Category: Beaver Chewing

The Importance of being Ernst

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Chewing, Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers elsewhere, Tail slap, Who's saving beavers now? July 17, 2016

Sometimes even the back of the class earns a gold star. The Ernst trail in Meadville PA lies in the upper left hand corner of the state near Ohio. Neither state has been particularly progressive on beaver management issues in the past, so I was thrilled to see this. Remember the trapper who said he was only going to take the ‘soldier beavers’?

ON THE ERNST TRAIL: Importance of beaver pond outweighs potential flooding

In the spring of 2015 the water, in the wetland, just south of Bean’s, on the west side of the Ernst Trail, began to rise precipitously up toward the trail. The water was also rising on the east side of the trail. We were concerned that the water might flow over the trail and perhaps damage the trail surface.

A short investigation revealed that beavers had dammed up the two culverts that drain from the west side of the trail to the east side and that there were many small dams on the east side as well. The board of directors decided to act.

In the course of trying to figure out what to do I visited the trail one June day last year at lunch with Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Conservation Officer Mark Allegro. He was busy with nuisance bear complaints and only had time at lunch to consider our beaver problem. Mark pointed out that there weren’t any good options; our best hope was to wait for trapping season and get a trapper to trap the beavers.

Since it was a nice noon-time, many people were on the trail, several of them recognized Mark, who was in uniform, and commented on wildlife they had seen along the trail. One person pointed out a huge snapping turtle on a log in the beaver pond, about 30 feet from the trail. Another showed me a couple of snakes alongside the trail that I had walked right by. Others noted birds they had seen, signs of beaver activity and so on. Our beaver pond was generating quite a bit of interest for trail users.

To better understand what a beaver pond had to offer, I talked to Scott Wissinger, an ecology professor at Allegheny College. Here’s what he said: “Because beaver ponds create so many different types of sub habitats of different shallow depths, flow regimes, plant communities and invertebrate communities, they are considered hot beds of biological diversity. Even if people don’t really care about invertebrate and plant diversity, they might care because the invertebrates and plants (especially their seeds) are magnets for charismatic animals that people do care about — fish, waterfowl, songbirds, amphibians and reptiles.”

With all this life attracted to the beaver pond, our board of directors decided to let the beavers alone. We’ll take our chances on the flooding.

Yes, if you need advice on trapping, go to the Game Warden, but if you need advice on BEAVERS go to college. I’m so hopeful about this article and will be working hard to get in touch with the author so he can see how to prevent flooding AND keep beavers. I can’t tell you how impressed I am that the people on the trail got you thinking about the enormous impact a beaver pond has on wildlife. And so glad that you listened, and kept asking questions because that isn’t easy to do when a man in a uniform tells you to give up.

Shout out to Janet Thew who posted on FB about the beaver totem skins offered by Decalgal. Of course I wrote her WRITE AWAY and she said she’d be delighted to donate to the silent auction. How much do you love this?

Final gift from Moses Silva filmed at the noisy crane work station by the beaver home. I guess not everyone is intimidated by progress.

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Save

I wish we may I wish we might…

heidi08 Beaver Chewing, Beaver News, Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's saving beavers now? May 3, 2016

I’ll give you a hint. It starts with a “b”. Three guesses, go ahead, I can wait. He reportedly went for his camera but when he came back the beaver had slipped away. I’m guessing they’ll both be back this morning at low tide. I’m too emotionally beaver-scarred to be excited by this, but against my better judgement, I’m very hopeful.

For mural updates, let me say that the final contract has been signed by everyone, and now we are just waiting for the updated language on the insurance that the city needs and then we can mural! I won’t even start talking about how enormously frustrating this has been, because what would be the point? I’ll believe the waiting is over when it actually happens and not a moment before. Fortunately there is a very kind soul at the city in the middle of all this and she has been cheering me through it. Last week we had a good laugh at my wicked idea to finally just spray paint “F*@# the beavers” on the bridge, because in addition to expressing my frustration:

the city would suddenly want it painted over immediately and
they’d never, ever suspect me.

(Insert story from Heidi’s childhood here, where older sister vandalizes family furniture by cleverly writing the initials of younger sister. Younger sister had nothing to do with it but gets punished anyway and older sister gets away with it.)

On to the impressively named “Clatskanie” at the very northern tip of Oregon, who received an award from the governor for working with beavers to restore their watershed.

Wetland Awards honor voluntary restoration in Clatskanie

Governor Kate Brown, chair of the Land Board, presented the award and praised the collaborative effort as a “wonderful example of how non-profit organizations worked with a private landowner to voluntarily preserve wetlands” for fish and wildlife habitat. She also commended the property owner for including people in the equation: Hunt allows camping on the property, which has 14 tent sites and kayaks available for campers.

Olsen-Hollander said the project planners used innovative restoration strategies from “The Beaver Restoration Guide Book” which touts modeling beaver behavior for restoring habitat for fish, waterfowl, amphibians and reptiles. Olsen-Hollander said that if the techniques prove to be successful over time, there could be significant cost savings in using them in designing future conservation projects.

Congratulations Clatskanie! You let the beavers do the restoration and collected an award for it. That’s harder than it sounds, because it means hours of meetings and hand-holding with anxious stakeholders who are worried that beaver will flood their driveways or eat their petunias. The beavers, frogs and fish are lucky to have you.

A final note on what a very bad influence I am on Mr. Cohn of Napa. He sent me this photo yesterday of a beaver suspended animation feat and I was most appreciative. I told him he needed to go back and cut off the branch to use for display. He replied that it was in a seedy area with a lot of transient activity and he was worried it might be unsafe. I understood. Don’t think I pressured him. I very distinctly remember how we had to get our current chew on Easter Sunday because it was the only time everyone was in church and the creek was neglected.

But a few hours later he sent me this.Wouldn’t one of those be AWESOME in the silent auction? If only we could figure out how to make it into a lamp.

Peter!

heidi08 Beaver Chewing March 9, 2016

Beaver with Kardashian-sized bum gets stuck in fence

The two-year-old beaver had managed to squeeze the entire front half of his little body under the fence, but misjudged just how large his bottom was, a spokesperson for the Nature Protection Society said.

But once he was halfway through, he had no way of reversing back out and lay trapped under the metal mesh until passersby found him in the morning.

The concerned strollers alerted the Nature Protection Society, who in turn got the fire department involved.

Wanting to take no risks with the little creature’s precious derrière, the firemen cut the fence open using wire cutters, eventually freeing the rodent who scurried unscathed into a nearby pond.

Beavers are a protected species in Germany. Despite long being threatened with extinction, they are making a comeback, appearing in ever growing numbers on the outskirts of larger cities.

Farmer McGregor had dutifully fenced off his crops to keep hungry beavers out, but this one pulled a Peter Cottontail and tried to go under the fence. Unfortunately for him he wasn’t wearing any breeches to wriggle out of and he was trapped for good until some nice firemen came and cut him free! I bet with all the fears of Trump’s ascent mirroring the rise of the Nazis we never exactly thought about Germany as the land of compassion, but in this instance, it is! Beavers are protected there. .

Any enterprising child who put his head through the bars in the banister or between the slats of a fence and couldn’t get it out knows why this beaver did it. With me it was the mysterious hole in the right arm of my high chair, which I had to sit in a while because there were more children than chairs. After the first year or so of the arrangement its considerable mystery wore off, and I wondered ‘what would happen if I put my thumb in there?’ Maybe I thought like this beaver that I would find special treats and all the others would be jealous they hadn’t ever tried it.

I just found a stuck thumb that would not pull free even after everyone had eaten dinner. Luckily with many hours and vasoline we were able to extricate said thumb without the firemen.

Of course it’s silly to say that one beaver’s rump is problematically large but all the others are trim as can be.Beavers have a certain shape and it ain’t sleek. But this fun article does give me an excuse to post this again, which has already made my morning and hopefully will brighten yours.

Beaver in Alhambra Creek Martinez — Beaver Grooming: Photo Cheryl Reynolds

Some beaver-love for Valentine’s day

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Chewing, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? February 14, 2016

Great news this morning in the Guardian, who happily picked up the Devon story. You will like every part of it, so I recommend reading the entire thing yourself. It starts with Dr. Brazier surveying the ‘damage’. Enjoy!

Beavers at work … Devon dwellers reveal their flair for fighting floods

The devastation is part of a scheme that backers hope will provide a template for a more balanced approach to flood prevention. The government is spending £3.2bn on flood management in the course of this parliament. As flood events such as those seen in Cumbria at the end of last year become more common, so attention has turned to flood management, with a call for resources to be allocated not to building flood defences to deal with the water when it arrives downstream but prevent it getting there at all.

The beavers resident on the three hectares of woodland near Okehampton in Devon could be part of the solution. In the five years since they moved there, they have toppled trees, gnawed bark, dug channels, constructed dams and made a rather impressive home for themselves.

“Prior to working with beavers we’d never really come across animals that would disrupt your work so much,” says Brazier, a hydrologist at the University of Exeter, as he surveys the tangle of branches and tree trunks.

But there is hope, too. New shoots are sprouting from the felled willows and a closer inspection reveals that beneath the devastation lies further evidence of new life promoted by the beavers’ work. “They are a keystone species who are obviously engineering the environment to their own benefit,” says Brazier. “But what’s interesting is all the other benefits.”

The Devon project targets three key indicators: water storage, flood attenuation and water quality. The beavers are, they believe, helping in all three. The 13 dams they have built along the 150 metres stretch of water have increased water storage capacity, evened out the flow of water and improved the quality of the water that emerges from the dams.

Oh its good when science evaluates beavers. Because even when the scientists don’t like us the results are ALWAYS our friends. I can’t imagine another incidence of a three hectare study getting reported in the Guardian, but I’m very happy England has had 500 years to get surprised by things they used to see every day. I especially loved this section.

Mark Elliott, who leads the beaver project for the Devon Wildlife Trust, pulls a large stone from the water. On the underside, a small community of grubs and larvae writhe and squirm: they are caddisflies and mayflies. “What’s happened here is transformational,” he says. “You have this incredibly complex mosaic of a transitional, dynamic habitat. There’s now a complex braided stream providing a habitat for orchids, watermint, bog pimpernel, herons, kingfishers, water beetles and damselflies. Five years ago when we started out, we didn’t know where we were going to get.”

They’re called ecosystem engineers for a reason! You could have asked me what you were going to get and I would have told you. But it’s better for the news cycle if you’re surprised and think you’re the first one who discovered this. Well done! There is only one section I enjoyed more – and I’m assuming that’s a valentine gift especially for me.

Perhaps the most common misconception about beavers is that they will eat all the fish in the newly clean rivers, a charge repeated by Labour MP Mary Creagh during a select committee hearing into the government’s response to flooding. It was pointed out that beavers are actually herbivores.

Honestly, go read the whole thing, and send it to your PTA or uncle. It’s worth sharing. And because it’s a very special day, I made us this.

Git yer kilt an’ save the beavers!

heidi08 Beaver Chewing, Beaver News, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? February 10, 2016

Some mornings you just want to curl up with a mug of coffee and a bagel and savor articles like this. It wasn’t easy to get you the full text but I KNEW you would want to read it, and it’s much finer writing than anything I’m likely to say, so get comfortable. It was written by Jim Crumley for the Courier, the author of Nature’s architect, and considered by some to be the finest nature writing in Scotland – when you read this you will see why.

Ahh, does that describe our Martinez beaver controversy or WHAT? Nothing gets thought about more than whether or not some bit of nature should be allowed to do natural things. How true!

And beavers don’t VOTE. Did you get that? I am SO JEALOUS of Scotland. It gets writers like this AND really good beer. And castles. What do we get? Buffalo, Starbucks and primary elections. That’s what.

Shhh…we’re coming to my favorite part….about stakeholders.

“It permeates the official language like midges on a dam day on Mull“. Is it possible to fall in love with a column? For those of you that haven’t experienced the luxury of midges, let me say that once a million years ago Jon and I went for a delightful picnic on the Scottish countryside. and were very surprised to learn that while we were happily enjoying our treat, some tiny invisible insects were busy enjoying US. Midges stealth and strategy lies in the fact they are much smaller than mosquitoes – so they never get slapped as they should. Unlike mosquitoes – not all kinds bite. But they come in clouds and are VERY annoying. Mull is an island in Scotland. And accusing the government of counting as many stakeholders as there are midges on this wet island makes me very happy indeed.

“And look no further than the BUNGLING BRUTALITY of the badger cull”. Not only is this alliteration at its finest, Crumley cheerfully slashes his enemies with a stark oxymoron. Lots of bullies are happy to be called brutal, but but having your brutality described as ‘bungling’ changes the meaning entirely. Now instead of ‘pulling the wings off flies’ you are pulling the tail feathers off a chicken and everyone is looking at you and wondering why.

“Ambassadors of biodiversity“. Ahhh I love the way that sounds. Someone needs to read me this article every earth day in a thick Scotish brogue – I’m thinking maybe Frank Helling as John Muir.

33,000 signatures! How ironic! If the farmers had just put up with the beavers they would have probably gotten their way in earning the right to depredate problem beavers. Now this has created such a national and international stir they will never hear the end of it.

Beavers are as much Scots as the people themselves. LOVE IT!

This morning we’re off to the PRMCC again for more mural review with Mario’s most recent draft, and yesterday I was invited back to the SF Waterboard to give a talk. Apparently the planning division liked it so much beavers are being invited back for the Watershed division. Nice!