Category: Beaver Conference

All about beavers in Washington

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Conference, Beavers, Beavers and climate change, Beavers elsewhere, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? September 30, 2017

Hurray for Ben Dittbrenner and Samantha Everett who will be presenting on our favorite topic on Monday Night.

Meet Seattle’s Urban Beavers

October 2nd, 6:30-7:30pm

Since their near eradication in the early 20th century, beavers have made a surprising comeback. Today, beavers have returned to many streams and waterways of Seattle, including Yesler Swamp in the Center for Urban Horticulture’s backyard. Come join us as we discuss beavers, tour their work, and potentially view some busy beavers in action. , Ben Dittbrenner (UW School of Environmental and Forest Sciences), will provide a presentation on beaver life history and ecology. Samantha Everett, local beaver expert, will lead a tour through Yesler Swamp, stopping at active beaver areas with some potential beaver viewing at dusk.

If you are interested in the tour portion, please bring a flashlight!

Doesn’t that sound enormously fun? I first met Ben when he joined me and Mike Callahan for a quick lunch at the state of the beaver conference before we presented that afternoon in 2011. At that time he was working as a watershed Steward in Sonomish County in Jake Jacobsen’s old job in Sonomish. Beavers were definitely on his mind and he knew they were the direction he was headed.

Now he is Executive Director of a beaver nonprofit called “Beavers Northwest” and operates a website and relocation project in Washington. Jake who was one of our very first beaver friends back in the drama, is on the board as Treasurer.

Meanwhile I received an alarm call from Cheryl yesterday who stopped by the Concord Dam on her way home from work. A not very appreciative homeless woman was ripping out the dam with her crutch. Seems too many people were stopping to look at the dam and giving them less privacy for their encampment. So she got rid of the attraction.

Of course the beavers will rebuild and it will all happen again, but it’s frustrating. It was such a beautiful dam.

Wolves and Beavers

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Chewing, Beaver Conference, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and water, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? July 26, 2017

On the last day of the 2015 State of the beaver conference, USFS Hydrologist Suzanne Fouty came over for dinner and spent the night in our home by the river. There was a lot of eco-conversation, nice wine and good food, and she was much beloved by our labrador and her hosts. One fact she stressed over and over and made a HUGE impression on me, so that whenever I read something like it I think of her.

Wolves are the key that let beavers do their magic.

See beavers can work magic, but they need materials to do it. They need willow on the riparian to eat and build dams which make their dramatic difference possible. When the waters edge is trampled by cows or elk, the important willow doesn’t grow back or gets eaten up and beavers can’t do their job. Suzanne is a firm believer that elk need wolves to be lurking so they are motivated to stay away from open streams and don’t eat the new shoots trying to grow. She said fencing can do some of it, but was expensive and easily damaged. She wanted to stress it at the conference but there were too many negative feelings about wolves to broach the subject.

This letter reminds me of our conversation for two reasons. One because of the content, which is excellent, and two because of the source. Wallowa- Whitman is the national forest where Suzanne works.

Well, Dallas McCrae got one thing right in his recent letter to the editor: He’d be laughed at. It’s disturbing that the go-to solution to the problem of overpopulated elk is to build a wall or a giant game fence, as the case may be. Is he serious? Sadly, I think he is.

A game fence, at least eight feet high, along the Hwy. 82 corridor and lower Wallowa Valley? Kinda sounds like Trump’s border wall, which, no doubt, is the inspiration for this idea. The game fence is part and parcel of a problematic habit of thinking … namely that we can solve an issue by isolating it without any ill effects.

Worst, many unintended consequences are entirely foreseeable. Who couldn’t see that putting dams up and down the former Colubmia River, now Columbia Reservoir System, would all but wipe out salmon runs?

The answers are right there staring us in the face. The simple alternative solutions don’t require massive expenditures of resources, only a change in perception and attitude. Thus, I offer another even easier fix than a fence. Listen to the land, to each other. Listen to the keystone species of wolves, salmon and beaver. Listen to the elk themselves.

Wolves, it turns out, are quite good at driving elk –– entire herds of elk –– off land. It is what they excel at and have excelled at for gosh hundreds of years. They know much more than we do about the oxymoronic pretense of “managing” wildlife.

Garik Asplund, Joseph

Gosh, that’s a great letter. An epic letter. I could read much more from Mr. Asplund and be very very interested in what he has to say about beavers. I couldn’t find much about him online, except he’s a farmer and ran for city council last year. He got 17% of the vote sadly and didn’t win, but writing letters like that makes him much too smart for city council anyway.

Of course I sent this to Suzanne to find out if they were already friends, or just kindred spirits. I’m sure they would have lots to talk about over a beer or two. I know they would have a lot in common.

Because why not Blame the Beaver?

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Conference, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? March 24, 2017

Oh those crazy beavers with their penchant for sinkholes and collapsed roads! When are they going to stop harassing us with their rodent ways and let us live peacefully. On ALLIGATOR lake.

Beavers the culprit in 30A road collapse

“We’ve always had problems with beavers where we don’t have a bridge,” said Chance Powell, an engineer for Walton County

One of the great mysteries early Thursday morning was solved after it was determined that beavers were the most likely culprit for the sinkhole that has closed Walton County Road 30A near County Road 283.

Beavers? Beavers!

The Walton County Sheriff’s Office received a call just after 5 a.m. Thursday about a sinkhole on 30A at Alligator Lake.

According to County Commissioner Tony Anderson, who was present as county crews began to fill the extensive hole, a GMC pickup was crossing the section of road when the asphalt began to cave in. The vehicle made it across, but the pickup was damaged and the man driving it was taken to Sacred Heart Hospital on the Emerald Coast with minor injuries, said Walton County Public Works Manager Wilmer Stafford.

“The water that flows under the road became too heavy on one side and caused it to fall in,” said Stafford, who also was at the scene later in the morning.

The section of CR 30A surrounding the collapse site has been closed until the road can be repaired.

On the surface, the hole appears to be about 4 feet wide and takes up three-quarters of the road in front of Alligator Lake. But officials calculate that crew must deal with a much larger area of damage under the road.

But wait, how do the beavers make the sink hole exactly? Are you saying they tunneled under the asphalt to get away from the alligators, or chew holes in the road with their huge incisors, or that maybe the road was stuffed with willow and they ate it? The article is a little vague on the actual mechanics of destruction. But I’m sure they’re telling the truth, right? People would never blame a rodent for something just to explain away a problem that their carelessness caused in the first place.

I guess it will stay a mystery, like how beavers live near ALLIGATOR lake in the first place.

Come to think of it, maybe they can sign up for the flow device WEBINAR coming soon from our friends at Furbearer Defenders and Cows and Fish. It will be taught by Adrien Nelson and Norine Ambrose and you are ALL invited. It’s a bargain at 5 dollars. Make sure to save your space now.

Learn how to successfully implement flow devices for beaver management in your community with our upcoming webinar, Beaver Flow Devices for Managers.

On April 6, 2017 at 3:30 pm EDT / 1:30 pm MDT / 12:30 pm PDT, Adrian Nelson of The Fur-Bearers, and Norine Ambrose from Cows and Fish will co-host this engaging webinar that will focus on the “whys” and “wheres” of implementing these devices. Managers and supervisors from a range of backgrounds will learn to better understand the applicability of these devices, as well as analyze sites requiring beaver management, and address which type of flow devices are most appropriate.

Adrian will walk through the different types of devices, and how to make each one successful, as well as various obstacles and needs that may need to be addressed before deployment. The presentation will also touch briefly on ordering and supplies to ensure teams have the right materials for success.

Norine will tell participants of her first-hand experience in learning about and installing these devices in Alberta, and let participants know about the broader beaver collaborative work on education, social science, and management Cows and Fish is involved with the Miistakis Institute, local partners, and support from The Fur-Bearers.

Participants will come away with a better understanding of flow devices, but more importantly why they are useful to successfully co-exist with beavers. A question and answer period will follow.

I actually didn’t know these good folks knew each other, so I might watch just to learn more about their interaction. We will definitely learn things!

Introducing: The Beaver Institute

heidi08 Beaver Conference, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Mike Callahan, The Beaver Institute March 4, 2017

You might remember that before the conference I mentioned that Mike Callahan had some big news he wanted to unfurl, well here it is:

The Beaver Institute™ is launched!

At the Conference I had the great pleasure of announcing that a new national charitable 510(c)3 nonprofit organization is being formed specifically to support beavers. It will be called The Beaver Institute™, and it will raise funds to support a myriad of beaver coexistence efforts on a national level, including key flow device installations, training installers, supporting scientific beaver management research and public outreach.

Here in Massachusetts a small grant program has subsidized many flow device installations and has been a huge success in demonstrating their effectiveness and changing a culture of lethal trapping to one of beaver coexistence. It is our hope that this model can be replicated on a national scale.

The Beaver Institute™ is still being formed so I welcome you to join as a charter member and submit any questions or suggestions to me by email or on the Beaver Management facebook page for projects you feel the Beaver Institute could support. Also if you have any suggestions for fundraising or connections with grant funders please let us know. The Board of Directors is also looking for beaver experts to serve on their Advisory Board.

I really think we can move beaver management forward at a significantly faster pace with a nationally focused nonprofit organization. More details to follow on this forum as they develop.

The Beaver Institute! What a wonderful platform for beaver advocacy and research! Congratulations Mike for leaping into the non-profit fray. We will help any way we can and do our best to get the news out. Hey maybe there could be a grant for a sister beaver conference on the East Coast in even years? Or a Massachusetts beaver festival to teach folks what to appreciate about the animal they go crazy over. You need to bring some academic types on board. Who’s on the beaver faculty at MIT or Cambridge?

And the whole thing can’t get going soon enough in my book. Medford is in dire need of a beaver intelligence transfusion, so maybe you have your first pilot project right there.

Understanding the warrant: Beaver management money

Beavers are such a pervasive presence in Medfield, they’re making an appearance at Town Meeting.

Tucked among the more than 40 articles voters will decide on at the April 24 Town Meeting is $5,000 “for the purpose of trapping beavers and removing beaver dams throughout the Town.”

“They build dams in culverts,” Town Administrator Michael Sullivan said. When left unchecked, he said, “They were flooding people’s backyards and affecting their septic systems.”

The Town Administrator, according to the article, is the town position authorized to spend the funds. Sullivan said the town spends about the same amount every year, using trapper Barry Mandell.

“You could bring the Conibear and the foothold (trap) back,” Mandell said, and encourage recreational trapping, “but then you’ll have negligent trappers catching dogs.”

Beavers are an issue across much of Massachusetts, and a regular appearance in town budgets.

Hey, I’ve got an idea for a BI project. Chose a small community around Medford and install culvert protection on every road like they do in Grafton where Skip Lisle is a Selectman. Get a big piece of paper and add up all the money it costs you on one half, then add the 5ooo you spend trapping every single year on the other half. Make sure to figure any extra hours public works spends ripping out debris or hiring back hoes to do the work. As well as every single minute you spend talking to the public to explain the need for this.

And then compare both sides! It’s a research project waiting to happen.

Friends with Beavers

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver Behavior, Beaver Conference, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, Who's saving beavers now? February 21, 2017

Did you see Bob’s post yesterday? His debut as a beaver blogger and it was PERFECT! Great margins, great links and proper search words. I was impressed and suggested a full time gig but he shrugged his shoulders and said he was happy to help when needed but he had other mountains to climb.

So you get me.

I spent yesterday working laboriously recording the audio for my talk and then trying to sync it up with the video so it can be played in my absence. It was a ton of work because it’s like trying to sew a seam from both ends at once, but it’s finally done and I’m fairly happy with the result. I’ll post it on Thursday which is the day it will air. Today I saw that a new logo announcing the conference is much better, and thought I’d would share.

Yesterday I saw on Facebook that Caitlin was worried about her Mountain House beavers in all the flooding – for obvious reasons. Apparently she went down with her father in the evening to make sure they were okay. It filled me with strange affection to think that there were other people in the world afflicted with my odd concern for beavers. And when I heard the charming audio that accompanied the video my heart nearly burst. Turn the sound wayyy up.