BEAVERLAND MAY BE THE PROMISED LAND

heidi08 Beaver Book, Beavers October 17, 2022

This is coming out just in time to put under the tree. I can think of several,bright shining faces that will be eager to see it. An excellent interview with the author ran at the end of September but there were always too many good climate stories to make space. Luckily it waited for us and will be for sale on the book shelves soon.

Give a Dam: PW Talks with Leila Philip

How are beavers tied up in America’s past?

They’re an extraordinary lens into our history. Explorers came here to look for beaver fur, and the American empire began with the conversion of natural resources, starting with their fur. We almost wiped them out. But through luck, the beavers’ natural resilience, and then some really good environmental policy, they were restored to their landscape.

Did that restoration have ecological benefits?

Yes. In the early 20th century, they were brought back to Connecticut, and beavers began to show us the extent to which they could repair extremely damaged river systems. When we took the beavers out of the landscape, the wetland systems began to dry and degrade. Many of the environmental problems we face today have to do with water, with river systems that are so degraded that even when it rains, the water rushes right out into the ocean instead of seeping back into the ground, hydrating everything it needs to hydrate or filling the aquifer.

There is just about nothing I like better that watching people who never ever expected to be having a conversation about beavers find themselves having a conversation about beavers. Isn’t it fun?

You write in the book that beavers make you hopeful. Why?

They’re extraordinary problem-solvers. When they have a hole in a dam, they just repair it with whatever they have to hand—a rock, a stone, some fiber-optic cable. They’ll just stuff that in. Mike Callahan, who heads up the Beaver Institute, sent me a picture of a beaver dam built around a pickup truck, which I thought was one of the best examples of our moment. I lie awake at night, worrying about the environment and the future, and I think beavers are just an extraordinary story of hopefulness. Because this is nature’s resiliency, doing what it can do, if we either leave it alone or give it the opportunity. We are in a moment where I think we need to adapt. And beavers are incredible adapters.

Theoretically the Martinez beavers will be in that book. But who knows, life is full of surprises and lots may end up edited away. But right before it went to press Leila said she was having trouble finding a great beaver silhouette and asked to use one of ours. They were made for us using Chery’s photos of our actual beavers so who knows? They might LITERALLY be in the book.

We’ll just have to buy it and see for ourselves.

JUNEAU’S BEAVER PATROL PRESENTS

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver Book, Beaver ecological impact October 16, 2022

Beaver dam at Mendenhall Glacier: Photo Bob Armstrong

It seems like a million years ago I read about beaver issues in Juneau and the group of volunteers that had stepped up to keep them from resulting in trapping. Which put me in touch with Bob Armstrong who took the lovely photos for this book and whom I introduced to Mike Callahan who arranged a site visit in 2009. Now one of the locals just gave a presentation on why beavers matter and I thought you’d want to see it too;.

Meet Juneau’s Beaver Patrol, a group of volunteers who work to ensure that beavers coexist with people and salmon. Join long-time Beaver Patrol volunteer Chuck Caldwell to learn more about beavers, Beaver Patrol, and how you can get involved!

IN PATTI SMITH’S WORLD

heidi08 Beaver Book, Beaver Rehabilitation April 27, 2022

I want to live in naturalist Patti Smith’s world.

I don’t care if it’s as a person, a beaver, a possum or a slug. I just want to live in a world where she notices things and describes things and fixes things and makes them better. If that means moving to Vermont, fine. You probably want to come too.

The View from Heifer Hill: The perfect place to be a beaver

Pumpkin has always had important things to do. Beavers’ lives depend upon creating and maintaining the watery world that keeps them safe. Because he is an orphan, however, his work has been stymied. How does one deepen a metal tank? How can one harvest building materials on the other side of a fence? (more…)

REMEMBERING LEWIS HENRY MORGAN

heidi08 Beaver Book March 21, 2022

It’s a fine day to revisit Henry Morgan. And some of my favorite beaver illustrations ever made.

Michigan’s Industrious Beavers

Lewis Henry Morgan

Morgan was to become a famous man, born in New York State in November 1818. He served as a lawmaker in New York’s State Assembly and State Senate. His fame would arise from his work as an anthropologist and developer of social theory who influenced the likes of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

In pursuit of Michigan’s beautiful brook trout, Morgan became interested in the activities of beavers. He studied them intently for several years before producing his captivating 1868 natural history volume, “The American Beaver and His Works,” a book still available in reprint.

Fascination With Beavers

Irene Cheng, in a 2006 piece in Cabinet Magazine, said compared to Charles Darwin’s precise bees, with their mathematically perfect hives, Morgan’s beavers appeared “downright brute-like and their dams primitive.” (more…)

CHEERING ON BEAVERS IN THE CHESAPEAKE

heidi08 Beaver Book, Beaver Conference, Beaver ecological impact, Beavers March 19, 2022

Well we’re about due for one of these. A glowing beaver article with a wonderful plug for BeaverCon 2 in the middle. Grab a second cup of coffee and a bagel and settle in. If we’re lucky it might even rain this morning I hear.

Gerald Winegrad: The key to restoring our watersheds? The industrious beaver | COMMENTARY

Newly acknowledged revelations about beavers have opened up a new world of ecological understanding. In the past few decades scientists discovered the supernatural influence of Castor canadensis – the North American beaver – on the landscape. These dam-building specialists once assured the highest level of proper-functioning watersheds, shaping a natural world very much different than the one we see today.

This once-common large rodent, second only in size to the South American capybara, geoengineered streams and rivers to naturally slow the flow of water allowing it to spread into tens of millions of ponds and millions of acres of wet meadows it created. Taming fast-flowing, channelized rivers reduced stream bank erosion and allowed sediment and nutrients to slowly seep into spongy wetlands and riparian areas where shrubs and trees flourished.

Beavers also mitigate flooding and droughts, sequester carbon, rebuild healthy watersheds, provide fire breaks and clean drinking water, increase biodiversity, and aid in the recovery of wildlife and plant species.

The conclusion is inescapable: Nothing we could do to restore the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem and that of all of North America would have better results than bringing back beaver populations and allowing them to perform their incredible feats of hydrological engineering as they have done for millions of years.

Isn’t that a wonderful beginning? Just so you know, the Chesapeake is the largest estuary in the united states and about 140 rivers and streams drain into it. For comparison there are only about 100 rivers in California. And wouldn’t it be awesome to wake up and read that there is nothing we could do to restore the golden state that would have better results than bringing back the beaver?????????

It would take trillions of dollars to replicate their construction of natural infrastructure. Leaving it to beaver will do a better job at a fraction of the cost. As a bonus, beavers provide free maintenance of their structures, sometimes for hundreds of years, always maintaining and expanding their fiefdoms with great benefits to ecosystems.

Is it just me or is it warm in here? Suddenly I feel all weak at the knees. Either I’m in love or about to be. This might be my favorite beaver article of the year, and it’s only March.

Western states focused on salmon recovery began integrating beavers into restoration projects. The Bridge Creek watershed of the Columbia River basin project in Oregon proved that the quickest and most cost-effective path to salmon recovery was to bring back beavers. Fish survival doubled at a fraction of the cost of conventional restoration. This was done using beaver dam analogues consisting of posts and willow trees to slow water flows and entice beavers.

Projects followed in the west, meeting resistance from local fish and wildlife biologists and others who harbored outdated beaver prejudices. Dedicated geomorphologists, paleontologists, ecologists, and a few restoration specialists began to clearly document the essential and profound role played by beavers with their dams of wood, mud, and rock slowing stream flows and allowing water to naturally spread out in ponds and floodplains.

Instead of the multi-billion-dollar restoration industry’s use of industrial-scale front loaders, backhoes, and bulldozers to gouge out pools and scour meanders to “restore” straightened stream channels, enlightened humans are learning how to collaborate with beavers to accomplish far better ecological restoration. Re-beavering is much less expensive as outdated stream channel restoration is very expensive.

Oh my goodness. I feel faint. Save money by saving beavers! It almost makes total sense! That almost NEVER happens!

Fortunately, there are beaver believers among us now in this region who are figuring out ways to overcome bureaucratic obstacles and restore watersheds. This is slowly catching on in Maryland and nearby states. Yet, most people consider the furry rodents nuisances and want them removed because of their tree clearing and flooding they cause. Beavers can still be trapped by Maryland hunters in unlimited numbers from Dec. 15 to March 15 and “nuisance beavers” are trapped and destroyed year-round.

Trying to overcome beaver bias and spread the word on these wetland geoengineers, the Beaver Institute, an environmental organization in Massachusetts, and Maryland-based environmental consultants at Ecotone Inc. are hosting the BeaverCON conference June 14-16 at Delta Hotels Baltimore in Hunt Valley. The theme is “Building Climate Resilience: A Nature-Based Approach.”

HURRAY! What fantastic advertisement for their conference! I predict it will be twice as big and many more times as impactful than the last one!

A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report noted there are so many severely biologically degraded streams, they would stretch end-to-end to the moon and back. The last chapter of the book “Eager” has the solution and is titled, “Let the rodent do the work.” It’s a recipe we desperately need to follow in re-beavering beaverland.

OHHHH GERALD! You said the very best things in the very best ways. We at Worth A Dam salute you. I mean we surely will once I’m able to stand again.