Because the beaver isn't just an animal; it's an ecosystem!

Category: Beaver Conference


Are the flying monkeys finished with their capital pageant yet? Great, it’s over. So we can talk about beavers again. Specifically let’s talk about the CA Beaver Summit, which is shaping up splendidly. I just have to share a little of what’s been falling into place over the past few days.

Take a moment and appreciate the line up for days 1 and 2.

CALIFORNIA BEAVER SUMMIT

Keynote Address Michael Pollock –  NOAA
History of beaver in California Rick Lanman – Historical Ecology Center
Climate change and how beavers can help Jeff Baldwin – Sonoma State
Ecological Diversity & Ecosystems Ben Goldfarb – Author
Beavers for Restoration & Conservaton Damion Ciotti FWS & Maidu tribal – FWS
Common conflicts and how to manage Mike Callahan – Beaver Solutions
Common conflicts local examples Kevin Swift – Swiftwater Design

Doesn’t that look like something you want to attend from start to finish? It’s not even finalized yet and is going to get even better!

Salmonid habitat
Dan Logan & Brian Cluer – NOAA
Beaver, amphibian and meadow restoration Karen Pope – USFS
Low tech process based restoration of riverscapes Joe Wheaton – Utah State
Beavers & Fire Refugia Emily Fairfax – Cal State Channel Is
Human Dimensions of Beaver Management Susan Charnley – USFS
CDFW Policy and habitat Jennifer Rippert –  CDFW
California Beaver Policy and Specific Issues Kate Lundquist – OAEC
Questions, discussion, next steps ALL

Now we just need some website magic and Amelia to art her art! Whoo hoo!


It’s the friday before Christmas and I have some excellent news. The beaver summit steering commission met yesterday and arrived at two wonderful dates for our upcoming conference. Sonoma State will host our virtual conference beginning April 7th, International Beaver Day from 1-5. With the second session offered two days later, April 9th from 1-5. The opening day will be a beaver issues 101 course, including nativity, ecology and management. The second day will focus on new research and policy. It really is going to happen. Plan your wednesday and friday after Easter accordingly!

I was so excited to have an actual date I couldn’t resist playing with some graphics. I’m sure the real artwork will be much much better.Of course you and I know a million reasons California should care about beavers, but of course the people who most need to be there and learn why they matter are people who don’t yet think they matter, so we have to be pretty careful about not appearing to preach to the choir.

Although we definitely will. The choir is awesome. And getting larger all the time.

There are all kinds of issues we face that beavers can help with. Not just salmon and water storage. Some are topics most folks don’t even recognize as being relevant to beavers.  Just ask our friends at Phys.Org.

Restoring wetlands near farms would dramatically reduce water pollution

Runoff from fertilizer and manure application in agricultural regions has led to high levels of nitrate in groundwater, rivers, and coastal areas. These high nitrate levels can threaten drinking water safety and also lead to problems with algal blooms and degradation of aquatic ecosystems.

Previous research has shown that improve quality, but how much of an impact are wetlands having on removal now, and what improvements could deliver in the future?

Gee that’s interesting. Do wetlands really make a difference?

Researchers from the University of Illinois Chicago and the University of Waterloo sought to evaluate these details at the U.S. scale and publish their findings in a new paper featured in the journal Nature.

Their study examines the positive effects of wetlands on water quality and the potential for using wetland restoration as a key strategy for improving water quality, particularly in the Mississippi River Basin and Gulf of Mexico regions.

The wetland essentially has a purifying effect when nitrate-laden water enters its boundaries. Chemical reactions take place that removes the harmful nitrate from the water, allowing for harmless nitrogen gas to be released into the atmosphere and cleaner water to flow downstream.

“Unfortunately, most wetlands that originally existed in the U.S. have been drained or destroyed to make way for agriculture or urban development. Ironically, areas with the biggest nitrate problems, due to agriculture and intensive use of nitrogen fertilizers, are also usually areas with the fewest numbers of remaining wetlands,” said Kimberly Van Meter, UIC assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences and co-lead author of the paper.

Gosh that’s a big problem. The places that need these wetlands the most are the ones that drained them. And making wetlands is a huge undertaking. Who has the time or the resources? I mean farmers aren’t made out of money.

Too bad there wasn’t some kind of wetland-making rodent just swimming around and wanting to help. Of course the researchers have a plan. But it has a pretty hefty price tag.

The cost of a wetlands initiative is estimated at $3.3 billion a year, an amount researchers described as feasible given current government spending levels. While that is twice the estimated cost of a non-targeted approach, the model showed it would remove 40 times more nitrogen.

How much do beavers charge again?


So yesterday’s planning meeting was excellent, and I’m still a little shell shocked.  At the last moment Joe Wheaton realized his mountain time lunch wouldn’t work with our pacific time meeting and couldn’t attend. I was too busy being stunned that people were there and committed to the idea to really notice much. Folks wanted this to happen. They wanted to be part of the planning and execution. Emily suggested making space for her students “lightening presentations” which was an idea that I love. People agreed that two half days was probably the best and agency folks steered us away from weekends because they thought it would be better attended during the week. So two half days in April seem to be the consensus, although people are still up in the air about whether its a summit, a forum or a colloquium.

It’s really going to happen. I keep pinching myself.

Now you might think, after such an idyllic and momentous meeting where so many smart people demonstrated their passion for helping people understand the very good things people do, you would think a day like that means the world is changing. And that people everywhere are getting smarter about beavers and the gifts they bring.

But you’d be wrong.

Take this article from Vancouver Island listing the amazing things volunteers can do to help wetlands.

Help protect local wetlands: Make a difference for today … and tomorrow

Wetlands are an incredibly important ecosystem to our planet. They’re home to numerous species of flora and fauna, and with 80 per cent of coastal wetlands altered or destroyed, conserving them is critical.

Recognizing the significance of these wetlands, specifically when it comes to waterfowl, Oceanside Ducks Unlimited works to conserve and protect these vital areas – and they need your help!

Locally, conservation programs are geared specifically around eight wetlands here in our own backyard, such as the Nanoose wetland, where volunteers removed invasive species such as yellow flag iris and removed beaver dam debris to allow water flow through the control structure.

So the article is boasting the volunteer group like;s wetlands SO MUCH that they ripped out a beaver dam because it was a bunch of debris – you know, sticks and mud – just blocking the water. Now that its gone the water can flow freely.

That hurts my whole brain. Protecting wetlands from beavers. Who knew?

How this article from North Dakota lamenting the efforts made to recover the beaver population after the fur trade.

November 24, 2020 — The most important animal in North America in the 1700s was not the mighty grizzly bear, nor was it the stampeding buffalo. Instead, the most-important animal in colonial America was the lowly beaver.

Laws of Dakota Territory in 1887 prohibited killing or trapping beavers because cattle ranchers wanted beavers to make dams on streams as convenient watering places for cattle, saving stockmen the expense of building dams. The protection continued after North Dakota became a state two years later. Violators of the state game laws were subject to a one-hundred-dollar fine and imprisonment.

Well that starts off good. Stopping trapping before the end of the century to leave water on the land for cattle. How long did that last?

Unfortunately, protection of beavers worked too well and beavers proliferated, becoming a serious “pest in the Missouri Valley.” It became a choice … having beavers or having trees along waterways. Farmers became furious when beavers chewed-down groves of trees and beaver-dams flooded fields in the bottomlands. They demanded that lawmakers change beaver protection laws. And stockmen found windmill pumps to be more reliable than beaver-ponds, especially considering that cattle would sometimes drown amid beaver-dam debris.

Accordingly, on this date in 1916, the Bismarck Tribune reported on efforts to control the beaver population. The state Game and Fish Commission hired professional trappers to eradicate these so-called “evil … varmints along the Missouri Slope and allowed additional trappers to buy licenses to harvest beaver pelts.

Wow. So in 29 years beavers were demoted from valuable savers of water to evil varmints. Gosh, As rotten as that is it’s still better than California, where the brief beaver killing moratorium only lasted 15 years.

In South Carolina even the wildlife photographers complaIn about them.

Tom Poland: Nature’s engineers

Yes, it’s hard to sneak up on these secretive creatures, but evidence of their presence is irrefutable and to many landowners highly annoying. .But? Is it all that bad? Do beavers provide environmental benefits? Read on.

Okay, so beavers really do good things for the environment. Their dams store water that proves handy during droughts. Beaver dams’ freshwater wetlands provide happy-home habitat for birds, amphibians, and other animals. Their dams help with water quality and groundwater recharge. But this coin has two sides.

Landowners, got beavers on your property? Want to be busy as a beaver? Try to get rid of them but check with your Department of Natural Resources first. Meanwhile, beavers are busy as, well beavers. It’s a lot of work to keep a lodge/dam in top condition. And then there’s the family side of things. Beavers have a litter of kits in late spring and early summer. After spending two years with their parents, they set out to — you guessed it — build dams and lodges of their own. You may get rid of your beavers, but leave it to beavers, the new kits on the block, to come your way yet again, and the cycle goes on anew.

i guess that’s the nicest article of the three but it’s not exactly a loveletter. He says beavers are akin to rats an never let themselves be photographed. Hmm okay.

Obviously our work here is not yet done.


New Mexico is about to get a whole lot smarter about beavers, and you can listen in. I signed up yesterday for all four sessions because I am, as you know, a total beaver nerd. But look around and see what interests you.

In recent decades, the mounting impacts of climate change like smaller snowpacks, declining monsoon seasons, large and unnatural wildfires, higher temperatures and more severe droughts have engendered a new appreciation for the ecological benefits that beaver dams have for water conservation, wildfire mitigation and creating habitat for wildlife and forage for livestock.

Over the course of four separate sessions, the New Mexico Beaver Summit will explore these questions with expert panelists discussing the importance of beavers from historical, cultural and ecological perspectives, the challenges of living with beavers, tools that allow humans and beavers to coexist, and how to promote the recovery and repatriation of beavers through habitat restoration and reintroduction.

Yep that sound like a very good reason to hold a conference. We’ve been hearing mostly good things from New Mexico about beaver from Wild Earth Guardians and Wildlife Defenders and they are both involved with this conference. And it looks like they brought on some pretty good hitters to boot.

Aaron Hall

Aaron Hall works to protect species in aquatic and riparian habitats. He is responsible for identifying species and habitats for which Defenders can have a positive impact, and finding scientifically sound and pragmatic solutions to these threats to biodiversity.

Ben Goldfarb

Ben is the author of Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, winner of the 2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and named one of the best books of 2018 by the Washington Post.

Mary O’Brien

Mary joined the Grand Canyon Trust in 2003 to work with other conservation organizations to propose alternatives for forest plans for the Dixie, Fishlake, and Manti-La Sal national forests and other public lands.

Joe Wheaton

Joe Wheaton is an Assistant Professor at USU and a fluvial geomorphologist with over a decade of experience in river restoration. Joe runs the Ecogeomorphology & Topographic Analysis Lab in USU’s department of Watershed Science and is a leader in the monitoring and modeling of riverine habitats and watersheds.

There are other local voices as well but I thought these names would be the most likely to snag your attention. Mary is giving the keynote address and will turn 75 this year AND retire. Although she will continue to function as a guiding light for GCLT.

You just have to sign up. We have to reward good behavior.

You know I just had a thought about why, in these covid times, there isn’t a beaver conference in California. Starring Emily and her fire research, Jeff Baldwin and his excellent hydrology mapping, the beaver friendly habitat division of fish and wildlife’s Jennifer Rippert, Brock and Kate, Eric from San Diego, A friend from NOAA talking about dwindling salmon and a friend or two from audubon…our friends at CUSP or the waterboard…

Hmm…there ought to be…maybe there should be….maybe there will be…

Go here to sign up.

This lovely footage is from the underside of a beaver release by the Wenatchee beaver project in Washington. I snagged it off the beaver forum and thought it was lovely. I especially like how you see the beaver use his front paws for minor adjustments while swimming. I always suspected but didn’t know…


A while ago, I have no idea how long now because time has become a giant soupy mass with no beginning and no end, I was contacted by Dr. Jennifer Sherry a wildlife advocate at Montana office of the National Resources Defense Council, who wanted to have a discussion about beavers and beaver experts in the West. I got very excited. Allow me to repeat that. VERY EXCITED. Because they are usually all about the big sexy predators like polar bears, orcas and wolves, and I hoped it had something to do with the Trump administration’s expansion of nonlethal wildlife control and might make life better for beavers. Alas, it turned out that  funding was tightly controlled for carnivore’s and she just wanted to learn more. Which is still good news for beavers. She had just finished Ben’s book.

I introduced her to Jakob Shockey who as it happened was just forming the Beaver Coalition and recommended she go to BeaverCon to learn more. Turned out she was already registered because her boss was very interested in beavers and the good things they do. So then I introduced her to Mike Callahan and privately wrote him to be very nice to her because NRDC is the big kahuna of wildlife and would make a huge difference for beavers.

So the conference happened and was wonderful as you know and yesterday she released this:

BeaverCon: Convening the Beaver Believers

A group of around 200 impassioned scientists, practitioners and advocates came together in early March to discuss a rodent of great importance: the beaver. “BeaverCon” was a fitting name for the gathering—it’s hard to avoid puns and playful descriptors when discussing this oddly charismatic animal. But the discussions at BeaverCon were not to be taken lightly. Beavers’ ability to transform their environment through dam-building can lead to such an array of ecosystem benefits, it’s almost hard to believe. From reducing climate change through the capture of carbon; to creating habitat for sensitive species like salmon and sage grouse; to mitigating hazards like fire, flood and drought; to water storage and pollution filtration, presenters praised beavers as the unsung heroes of ecosystem health and resilience.

Hurray! Beavers make the big leagues! What a fantastic way to broadcast why beavers matter!

Across more than 30 presentations at BeaverCon, one theme consistently emerged: We humans need a major re-education on the place of beavers in our landscape (with the exception of many Indigenous peoples who have maintained traditional ecological knowledge). Western society needs more beaver believers, which is to say, we need to rethink the path towards healthy watersheds.

Her summary goes on to talk about the presentations, for example Frances Backhouse and the history of the fur trade, and ends with a reminder to pay attention to the good things beavers can do. And she asked if it was okay to end with our beautiful Ecosystem poster. And a magical link to our website!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The science has caught up with beavers and the consensus is clear: these animals are a powerful partner in protecting ecosystem and human health. We can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to all that we destroy when we kill beavers. Where there are fewer beavers, there is less resilience, less diversity and most notably, less water. The critical importance of water is intuitively obvious, but we often overlook the connection between beavers and water. Addressing this disconnect will require confronting the perceptual and political barriers to accelerating beaver coexistence and restoration across North America.

 

Long-time beaver advocate Heidi Perryman created this graphic to portray the keystone role beavers play and the many animals that benefit from beaver-created habitat.

Graphic credit: Worth a Dam

Isn’t it amazing how something goes from an idea to a conversation to a discussion in Montana? I guess good things really do happen to beavers! Thanks Jenny.

 

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