Category: Beaver ecological impact

THE WETLAND CREATOR AND THE OTHER CREATOR HAVE A ‘COME TO BEAVERS’ MEETING

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact September 24, 2022

Wel that’s a sure sign that the beaver story is approaching critical mass. It is finally showing up in religious commentary. Yes that’s right, I don’t know if it’s going to make it to every pulpit but this is definitely a start.

Beaver Dams and the Glory of God: Some Farmers and Ranchers Change Their Minds About Beavers

But just before I turn to your questions and just before we go into the weekend, I want to turn to other headline news. And this has to do with beavers building dams. It turns out that ranchers and farmers once thought that the beavers were the enemy, but all of a sudden they’ve discovered the beavers are their friends. And this is a story, by the way, coming in headline form from both sides of the Atlantic. A recent article in The New York Times points out that the warfare between human farmers and ranchers on the one hand and beavers on the other has been furious for a very long time.

At least in more recent years and decades, this has meant that farmers and ranchers, particularly in the American west, have been blowing up the beaver dams with dynamite. And frankly, it has been a battle that is sometimes won by the beavers and sometimes won by the ranchers. But they have cross purposes, or at least they have. The beavers are trying to dam up the water and the ranchers and farmers are trying to let the water flow. So, what has changed? A shortage of water is what has changed. And all of a sudden, it turns out that some of the ranchers and farmers, but particularly ranchers, are discovering that their cattle will now have access to water precisely because the beavers have built dams.

And thus, there are ponds and there are bodies of water that exist precisely because of the industrious engineering of the beavers. And you might put it this way, although The New York Times doesn’t, it is almost as if God intended it that way. I love the way the reporters for The New York Times describe the beavers, “Beavers can be complicated partners. They’re wild, swimming rodents, the size of basset hounds with an obsession for building dams. When conflicts arise, and they probably will, you can’t talk it out.”

All of a sudden they discovered this? They’ve been praying for rain or relief from floods for how many years and this realization just came ALL OF A SUDDEN?

But then we’re told, “Beavers also store lots of water for free, which is increasingly crucial in the parched west. And they don’t just help with drought, their engineering subdues torrential floods from heavy rains or snowmelt by slowing water. It reduces erosion and recharges groundwater. And the wetlands beavers create may have the extra benefit of stashing carbon out of the atmosphere.”

Then we’re told that the rodents, that means the beavers, are actually doing environmental double duty “because they also tackle another crisis unleashed by humans, rampant biodiversity loss. The wetlands are increasingly recognized for creating habitat for myriad species, from salmon to sage grouse.” And the Times then goes on to say, “Beavers, you might say are having a moment.”

As a matter of fact, in the state of California, the secretary of natural resources said recently, “We need to get beavers back to work. Full employment for beavers is a new state policy.” And again, it’s not just that there are animals able to drink and biodiversity that is being enriched by the beavers’ ponds, and that of course is the result of their building of dams, but it is also that the beaver dams and their systems actually help to prevent damage from floods and to retain water so that the flood water is not destructive but actually it turns out to be productive.

The mind reels. The jaw drops.

Now, again, there are complications. The beavers are decidedly single-minded. They will carry their twigs and branches that they have nod from trees right past the ranchers trying to light their dynamite. And there’s also something else and I find this worth noting. It turns out that the beavers apparently don’t know the difference between a fence post and a tree.

Now, I hope that story made you happy. And I think a part of the happiness for us is understanding that what is being portrayed here is just an indication of God’s glory in creation from the first. God made beavers and all creation for His glory. The beavers don’t know it, but we do. And sometimes, it’s just good and spiritually healthy for us to talk about it.

You think this story is about the glory of God and I think it’s about the glory of beavers. but well, okay. However you get there I guess. Just get there.

I WONDER HOW WE CAN MAKE MORE WETLANDS

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beaver ponds, Beavers, Beavers and Wetlands September 19, 2022

Gosh marshes and wetlands are useful and valuable for biodiversity, but they’re really really hard to make. Whatever can we do?

The Outside Story: Freshwater marshes are biodiversity hotspots

In addition to providing outstanding wildlife habitat, freshwater marshes perform several vital ecological functions. Marsh plants capture sediments running off the land from roads, development, and farm fields and filter out excess nutrients that would otherwise degrade water quality. These wetlands store floodwaters, control erosion, and recharge groundwater supplies. Marshes also offer recreational value and are popular places for paddling, birdwatching, hunting, and fishing.

Unfortunately, only in recent decades have people recognized the value of marshes and other wetlands and, to some extent, given them legal protection. Since European settlement, many marshes have been filled for agriculture or development, polluted by industrial run-off, or converted to ponds or lakes by dams. In some locales, there have been restoration efforts, but it is challenging to replicate a natural marsh, although beaver activity can create new marshes or change them to create other forms of wetlands.

Hey I remember spending hours next to beaver created wetlands. Watching herons and egrets and merganser and wood duck and mink and otter and frog. I remember counting how many species I saw in a single morning. And that was in the middle of a town.

Tell me more about how hard wetlands are to create?

Marsh plants have special adaptations that enable them to survive the wet conditions. For example, cattails and arrowhead can exchange gases between their emergent leaves and submerged roots. The type of vegetation that grows in a particular marsh depends on hydrology and soil. In shallow marshes, the water level varies from just a few inches to a foot deep. The soil may be always saturated, or it may be flooded periodically. Deeper marshes are permanently flooded, with large areas of open water. Marsh soils range from decomposed muck to high- organic mineral soil.

Along the edges of lakes, ponds, and rivers, marsh vegetation often grows in distinct bands, influenced by water depth and exposure. Sedges, for example, will grow in moist to saturated soil. Cattails and pickerelweed, with its distinctive stems of purple flowers, prefer standing water through most of the growing season. Aquatic bulrush and wild rice are found in deeper water.

These and several other plants, such as floating duckweed and arrow arum, form the foundation of the marsh food web. Waterfowl and other birds feed on the plants’ seeds, fruit, and vegetation, and the plants’ decomposed remains nourish a host of invertebrates such as snails, worms, crayfish, and insects. The invertebrates in turn provide food for frogs, fish, turtles, and songbirds, which feed water snakes, raccoons, herons, osprey, and bald eagles, among others. Muskrats are common marsh residents, eating the rhizomes (roots) of cattails and water lilies and building their dome-shaped winter lodges with cattail leaves. Mink slide through the lodges’ underwater entrances to prey on muskrats. Many birds, including hard-to-see bitterns, nest in marshes, and red-winged blackbirds often attach their nests to old cattail stalks.

Gosh that sounds beautiful! And familiar. I want to introduce you to a friend of mine…I’m guessing he can help.

MAKING WAY FOR BEAVERS STARTS IN NM

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, BDA's, Beaver ecological impact September 16, 2022

Does your landscape need beavers but can’t support them yet? No willow trees or good places to hide? Every journey starts with a single step. Maybe this is how you need to make a kind of prebeaver readiness.

Beaver dam analogs bring ecosystem benefits in areas where habitat won’t support beavers

Beavers are increasingly viewed as an important part of the efforts to mitigate impacts of climate change, but in some parts of New Mexico the former beaver habitat has been destroyed.

In those situations, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish will sometimes turn to man-made structures that mimic beaver dams. These structures are known as beaver dam analogs.

Ryan Darr, a spokesperson for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, said in an email that the department has seen the natural development of off-channel habitat as well as the expansion of riparian areas after the installation of beaver dam analogs.

Within one or two growing seasons, the riparian and aquatic habitat improvements linked to beaver dam analogs have benefited wildlife and fish.

Darr said there are several types of beaver dam analogs. Some of them are classified as post-assisted. These require using untreated wood posts that are approximately three inches in diameter and mechanically driving them into the streambed. The posts are placed about 18 to 30 inches apart and then, Darr said, locally sourced materials like leaves, branches and live materials are woven between the posts. The holes are filled with turf, mud, sod, rocks and other local materials.

Darr said other beaver dam analogs are made without posts. These use stumps and root balls as well as piles of woody debris which are placed at strategic locations in a stream.

The beaver dam analogs help restore the habitat and may pave the way for beavers to eventually return to those stretches of stream. Darr said beavers could possibly be reintroduced or they could expand upstream to the areas where the beaver dam analogs have helped to restore the habitat.

You know how it is. Before the queen’s procession can proceed down the narrow streets a row of men with brooms and dustbins must clear the path. You have to EARN beavers. Unless you’re lucky and they just come naturally.

Beavers are often referred to as ecosystem engineers thanks to their impacts on streams, which include creating ponds and excavating canals and burrows along stream banks and in riparian areas.

Prior to European settlement in North America, scientists estimate that there were between 60 and 400 million beavers, which lived in all regions of the United States except for some of the arid southwest and the Florida peninsula. That number has been reduced to about 10 million.

“If you went back a little over 100 years, it would have been difficult to find beavers in most watersheds in the state because beaver populations and habitat were depleted due to the lack of regulations on industry, hunting, and trapping,” Darr said.

He said that one of the first game laws in the state was intended to restrict beaver hunting and trapping and, thanks to modern wildlife management practices, the beaver populations have been recovering.

“What we’ve found in recent years is that there are beavers in most of our watersheds across the state if there is suitable habitat, and in many places those populations are thriving,” he said. “Places where beavers may have been historically, but we don’t find them currently, usually don’t have suitable habitat and need improvements to riparian vegetation, aquatic habitat or land management practices to become suitable. These are locations where BDAs can often be applied successfully.”

Beavers were extensively hunted and trapped for their pelts. Beavers have also been considered pests that can cause flooding and property damage.

In recent years, there’s been an increased push by states to promote beaver habitat recovery.

This week, California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife posted its first job opening for its new beaver restoration unit as the state looks to the semi-aquatic animal for help in the fight against climate change.

Beaver dams, and analog structures, can improve water quality by trapping sediment in the ponds created by their dams and by slowing water flows during spring snowmelt and monsoons, Darr said.

Even when the water is flowing at normal levels, the dams help some rivers and streams maintain consistent flows for longer during dry periods of the year, he said. This is because the dams slowly release the water.

Yes well bda’s are nice. But we all know B’s are better. They do the work themselves. Do the maintenance themselves. And have better instincts. More experience on the job. No offense.

The water in the beaver ponds tends to be colder during the summer months than flowing water in the river or stream, which benefits the fish species, Darr said.

While scientists have found numerous benefits to beavers’ activities, a recent review published this month in the journal Global Ecology and Conservation found that more work is needed. The review analyzed 267 peer-reviewed studies and found that most have been completed in temperate forest environments and that many biomes are understudied. The authors wrote that additional research is needed in some areas, such as in arid environments.

“Over the last decade, the introduction and conservation of beaver for stream restoration has become increasingly common. This study provides a reference for how specific variables may be expected to respond to beaver dams within and among biomes. It is important to note that each watershed is complex and has a unique combination of climate, underlying geology, soils, vegetation, biota, land use history, and current land use demands,” the authors wrote.

BEAVERS REACH CRITICAL MASS

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact September 10, 2022

Now this makes me happy, beavers in Mother Jones. Hi Ben.

Beavers Are Finally Getting the Rebrand They Deserve

It’s been a good week for beavers. On Monday, the New York Times ran an article highlighting the rodents’ position as “highly skilled environmental engineers” capable of mitigating threats like wildfires and drought. The same day, the San Francisco Chronicle dubbed beavers “one of California’s best chances to fight climate change.” And on Tuesday the Los Angeles Times reported that the Golden State is seeking applications for its brand-new beaver restoration unit to protect this “untapped, creative climate solving hero.”

And it’s not just California; pro-beaver policy changes are happening across the US. Here’s the Times:

Beavers, you might say, are having a moment. In Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming, the Bureau of Land Management is working with partners to build beaver-like dams that they hope real beavers will claim and expand…In Maryland, groups are trying to lure beavers to help clean the water that flows into Chesapeake Bay. In Wisconsin, one study found that beavers could substantially reduce flooding in some of the most vulnerable areas of Milwaukee County.

All of this beaver buzz prompted my editor-in-chief, Clara Jeffery, to ask via Slack, “is…it possible that beavers got a publicist?”

Or a new publicist? Honestly the old ones have been working as hard as they could but it was obviously time to bring in some new blood.

Beavers, after all, have long been seen as a nuisance among some landowners, pests that cause flooding and property damage. According to a federal report, the US Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services program exterminated nearly 25,000 wild beavers in 2021. (Authorities employ various methods to eliminate beavers, including trapping, shooting, and snaring. Back in the ’70s, researchers at Auburn University attempted to investigate whether alligators could be used to slim down beaver populations, but after an increase in alligator attacks on humans in Florida at the time, the study was discontinued.)

So, what changed? When I (half-jokingly) asked Ben Goldfarb, author of the 2018 book, Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter if beavers have a new PR agent, his answer was yes—kind of.

To be sure, beaver fans have been around for centuries, if not longer. As Goldfarb writes, many Indigenous groups have long recognized beavers’ value. The Blackfeet tribe, for instance, viewed beavers as a sacred species and prohibited killing the animals. And after Europeans hunted beavers to near extinction to make stupid-looking hats, American naturalist Enos Mills wrote in his 1913 book In Beaver World that beavers were actually “useful to man” and should be viewed as the “original Conservationist.” “This notion of beavers as valuable and good has always been with humans in some form,” Goldfarb says.

But he also notes that in recent years there’s been a growing body of peer-reviewed evidence hyping the utility of beavers. “They improve water quality, they create salmon habitat, they store water in the case of a drought, and they help mitigate flooding after really intensive rainfall,” Goldfarb says. That science is finally trickling down to policymakers and journalists.

I don’t know that it has anything to do with science or facts. I certainly hoped science would persuade Martinez officials to appreciate beavers in 2007 and it really helped very little. I think it has more to do with the dire hopeless situation we find ourselves in. The climate is really messed up.

And beavers? They are worth a shot.

Goldfarb points to one particularly influential study: In 2020, California State University Channel Islands environmental scientist Emily Fairfax co-published research showing that beavers and the wetlands they create could help prevent forest fires. It was a phenomenon that scientists had observed before, but hadn’t fully described it in the scientific literature—until Fairfax documented it. “Emily’s wildfire research broke through into popular culture in a way that no other beaver research previously had,” he says.

On a personal level, Fairfax has also in recent years spoken out in favor of beavers, including by advocating for the US Forest Service to change its mascot to Smokey the Beaver and producing a stop-motion video illustrating her research that ended up going viral. (See below.) “Emily is a really prominent beaver voice,” says Goldfarb, who covered Fairfax’s work for National Geographic in 2020. “I think a lot of the media boom is really thanks to Emily.

Fairfax herself has no qualms about speaking for the beavs. “I kind of joke that you can’t spend a whole lot of time with me before you also become a beaver expert because I talk about it so much,” she says. She is quick to note that messaging from grassroots community groups and individual landowners has made a difference too. “We’re reaching that critical mass, there are enough people who have taken that chance and gambled with beavers and found it successful that the message is really—pardon my pun—spreading like wildfire.” Clearly, the work of Fairfax, Goldfarb, and other so-called “Beaver Believers” is working.

In the US, it’s rare for rodents to achieve any kind of all-star status; critters like mice, rats, gophers, squirrels, and porcupines have yet to secure their spot as environmental heroes in the eyes of most Americans or the media. (Has anyone, for instance, referred to a gerbil as “highly skilled” at anything?) But in the case of the beavers, they are finally getting the rebrand they deserve.

This is true but it’s also true that Emily was inspired to work on beavers because of Jari Osborn’s beaver documentary on PBS which showed the amazing scene of Carol Evans and Suzanne Fouty measuring water in a beaver dam in a desert and Suzanne’s dissertation inspired Mary Obrien who inspired all of Utah who inspired all of the west and Kent Woodruff who inspired Ben Goldfarb to write the book in the first place.

It’s critical mass. It’s all about us adding a little piece to the puzzle. And finally people can see it all taking shape.[wonderplugin_video iframe=”https://youtu.be/t3j0T23GxwM” lightbox=0 lightboxsize=1 lightboxwidth=960 lightboxheight=540 autoopen=0 autoopendelay=0 autoclose=0 lightboxtitle=”” lightboxgroup=”” lightboxshownavigation=0 showimage=”” lightboxoptions=”” videowidth=600 videoheight=400 keepaspectratio=1 autoplay=0 loop=0 videocss=”position:relative;display:block;background-color:#000;overflow:hidden;max-width:100%;margin:0 auto;” playbutton=”https://www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wonderplugin-video-embed/engine/playvideo-64-64-0.png”]

RIDING THE DRAGON: THE PASSWORD IS “FLOW DEVICE”

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver ecological impact, Beavers, Beavers and climate change September 8, 2022

I remember being in a media storm. Back when the Martinez Beavers were first THE NEWS and channel 2,3,or 7 or the Chronicle was always on the phone looking to talk. I remember how crazy it all got. How there were so many people saying so many things that it was next to impossible to stop the inaccuracies from blossoming. Someone reporting the mayor wanted the beavers or that a child was bitten by the beavers or that beavers eat fish.

It was impossible to control the narrative. The best we could manage was to just hang on.

It was like riding a dragon. There was no telling when it would go and when it would stop and which direction it might turn next. All your could do is cling tightly to the scales and hope you didn’t fall. What I learned is that the media is like sharks. Once they see other sharks biting they all join in. They al want to say just what the other guy is saying and everything happens at once.

Until it stops.

We are in a beaver shark moment right now. But not about Martinez. about how beavers can benefit the planet as we cope with climate change. About California in particular. Yesterday the LA Times and LA magazine, Phys.org and Yahoo news ram the story. Everyone is saying the same thing. And every cringing mistake is being repeated at gale force.

We are riding the dragon, Hang on.

California says the beaver can be superhero in fighting climate change

California launches beaver restoration effort to fight climate change - Los Angeles Times

Okay raise your hand if you see the quote that will drive me insane when every news castor in the world repeats it.

Here it is: “Alternative strategies are underutilized or simply not considered, said Lundquist, who added that landowners could save time and money they spend trying to unblock beaver dams.”

Trying to unblock beaver dams? TRYING TO UNBLOCK BEAVER DAMS? How could a sentence like that possibly happen? Was Kate talking about a flow device and the reporter just wrote it down wrong? Do you honestly think farmers and ranchers HAVEN’T tried to unblock beaver dams? It doesn’t work because beavers FIX them. That’s why the killing happens.

Please please please please say the magic word flow device the next time the phone rings. Who ever it is. Whatever they ask you. You can always spot the seasoned politician in a crowd. Whatever question you ask they are going to answer by saying the thing they wanted to talk about in the first place. Be seasoned. Control the narrative. Say Flow Device. Or Pond leveler. Or Beaver Deceiver. Or Beaver Baffler.

Pretty please. For me?