poles that had been installed in pairs. Each dam runs 12 or so poles wide, depending on the width of the creek at a given point.

“The idea was to mimic a natural approach that a beaver might have,” Castro said. “We’d weave the poplar, the box elder – the biomass – in between the logs, mimicking beavers as they cut it down and start adding material, like a bird building a nest. They’re using a collection of natural resources and building it their way.”

Hey if you’re REALLY LUCKY some local beavers will move in and take over. Their funding stream is more reliable and consistent. And they stick around on the job and make repairs for free.

Good Luck!

GROOMING FOR SUCCESS: BEAVER VERSION

heidi08 Beaver Grooming June 1, 2020

A beaver grooming is a regular site to see and as likely to be photographed as a beaver chewing or a beaver building a dam. Maybe more likely, since grooming happens on land and people are way more impressed at beavers on land and likely to snap a photo. Grooming isn’t about vanity, it’s urgent beaver business. Life or death self care. If it didn’t happen every day, especially in the colder places, the beaver couldn’t exist.

You’ll be happy to know that such an important job comes with the exact right tools for the job. The so-called grooming claw which is a split nail on their back foot that is perfect for fluffing up that fur. We were recently treated to an excellent grooming profile from the Winterberry Website,

Beavers Grooming and Specialized Split Claw

Beavers groom frequently, both in the lodge and on land, to remove debris from the coat and to waterproof it with oil from anal glands. When the animal emerges from the water to groom, it may start with its face and head, or with its belly. It begins by raking the fur with its fingernails, and then gets some difficult to reach spots with its hind feet. The two inner toes on each hind foot are modified for grooming. The innermost toe nail opens and closes over the toe, like a bird’s beak, and functions like a coarse toothed comb. The second toe has a “split nail” or “double nail”. The former term is more commonly used but the latter term is, perhaps, more accurate. It really is a double nail: It has a true nail and an additional horny growth between the true nail and the toe. The additional horny growth has a finely serrated upper edge which serves as a fine toothed comb.

Of course a beaver grooming is a camera ready moment, but two beavers grooming eachOTHER, well that just resets the whole scale for cuteness. She says beavers mostly do mutual groom in the lodge, but we know that’s not exactly true.

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FOLLOWING UP WITH FRIENDS

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere May 25, 2020

Follow-ups needed: Here is the chalk-masterpiece by featured artist Ray Cirinio at yesterday’s Santa Barbara festival. Pretty nice work. (Although the beaver has way too many whiskers for my inner critic. He’s not a walrus for pete’s-sake!) The hands are lovely and to form, though. Everything else is very convincing, because he’s probably actually SEEN the other things…hmm.I wanted to be regaled with hundreds of beaver illustrations this morning, but Ray seems to be the only one online so far. Let’s hope his work inspires many others. You can see what a large undertaking it all is. One of my favorite parts of working with Amy is being there when she has Jon help her lay out the grid for her initial artwork. It’s always soo auspicious!

My mother brought over the ‘actual’ newspaper from last weeks Oakley bruhaha. This is the front page of the local news section. That’s some pretty good product placement! Now everyone in the town knows they had beavers.

The folks in England have been working round the clock to promote the next phase of beaver reintroduction. One of them recently shared this lovely info-graphic illustration with I thought I should pass along. Pretty nice, isn’t it?

And since its memorial day I want to make sure you’ve all seen this, If you were alive in 1918 you either died or knew sometime that had. I’m sure my 1898 house could tell stories about wearing masks or social distancing in those days. We are all so very lucky to be reading this and not living it. This represents 1% of the total number that died from this virus.

GHOST BEAVER

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Odd beaver coloring May 8, 2020

Folks have called me a beaver knowledgeable town-crier and I usually know what’s going on in the beaver-verse. But I never thought I was beaver-psychic. That’s comes as a surprise. Look what’s hot in the Canadian news today.

All-white beaver shocks Beaver Dam man

A Beaver Dam man is in complete awe of an encounter he had with a blazing white beaver this week. Paul Mikolas says he was standing near the river by his home, in the aptly named community south of Fredericton, when an all-white beaver swam right up to him.

“Pure white,” said Mikolas. “And it was huge.”

Mikolas said the size of the animal took him by surprise, just as much as its bright white coat.

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Well I can imagine the man never saw an adult beaver before so that probably accounts for his shock at the size. But the color must have been something to see. An albino-beaver. That’s got to be rare even in Canada.

Because beavers are normally shy and wary animals, Mikolas said this white beaver’s behaviour took him by complete surprise. Once it noticed him, he said, it swam across the river, against the current, toward him.

“It came over to say ‘Hi’ basically, I guess,” said Mikolas. “I could have reached down and stroked its head if I wanted to, it was that close.

“It sat there in the water looking up at me and then it did a little spin, and gave its tail a little slap on the water and dove underwater and went downstream and disappeared. And if I didn’t have the pictures, I honestly wouldn’t have believed it happened.”

Ahh the exciting beaver encounter! With the ghost beaver! I’m so happy for him. Let’s just hope a million trappers don’t rush to this site for a chance to be the one to bag it.

Oh and another new siting today. Duncan Haley of the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research just launched his very own beaver web. Go check it out. Welcome to the ‘hood, Duncan!