Category: Beaver Behavior

And they say one person can’t make a difference…

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Earth Day, Educational, Environmental, Tail slap, Who's saving beavers now? April 15, 2017

You know sometimes, your hard work gets ignored or something you wrote and really feel proud of gets tossed aside as “grey literature”, or a program you really hoped would say good things advises folks that flow devices never work and they should eat beavers, and you think, maybe this is just too hard. Maybe saving beavers is too much work. Maybe it can’t be done or if it can be, it needs some one better than me to do it. And you think about throwing in the beaver towel once and for all.

And then you see something like THIS and it changes your whole attitude.

Draper homeowners fight to preserve backyard wetlands despite flood risks

DRAPER — Dozens of students from Oakwood Elementary gathered in the backyard of a Draper residence Friday to see a beaver dam that may soon disappear.

Kris and Kelly McAdams are hoping their backyard wetlands ecosystem can stay, despite calls to remove the natural beaver dams behind their home. While the McAdams see the wetlands as a beautiful feature that adds value to their property, Salt Lake County Flood Control officials are concerned that a failed beaver dam could clog man-made drainage downstream.

The McAdamses received notice from flood control engineers on Christmas Eve, asking them to remove an “unauthorized deposit of materials,” the beaver dams that they say have been around for years.

“They say the beaver dams are unstable structures, although these have been here for at least 20 years and they have withstood hundreds of high-water events over that time,” Kelly McAdams said. “The dams are well-built here and rather than removing them, they could fortify them, and I suggested putting in a grate system downstream.”

Despite his assertions, county flood control officials worry that debris from the dams could flow down Willow Creek, clog a culvert and cause flooding to nearby homes.

Alyson Heyrend, communications director for Mayor Ben McAdams, said Salt Lake County’s Flood Control authorities have the responsibility of keeping streams and channels clear of any obstructions.

She said a compromise was offered to the property owners near the dams to support the wetland features while removing the dams, but Kris and Kelly McAdams have maintained their opposition to the removal.

They have appealed the notice to remove the dams and have rejected the compromise offer, taking their case before an administrative law judge, who will rule in early May on whether the beaver dams will be removed.

Rep. Carol Spackman-Moss, D-Holladay, also arrived to lend her support to the property owners.

“The county needs to look at the bigger picture, and see the effect that it would have on the wetlands,” Spackman-Moss said. “For these students to come out here and see what they have been studying and get a sense of the damage it would do and how this would all disappear, they would lose something so valuable.”Confe

Spackman-Moss said the county would need to address the issue, and said council members for Salt Lake County ought to come see the property for themselves as they address property and public issues.

Confession coming: either tears of joy are streaming down my face or I just climaxed twice. (Or possibly both). Oh my goodness! This is POWERFUL stuff. Spackman-Moss is a democrat from the 37th district, life long teacher and grandmother. And the class full of fourth graders are FOURTH graders who wrote save the beavers on their hats!

I need to sit down.

In my conversation with Kelly on Saturday I had lots of praise for what he was doing. And two learned-the-hard-way pieces of advice. Have his attorney talk to Mitch, and BRING CHILDREN. “We didn’t know it would be so powerful” I told him truthfully. But it always is. Kelly’s a father with grown sons. But I told him to find some youth. Boy scouts, kindergarten, daisy princesses, and have Allison work with them to draw pictures, make hats, what ever activity that looks cute enough for the media to take photos of.

And guess what?

Kelly you are doing an awesome, awesome job. I’m so impressed with your ability to pull this together, not get intimidated or overwhelmed and still seem so very reasonable. You are a credit to your state and a true kindred spirit of Martinez. I would only offer one criticism at all, and that is that last Earth day OUR hats were a little cuter. 🙂

Oh and for those who might be interested I sent these comments and corrections to the edible beaver program Outside/In yesterday. Felt good to get it off my chest and even if it changes no one’s mind, I dare say someone will definitely read it anyway.

proof

A Modest [beaver] Proposal

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers elsewhere, stupid solutions, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now? April 16, 2017

“A Modest Proposal” was published anonymously in 1729 by Jonathan Swift and shocked readers with the [satiric] suggestion that the problem of too many Irish poor children could be solved if their parents simply sold them as a food source to rich people.

A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.”^[1]

Long before Trump said Mexicans were rapists and murderers, Swift hated the way people were treating the poor Irish and more particularly the way that people wrote about their plight as if one single solution could solve everything. One of the subtle victories of the pamphlet was that it shocked and enraged the reader so much that they ended up hating the narrator and feeling sorry instead for the Irish.

Let’s hope. Because yesterday New Hampshire NPR podcast on beavers from “Outside In” centered on a thoughtful retired mid-wife who solved her pesky beaver problem by deciding to eat them.

No really.

“For seven years I said, you can’t kill them, you have to outwit them. That’s back when I thought you could actually outwit a beaver, but you can’t.”

The paradigm under which we currently operate is called the American system of wildlife management, under which wildlife is a commonly owned resource, and through regulation we decide how many animals we will kill. Are deer eating the shoots off of too many saplings out in the forest? Increase the number of deer hunting permits issued. Are farmers complaining about losing livestock to coyotes? Relax limitations on hunting them. Are there so many beaver that they are expanding wetlands until they flood wells and roads? Call in trappers to reduce beaver populations in that location.

This ensures that the population stays below what is called the “biological carrying capacity” which is a fancy science-y way of saying “how many beaver the land can sustain.” Pat Tate is a big believer in keeping animal density low, because he believes it makes the animal’s lives better.

Pat said, “As I’ve reduced numbers in the wetlands, and went back subsequent years to trap, the amount of scarring and bite-marks on the beaver decreases. So the individual animal’s health increases.”

And trappers I’ve spoken to hear a lot of hypocrisy whenever they hear people call trapping immoral. For instance, a trapper from Southern New Hampshire, Jeff Traynor, points out there isn’t the same outrage at housing developments or highways or parking lots: forces that have just as much to do with keeping beaver populations low.

“We are the most invasive species on the planet, there’s no doubt about it,” he told me, “As we encroach more we’re pushing them. So where is that overflow going? There’s only so many places that they can go. It comes to a point where you can say, well let’s just let nature take its course, or you can say, as human beings can we manage this creature with moral wisdom?”

Two things I’m SURE trappers possess an abundance of: Morality and Wisdom. P-uleeze! If you have time go listen to the whole thing, because it is actually stunning how often it is incorrect. The story didn’t get any better when he talked to our friends Skip Lisle or Art Wolinsky either.

But this “moral wisdom” argument, just doesn’t do it for many beaver believers. Skip Lisle, founder of Beaver Deceivers International, has heard this argument for years in his line of work, and doesn’t buy it. “You know, you always hear, we have to kill the beavers so they don’t get hungry. And if you were an individual beaver, you can imagine which choice they would choose if they had one to make, right? Would you rather be hungry or dead?”

The proponents of restricting beaver trapping often point out that while some management decisions are based on ecosystems science—with government biologists going out and to try to estimate how many animals the land can sustain— other times, the decision is based on our willingness to tolerate animals. This is, almost euphemistically, what we call the “cultural carrying capacity.” And for beavers, it’s often that cultural limit, and not the actual limits of the habitat, that they bump up against.

Skip and his disciples argue they can increase society’s tolerance for beaver by keeping the two species from coming into conflict. Beavers’ damming instinct is triggered by running water, and by using a clever arrangements of grates, culverts, and drainage pipes, Skip keeps beaver far enough away from the running water that they don’t get the urge to start building a dam.

By putting in this type of “fixed protection” whenever a conflict arises, Skip argues we can have the best of both worlds: a growing beaver population and an infrastructure that isn’t submerged under beaver ponds. For him, the argument that trapping leads to a healthier population is beside the point.

Good for you Skip, I’m glad you tried valiantly to elevate this beaver HIT piece. But of course the narrator visits next the plight of Massachusetts where the mean compassion-isitas outlawed body crushing traps in 1996 and the beaver population exploded, because no trappers! (Never mind that no one IS or WAS counting the beaver population in MA or anywhere and any time threats to human property is at stake the same traps can be used anyway.)

Then he trots faithfully back to the beaver-eating midwife who bemoans that she tried installing a beaver deceiver AND a beaver baffler and they didn’t work! So the plucky gal picked up her fork and got to work.

Carol Leonard, who started off our story, spent seven-years trying to figure out how to fool the beavers on her property. “In my naivete I said oh well we’ll try these beaver deceivers and these beaver bafflers and all these do-hickers,” she recalled. But eventually she gave up and apprenticed with a trapper, and started to trap out the animals that threatened her property.

“We are meat eaters, you know, we are hunter gatherers, it’s part of who we are. And so to be able to turn a blind eye to that is just a blind eye,” she said. She applauds animal rights activists, but says she thinks their efforts are better spent protesting concentrated animal feeding operations, or other places where animals live short and miserable lives before heading to our plates. “I think the traditions of hunting and trapping in New England are good, healthy traditions. And I can’t talk against hunters… I can’t. I’m a meat-eater.”

Carol says she has trapped somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 beavers from her property, and while many still remain just downstream, the pond that was threatening her septic setback is no longer growing. In 2015, she and her husband were able to start construction and their home, now completed, is gorgeous, judging from a recent photo spread done by Down East Magazine.

That’s right, You know the old saying: if you can’t Beat ’em – Eat’em.

I don’t know about you but I’ve reached my CULTURAL CARRYING CAPACITY for stupid-ass reporters like this who repeat beaver bullshit even though they have the real answers RIGHT at their fingertips. A reporter with access to talk to experts like Skip Lisle or Ben Goldfarb but still clings to the bitter laments of trappers and fish and game instead. Ben told me in an email last night that in his interview with Sam Evans-Brown, the reporter said that he had been told “flow devices only work 10% of the time”. So of course, when midwife said it didn’t work, he believed it. Why would he read any of the articles citing their success OR interview Dr. Glynnis Hood who has been using them with great success OR talk to someone Skip had done an installation for a decade ago and ask whether it actually worked.

Details Details.

It’s all comes down to real estate. Beavers are in our WAY and we deserve to kill them, didn’t you realize? And besides who needs clean water anyway?

“I grant that this food will be very dear and therefore more proper for the landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have best title to the children.”

These are a few of my favorite beaver things!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Dispersal, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? April 13, 2017

Homeowners, Salt Lake County battle over beaver dams

I heard from Kelly yesterday that they had received help from a local non-profit to access the media and knew this was coming. My my my this is a splendid report, that emphasizes the whole ‘home as castle’ argument that appeals to the manly provider heartstrings. Never mind the California saving habitat nancy-boy argument. If you haven’t watched it you should, and if you want to help their efforts you can donate and/or sign the petition here:

“We’re always watching ducks and geese come in for takeoffs and landings on the creek,” McAdams said. “It’s a beautiful thing to see and experience.”

“Striking the balance is the real challenge here,” Graham said. “We’ve had discussions. There are options. Beaver dams are not an option because they’re naturally made, they’re not secure, but there are options to create the same type of effects (behind McAdams and his neighbor’s houses).”

26172854 — Two homeowners are in a fight with Salt Lake County to keep the beaver dams behind their properties that have contributed to a rich wetland environment full of ducks, geese, birds, muskrats and other wildlife. (KSL TV)

McAdams said prior to the Dec. 24 notice, the county had made separate offers to deliver $500 and then $5,000 worth of rock to install around the creek, but he believes the delivery and installation would cause more harm to his property along with the wetland.

“To destroy nature like that with total disregard, it just frustrates me to no end,” McAdams said.

He said he could face fines amounting to roughly $750 per month if he does not agree to have the dams removed.

“(Salt Lake County) Flood Control intends to drain a jurisdictional wetland and displace all this wildlife when there are easy alternatives that can be performed on dams and downstream debris mitigation,” McAdams said.

“If I didn’t feel strongly, I would have given up a long time ago,” McAdams said. “I feel very strongly about this.”

Ahh Kelly, we know JUST how you feel. Way to go! You and Erin are fighting the good fight. The one that matters. And while you do it you are teaching your entire community why beaver dams matter. You have all our support, and anything else you need we’ll try and send your way!

Meanwhile I never tire of stories about brave dispersers or an opportunity to re-post THIS picture.

Ontario highway closed as wandering beaver refuses to leave

CAMBRIDGE, Ont. – A wandering beaver shut down part of a highway in southern Ontario on Wednesday as police worked to get the animal back to its natural habitat.

Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Kerry Schmidt says the beaver was spotted sitting on a storm drain against a concrete dividing barrier on Highway 7/8 in Cambridge, Ont.

Schmidt says officers blocked part of the highway and tried to shoo the animal across the road to the ditch. But he says the beaver was having nothing of it and refused to move from the left side of the highway.

He says police had an officer stay with the beaver to ensure it was OK and called in wildlife control. Schmidt says wildlife control was able to capture the beaver and bring him back home.

“No one got hurt, and everybody’s happy,” Schmidt said.

And people wonder why everyone says Canadians are so nice. I’m not sure there’s anywhere else they’d close a highway for a beaver. (Although if I were emperor they ALL would). You know that beaver wasn’t impressed I’m sure. He didn’t want to go back on that side of the road. “That’s where I came from! If I go back home now they’ll all laugh at me!”

“Beavers are the cure we don’t want to take.”

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, 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, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? April 8, 2017

You’ve heard of a red letter day? Well yesterday was a red-beaver day. Here at beaver central we are good at picking up trends and regional changes. We’re usually at the front of the line when it comes to hearing good news. But I’ll be honest, I never expected this.

Draper Fight Centers On Beaver Dams, Wetlands, Flood Control

Two, small beaver dams lie at the heart of a quarrel in Draper. County flood officials are ordering residents to take them down. But the homeowners say the dams protect the wildlife and value of their homes.

Kelly McAdams says the notice of violation letter came on Christmas Eve.

“Inspection by Salt Lake County Flood Control,” he says, reading from the letter, “has indicated that fallen tree limbs and debris have been deposited in the form of a beaver dam into Big Willow Creek, a county-wide drainage facility, without authorization.”

Next month, McAdams goes before an administrative law judge and expects to lose, considering beavers and wetlands have no standing in county law. But he and his wife are set on preserving this patch of habitat for the beavers and all the other creatures that rely on this wetland wonderland.

Make sure you listen to the story which made NPR this morning and sign the petition, then check out SLTribune.

Leave it to beaver? No way, says Salt Lake County

Draper • Big Willow Creek bends and meanders behind Kelly McAdams’ Draper home and her backyard steps down into an urban wildlife preserve.

Thanks to a string of beaver dams, the creek pools into wetlands teaming with life. Ducks and geese nest on the banks lined with cattails; herons and pelicans visit to dine on the 18-inch carp and catfish. Neighborhood kids also fish the ponds.

But where McAdams, his wife, Kris Burns, and neighbors on Dunning Court see an ecological sanctuary, Salt Lake County sees “unauthorized modifications to a countywide drainage facility.”

The county Division of Flood Control has ordered them to remove the dams or face a $25-a-day fine, even though federal wildlife officials say these dams enhance the water quality, hydraulics and riparian habitat

The waterways and channels need to be clear and run and serve their purposes. There is a balancing act,” Graham said. “The county has demonstrated many times it balances wildlife habitat on creeks and waterways as they run through the city.”

Graham has overruled McAdams’ appeal, which is slated to go before an administrative law judge on April 26.

Because my life is just like that I had already heard about this case from the real estate agent representing them who contacted me on April 1 looking for supportive letters to the court on the issue of beavers, water storage, and biodiversity. I put out the usual appeal for help to our beaver friends in Utah but with this new flurry of news I heard this morning from Mary Obrien who is on it. Joe Wheaton is in Europe but I’m hoping he can contribute or at least assign a student to do so. I also heard from our retired attorney friend who won the famous Lake Skinner Beaver case at the appellate level that he would be happy to talk to them and has some ideas to pursue.

“You have all these ecosystem services that keep the entire stream corridor functioning as it should,” said Jones, with the Wild Utah Project. “Many other municipalities across the county are starting to allow beavers back to perform this critical engineering service.”

Meanwhile I know Worth A Dam will write something and mention how a Contra Costa County Flood Control Specialist was on our beaver subcommittee and approved the flow device that controlled flooding and washouts for nearly a decade. I have personally contacted everyone I can think of that might help ‘circle the wagons’ in this case, but more is always needed. If you want to help, email me and I’ll give you contact info. The entire Tribune article is excellent and even talks about flow devices but y requires a little persistent to get past their subscriber wall.

Meanwhile, completely independently but not unrelated, I heard from Michael Pollock yesterday about this prayer-answering article from the unlookedfor source of BeefProducer newsletter. No seriously. It is beautifully written by Editor Alan Newport and he starts out with one of the VERY best lines I’ve ever read. Send this article to every old curmudgeon you know who won’t listen to reason.

In defense of beavers

To reverse streambed erosion the hated beaver is the most likely candidate.

Beavers are the cure we don’t want to take.

No matter how much we improve our grazing, no matter how many water-control structures we build, our streams and other watercourses will cut deeper and deeper into the landscape, robbing us of soil and drying out our pastures and fields.

It took me many years of study and observation to come to this point in my thinking, but today there is no longer any question in my mind. Read on and you’ll learn why I say so.

I’m almost 60 years old and throughout those years I’ve watched the streams cut deeper and deeper into the soil near my home. On my uncle and aunt’s farm, the little rocky crossing we walked across and drove tractors across and rode horses across without a thought disappeared years ago into a gulch. The entire creek today is much deeper than it was, and so is every other creek, stream and wash I know of.

So the question, I reasoned, was what process had previously stopped this from being a natural course of events that outpaced the normal upturn of new soil through movement of the earth’s crust?

In North America, the only answer I‘ve ever found was … beavers! They once lived by the millions in every state in the union, and new evidence says their homeland stretched across much of Mexico and into the arctic tundra of Canada. I have more recently learned beavers also were common across Europe and Asia.

With all this in our knowledge base now, it seems if beavers were the agent of change and good in streams for hundreds of thousands of years before we arrived, then they could be and should be again. They work day and night, like the cow, without us lifting a finger.

I understand that beavers are a pain in the neck, but so is erosion and droughty land.

I have no particular love for beavers, but I do love the land and God’s creation. It’s my understanding we are to be stewards in His image. So here I stand, saying kind things about one of the most hated creatures in the world of agriculture.

Go read the whole article. And then read it again. It’s really well written and contains an impressive amount of research. It’s even more impressive when you realize that Alan is the editor of BeefProducer and lives in Oklahoma. Meanwhile I’m going to be busy thinking up a graphic for that AWESOME first line and writing my amicus brief to the court in Utah.

Then I may just lie back and smoke a cigarette. This has been an incredible morning.

Selfish, Sad and Silly

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers elsewhere, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now? April 6, 2017

There’s a veritable glut of beaver complaints this morning. You’d think people had never seen spring before. Starting with this sodden complaint from Amherst Massachusetts.

Flooding headaches in Amherst: Homeowners on one street struggle to reach their front doors

AMHERST — Back from the supermarket with four bags of groceries, Joyce Silverstone was confronted by a pond in the middle of her street, and a dilemma: should she drive through the deep water to get home, or would it be wise to park the vehicle on pavement and make multiple trips, on foot, to her 35 Pomeroy Court residence?

The water issues are a continuing frustration for the nine residents whose homes are on Pomeroy Court, a dead-end street off Pomeroy Lane that has long been susceptible to flooding and extended periods of standing water.

Almost annually, either the town has trapped beavers and removed beaver dams, or the power company Eversource has monitored the nearby land for beaver activity, said Department of Public Works Superintendent Guilford Mooring.

“The issue is to try to make sure the beavers are managed,” Mooring said. Town officials are well aware of the problems on Pomeroy Court. “During wet weather it floods,” said Town Manager Paul Bockelman. “It’s a super inconvenience for people who live there, and clearly it’s a problem.”

That’s right. We tried this solution OVER and OVER again and the problem keeps coming back. So obviously we just need to try it more. Trap more beavers! More often! Never mind trying something new that would actually solve the problem, like hiring Mike Callahan to install a flow device and control pond height. We want to do the same thing again, again. Because it’s quantity not quality that matters. Sheesh.

On to the smartest folk ever in Memphis Tennessee where a ‘single beaver’ that causes concern is going to be relocated.

Midtown beaver to be relocated

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The city of Memphis says it has no choice but to remove the beaver currently taking up residence in Midtown. The animal was recently spotted at Central and Barksdale, and officials are worried he might cause street flooding and damage to property.

Some folks in Midtown told WREG they think the beaver needs to be left alone, but city leaders promised to be careful relocating it. They said it may even move on its own once they remove its dam.

“Normally we just try and capture the beaver. We have to determine with the state what the regulations are with relocating beavers, or what the options are. It’s something we have to look into,” said Robert Knecht with Memphis Public Works.

On the first hand it’s kinda sweet that their first instinct isn’t to bring in the trapper. Aw. On the second hand I’m not really thrilled about ‘bubba’ stuffing a beaver into a potato sack and dumping him over county lines. I mean if you really did this ‘all the time’ why on earth would you have to look up the regulations for the state? Wouldn’t they be the same as the last time you did it? Never mind that relocating a single beaver is tantamount to a death sentence, or that it’s not going to end well for our hero. Or that there likely isn’t just one beaver, and your breaking apart a family which you will end up killing later.

Honestly, there were three more similar stories this morning that I don’t have the patience to write about. Moral of the story is “People freak out about beavers in April”. And February. They just get worried about all that water. Here’s something delightfully juvenile to take your mind off it. An article entirely of beaver jokes. Some of them aren’t even dirty.