Category: Beaver Conference

FIRST THEY IGNORE YOU

heidi08 Beaver Conference, Beaver ponds, Who's saving beavers now? March 2, 2020

A week ago Friday I told you was the fish and game commission meeting in Sacramento where they considered the rule change for beaver depredation. Well not so much considered as ‘heard’. Since Tom Wheeler of E.P.I.C. who authored the rule change didn’t want to drive down from Oregon. the Center for Biological Diversity had Lalli Venkatakrishnan there to read a position statement. And it was good. Now we don’t know the outcome because they referred it back to Bonham’s desk and we can only hope he doesn’t leave it in a dusty pile in the corner of his desk or light it on fire, but at least, for one brief shining Camelot moment, we made them think about it.

Remember what Gandhi said:

First they Ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight with you.
Then you win.

Well we ain’t on step one, anymore.

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I have been trying to hunt down photos of cascading beaver dams for Amy to use in her artwork, and I thought you’d want to see these.

The Slate river, near Crested Butte, CO, swollen by a pair of beaver dams; with flowers in the foreground and a snow capped mountain in the distance, combine to make a perfect landscape scene

MEET THE NEW JAKOB AND SARAH STORY

heidi08 Beaver Conference, Beavers, Beavers and climate change February 11, 2020

How did I miss this? A fantastic interview with Jakob Shockey and Sarah Koenigsberg gearing up for the recent film festival in preparation for the Siskiyou Film festival last weekend. They both do an excellent job and deserve your listening time.

What Beavers Can Do For The Landscape

Wasn’t that excellent? Jakob has gotten to be such an wonderful speaker that I can only dream how awesome his presentation will be at BeaverCon in a few weeks.

Coming soon to the deep-benched Nehalem Watershed is this fine presentation:

Lower Nehalem Watershed Council Speaker Series: “Beaver Dam Analogues” w/Steve Trask Feb. 13

On February 13th, 2020 at 7 pm the Lower Nehalem Watershed Council will host Steve Trask for a presentation about Beaver Dam Analogues. In this talk, Steve will talk about the importance of Beavers as ecosystem engineers and keystone species, the watershed impacts of not having enough beavers, and finally what beaver dam analogues are and how they can help! This is an exciting opportunity to learn about an unusual technique for habitat restoration.

Don’t you wish you could be there? I certainly do. Steve is a new name to us but one I bet we’re going to hear again.

Steve Trask is the Senior Fish Biologist for Biosurveys Inc. He has over 25 years of experience surveying river and stream habitat on the Oregon Coast. In collaboration with the Mid Coast Watershed Association and ODFW, he created the Rapid Bioassessment process that is currently being used to map juvenile salmon distribution in the Nehalem Watershed. He also is currently working with the Upper Nehalem Watershed Council to install beaver dam analogues.

I think we talked about Biosurvey’s once with some footage that showed beavers swimming with the salmon. I’m sure we’ll hear more fro this Senior Fish Biologist that thinks beavers are good news.

I came across this yesterday and thought how many historic ways there are to draw beavers wrongly. Let’s call this the beaver-mountainlion.

TEAM BEAVER LINE-UP RELEASED: BEAVERCON 2020

heidi08 Beaver Book, Beaver Conference November 2, 2019

The Idaho Lewiston Tribune is boasting proudly that Ben Goldfarb will be speaking soon at the Fly-casters club about his book on beavers. Good for Idaho. Good for Ben and good for our friend Patricia Heekin from the Latah Soil and Water Conservation District for arranging it after I told her Ben was speaking on the other side of the state.

Writer to give talk on benefits of beavers

MOSCOW — Environmental journalist and author Ben Goldfarb will speak Nov. 13 at the Clearwater Fly Casters meeting here.

Goldfarb, of Spokane, the author of “Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter,” will present a talk called “Beavers: Their Landscapes, Our Future.” The talk will highlight how landscapes have changed over the centuries and how beavers can help fight drought, flooding, wildfire, biodiversity loss and even climate change.

The meeting will be held at the Best Western Plus University Inn at 1516 Pullman Road, in Moscow. A no- host bar social hour starts at 5:30 p.m., followed by a $16 buffet dinner at 6:30. Goldfarb will speak at 7:30.

That sounds excellent. Come on, can’t the beavers themselves buy the first round of drinks? These folks really need the motivation to come. There isn’t enough beer beer and scotch in the entire world to motivate the right people to hear a lecture on beavers.

Yesterday the Beaver Institute released the speakers list from the upcoming conference and WOWZA everyone of import will be there. Apparently Pollock and myself will be the only virtual presentations, everyone else will be there in person. And what a monumental line up founding fathers and mothers it will be!

Speakers for BeaverCon 2020

Dr. Alan Puttock University of Exeter Exeter, Devon, United Kingdom	Quantifying the Hydrological Impacts of Eurasian Beaver Reintroduction across Great Britain
Alexa Whipple and Kent Woodruff The Methow Beaver Project Washington, United States	The Methow Beaver Project – Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going in 2 Acts
Bob Boucher Milwaukee RiverKeeper Wisconsin, United States	Creating the “Superior Bio-Preserve” Modeling the Milwaukee River watershed to measure the potential flood mitigation benefits of beaver created wetlands to restore the natural hydrology and reduce flooding during high water events.
Chris Jordan NOAA/NMFS/Northwest Fisheries Science Center c/o US EPA Oregon, United States Carol Volk South Fork Research Inc. Washington, United States Joe Wheaton Utah State University Utah, United States Nick Bouwes Eco Logical Research Inc. Utah, United States	Temperature and hydrological impacts of beaver-based stream restoration: hypotheses, models and data and the way forward with low tech process based restoration.
Duncan Halley Norwegian Institute Research Trondheim, Norway	History of Beavers in Europe
Glynnis A. Hood University of Alberta Alberta, Canada	Plumbing for ecology: Can flow devices on beaver ponds reduce conflicts and costs?
Heidi Perryman Worth A Dam – Martinez Beavers California, United States	A Space for Beavers
Leonard Houston South Umpqua Rural Community Partnership – Beaver Advocacy Committee Oregon, United States	When the Beaver Calls Your Name: Managing Beaver in the Umpqua Basin
Rob Walton NOAA Fisheries, retired Oregon, United States	Beavers, Salmon, and the Beaver State
Roger Auster University of Exeter Exeter, Devon, United Kingdom	Unraveling Perceptions of Eurasian Beaver Reintroduction in Great Britain
Skip Lisle, M.S. Beaver Deceivers International Vermont, United States	The History of the Beaver Deceiver™
Alicia Leow-Dyke Wildlife Trusts Wales Powys, United Kingdom	The Story of Beavers in Wales
Frances Backhouse Frances Backhouse Maryland, United States	37 Million Years and Counting: A Brief History of Beavers
Grace Brush Johns Hopkins University Maryland, United States	A LAND TRANSFORMED: FROM BEAVERS TO DITCHES
Stanley Petrowski South Umpqua Rural Community Partnership Oregon, United States	The Case of the Missing Beaver
John Egan Beaver Solutions, LLC Massachusetts, United States	Managing Beaver Flooding Problems with Flow Devices

Unbeliveable. If you haven’t bought your tickets yet you better do it right away. This conference is going to knock folks socks off. Glynnis AND Frances Backhouse And Alan Puttock? Hand me some smelling salts and a handkerchief because I just became a beaver groupie. Don’t miss out on this first ever dynamic conference.

Reserve your space today.

FRIENDS ON THE JOURNEY

heidi08 Beaver Conference December 30, 2018

“We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short intervals, and Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs over mine, and then drawing them back; so entirely sociable and free and easy were we…”

Herman Melville

Beavers make strange bed fellows.

You never know who might be headed on the same path as you when it comes to beavers. I’ve noted that before. And not just in the romantic sense of like minds falling in love. In the archaic sense of there being an inn with only three beds so you end up spending the night with complete strangers that wake up as friends.

One of Ishmael’s best friends and most memorable characters in Moby Dick started out that way – being the head-hunter in a shabby beaver hat that he just ‘happened’ to be assigned to share a bed with in the Nantucket inn near where the Pequod was docked.

I mention this now because I have a particular beaver project I’m working on at the moment and trying to recruit the right help. (I can’t tell you what it is yet but fingers crossed you will know soon enough.) Along the journey of connecting with folks who might help I met Doug Knutson who is a video producer at Windswept Productions in Canada.

Quite by accident it turned out we happen to have way more in common than you might think. Don’t believe me? Just watch.

Some friendships are destined before they ever leave the gate. Doug became so changed by his beaver-saving experience that he’s working on a documentary now about we deal with urban wildlife and will be filming some interviews with folks at the State of the Beaver Conference.

He said he couldn’t believe how transformed his life has been over the issue. To which of course, I could only smile.

Speaking of transformed Robin from Napa recently shared this from the Netherland Beavers facebook page. Just so you know, you are never allowed to complain about being ‘cold’ again.

Coldest beaver Ever — ***Lukasz Tukasik***

Big Sky Beavers

heidi08 Beaver Conference, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? October 29, 2017

Not too long ago Rachel Hofman of the NWF magazine in Vermont contacted me about an event they were co-sponsoring with the Clark Fork Coalition in Montana about the benefits of beavers. She was working on a flyer to promote the event and wanted to use a few of Cheryl’s great photos to do so. The talk would be given on October 25th by Amy Chadwick, who is also a friend of ours.

It sounded like a fine cause, and it reminded me I hadn’t seen that particular photo in a while, so Cheryl gave consent and then we pretty much forgot about it because not long after our exchange the entire napa-sonoma valley erupted in flames and that held our attention for a while. Yesterday I was reminded of it by reader Rob Rich who sent me some great information they put out on beavers. It reminded me that I had forgotten to share it, so enjoy!

Beavers – Nuisances or Watershed Heroes?

For CFC’s inaugural Beaver Month we chatted with Andrew Jakes, Regional Wildlife Biologist for National Wildlife Federation about the unsung bucktooth heroes of the watershed – the beaver.

Why are beavers considered ecosystem engineers?

Beavers aren’t just considered ecosystem engineers…beavers are THE quintessential ecosystem engineer! They change a landscape like no other species in the world, besides humans. They change the landscape to suit their needs, and when they do that, it turns out that they change a lot of other things too.

OK, so what else changes in the landscape when beavers are present and building dams?

So much! When beavers show up, a lot starts to change. Studies have shown that beaver dams change everything in the system; from soil to vegetation to water quality to wildlife. It’s hard to sum up in only a few sentences, but I’ll do my best to give you a summary…

First of all, beaver dams slow the flow of water. This means water is on the landscape for longer. This can cause the floodplain to expand, soil structure to change, and the water table to rise. All of this also means that riparian vegetation can thrive. This means extra foraging opportunities for beavers and other creatures, so more wildlife starts to frequent the area. It’s no secret that wetlands are beneficial to the ecosystem, and beavers are little wetland creators.

The bottom line of all this is that when a beaver dam shows up, we see an increase in biodiversity, which thereby means the ecosystem becomes more resilient.

Mother and kit enjoying fennel: Cheryl Reynolds

You can read the rest of it the fine story here. The entire ‘beaver appreciation month’ concluded with the talk by Amy Chadwick at a local pub in Missoula on Thursday evening. Obviously convincing the land owners of Montana to coexist with beavers takes the best and the brightest, and Amy (who worked with Skip Lisle) is well up to the task.

Walk and Talk: Busting Beaver Myths

During the month of October, the Clark Fork Coalition is putting a spotlight on the hard-working, fur-ball hero of the watershed – the beaver. Join the Clark Fork Coalition and Ecologist Amy Chadwick for an evening of natural history and cutting-edge restoration featuring beavers and beaver mimicry. Chadwick is an Ecologist at Great West Engineering and the chair of the Montana Beaver Workgroup. Amy has been working in stream and wetland ecosystem assessment and restoration in Montana for 20 years, but in recent years her work has focused primarily on beaver habitat restoration and improving natural water storage.

Amy will share facts of about beaver ecology, review how beaver act as ‘ecosystem engineers’ in western watersheds, and share the implications lost beaver habitats on our water budget. Chadwick will be joined by Andrew Jakes, Wildlife Biologist with the National Wildlife Federation for a discussion of beaver habitat recovery work underway in the Upper Clark Fork and a Q & A session.

Don’t you wish you were there listening to Amy’s talk? I met her at the Beaver Conference in 2013 and we have kept in touch over the years when beaver issues arose over the years. She worked with Skip installing flow devices in the area for a while and now carries on the work bravely on her own. It’s wonderful to see folks like Amy and the Clark Fork Coalition working in their own backyard to make way for beavers and teaching others about their benefit to the environment. I hope the beaver night was a resounding success and I hope NWF thinks of us first when they have a beaver event to promote in the future!