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

Category: Beaver News


Methow Valley beavers are the stars in Wild Kingdom episode

Screenshot from Wild Kingdom website

The film crew from Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom visited three sites in the Methow Valley to highlight the role of beavers in restoring a healthy ecosystem. Local beavers — and work by the Methow Beaver Project (MBP) to create a healthy ecosystem — are starring in an upcoming episode of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. The “Eager Beavers” episode on the long-running nature show features three sites in the Methow Valley — a Twisp River side channel and the Bear Creek and Texas Creek watersheds. The program also highlights beaver-restoration work in Oregon and California. Eager Beavers, part of the Protecting the Wild series, premiers this month at WildKingdom.com. The beaver project is hosting a free screening on March 17. The episode showcases the role beavers play in creating a sustainable future across the country and, in particular, in the arid West, MBP Restoration and Outreach Assistant Willie Duguay said. The Wild Kingdom crew went to the Bear Creek watershed where beavers are helping reclaim an area that burned in the 2014 Carlton Complex Fire. The crew also looked at the connections between beavers and salmon habitat. Eager Beavers chronicles changing attitudes toward beavers. After widespread trapping, beavers had been extirpated from the West by the early 19th century. With few beavers on the landscape, people settled along rivers and took advantage of fertile soil in former floodplains, according to MBP.“ Long thought to be a nuisance animal, beavers have been waiting for their time to shine. Now as climate change, drought and other damaging ecological factors severely impact groundwater and wetland habitats, science is finally understanding the importance of these natural engineers for the health of our planet,” Wild Kingdom said.

Also, if you’re in the vicinity of Methow Valley, there will be a free screening:

The Methow Beaver Project is screening “Eager Beavers” on Friday, March 17, at 6 p.m. at the Methow Valley Community Center in Twisp. There will be beaver-themed trivia and a Q&A session. Admission is free. Beverages for adults and children will be available for purchase.
The episode will also be screened that same night at 6 p.m. at the Community Cultural Center in Tonasket.

Eager Beavers can be viewed on WildKingdom.com starting March 19.

Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, one of the earliest TV shows to feature nature and adventure, broadcast its first show 60 years ago. The Protecting the Wild series will be hosted by Peter Gros, co-host of the original series.

Eager Beavers is the sixth episode in the 10-part series.

More at the Methow Valley News.

In the meantime you can travel back in time to the early 1980s when Wild Kingdom aired Valley of the Beavers, which was shot in Canada. Probably due to the difficulty of finding healthy beaver habitat in the US at that time.

Valley of the Beavers, Part I

Valley of the Beavers, Part II

They’re each around twenty minutes long with some very good photography. Single mom raising her kits story.

Bob


PEEC Presents Program On Reintroduction Of Beavers At Bandelier National Monument

Bandelier National Monument’s Biological Science Technician Priscilla Hare will discuss the Beaver Reintroduction Program at Bandelier National Monument this evening. Attend in-person at the Nature Center or via Zoom at 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 8. Learn more at https://peecnature.org/events/details/?id=45397. Photo Courtesy PEEC

Heidi posted on this project in November of last year. It looks like it will be an informative talk and the ticket price is reasonable — FREE!  More about the project is here: 

Under the Willows | Beavers Return To Bandelier National Monument

Beavers are working to restore Bandelier National Monument’s Frijoles River watershed/NPS

More good press on the petition to Biden on the WildEarth Guardians site: 

Large coalition of nonprofit organizations, scientists, and advocates call on President Biden to protect beaver on federal lands

Beavers have been touted as an efficient and natural climate change mitigator

I’d say that beavers are PROVEN to be excellent at repairing riparian systems that we have damaged and if we work along with them and decide not to keep doing things that harm the environment, the climate will soon began to improve for all. 

Great talk by Ecologist Mark Beardsley on process based river restoration on Sarah Koenigsberg’s Vimeo site: 

Restoring Rocky Mountain beaver wetland landscapes 

And another excellent presentation by Geologist Ellen Wohl:

In thinking about rivers

Hoping that Heidi will be back to posting soon!! 

Bob


Well the California Beaver Summit website is up and active. If you haven’t checked it out yet you should go find out what you’ll be missing on April 7th and 9th and sign up in person. All the best and brightest beaver people will be there and we’ll do our best to turn a very low tide in our flammable state.

In the meantime there’s another excellent column from George B. Emmons writing for the Warehelm Week. You might remember we first heard from George in 2020 with this fine column. Now he’s at it again.

The industrious beaver dam

As a Wareham Week reader and coastal resident, you may not see many beavers in your travels unless you go back inland to where their dams are welcomed to be beneficial to both people and wildlife. Out in the country, dams are considered desirable for the environment by slowing down and widening out lucrative waterways. 

Slow moving flooded habitats make homes for aquatic species such as waterfowl, mammals, turtles, insects, herons and kingfishers — like the one perched on a beaver lodge in my animated drawing. One benefit of slower moving waters is that they filter out unwanted nitrogen and heavy metal impurities to stop them from spreading downstream. 

Important recent research has also discovered that wetlands created by beaver dams stimulate growth of vegetation and aquatic habitat — even in periods of drought — that provides a natural refuge for wildlife during dry season wildfires. Especially on the west coast, dams also catch and conserve a declining amount of glacial melt and act as a wellspring reserve for a future fountainhead of long-term soaking to prevent riparian habitat from drying up entirely.

George is very very close to being a beaver believer. In fact if he’s not already friends with Mike Callahan who lives just 2 hours away from him he should start a correspondence. There are somethings about Mike’s work he need to better understand.

The jury is still out on whether beavers’ presence is an advantage in urban developments. Beaver dams can become a threat and nuisance during rainy periods, as they can flood low-lying drainage and also basements. Additionally, if beavers clog culverts in ditches, adding mesh cages at openings or running a pipe through the dam to limit water flow can be very costly. 

Please not that installing a beaver deceiver which will work for a decade or longer to keep beavers from plugging a culvert for the price of 500 dollars is cheaper than renting a backhoe to clear the culvert and hiring a trapper to get rid of new

beaver over and over. If you like I can do the math for you and show my work.

Another complaint is that beavers cut down small trees to enjoy their favorite food: the cambial layer between tree bark and the inner layer of wood. Beavers have

four razor-sharp front teeth to begin the cut and sixteen back molars to grind wood into a digestible substance. They prefer the flavor of aspen and birch trees, but also choose limbs of birch, male willow, oak and hornbeam to fortify the foundations of the dam. Landowners may wrap fencing or metal barriers around tree trunks. Whenever possible, wildlife managers prefer to assist landowners with moving beavers to

more suitable habitats. 

A beaver’s determination and persistence in constructing a dam sets an example of industrial dedication for the human race in their own projects.

Yes its true that chopping down trees bothers people. You’d be surprised how often that is their only infraction before trapping is seized upon. Of course wrapping trees with wise is very very difficult because it requires the skill level of a first grader and a little bit of patience. There must be some reason no one ever wants to do it.

Well George you are nibbling at the margins of true being a true beaver believer. We’ll do what we can to push you firmly over the edge. In the meantime keep writing articles like this and remember to check our website for hints. 

We can really help out with the artwork at least.

Amy Hall


One thing that’s nice about being notorious in the Beaver-Kingdom is the knowledge that beaver news, important or otherwise WILL eventually find you. I mean there’s a certain amount of work I do to check the dailies, but for the monthlies I rely on the other good folks in the world. I got the alert on this from Bob Kobres of Georgia and yesterday received the scan from Sherry Guzzi of Sierra Wildlife. Many thanks to you both! From Defenders of Wildlife.

Beavers Nature’s Ecosystem EngineersSince this website is devoted all day every day to news about beavers and only beavers, I’m a little picky when it comes to “spot cover” stories. I know that the big sexy animals like wolves and cougars are the bread and butter of these groups, and beavers are just an ‘occasional filler’ when the magazine needs padding out.

But this ain’t bad.

Beavers incentive program? Obviously to my way of thinking the beavers themselves are incentive enough. But hey, I’m hardly an unbiased opinion. I wonder what that means? If I were trying to ‘incentivize beavers’ I would  start by loaning night cams to property owners because I think when people see what’s cutting down their trees or plugging their culverts its a different story.

Take this video Robin of Napa found yesterday.

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I just love the happy regard these watchers extend to this fortunate beaver, who apparently is only too happy with his new ‘crew-mate’. I think lots of ‘saving’ starts with ‘seeing’ and many a war correspondent would agree with me.

You hear that? Beavers benefit at-risk wildlife! Nice phase. Which in our current era means pretty much ALL wildlife. Or all life, really. It’s a risky world out there. We’re  all polar beavers, now, baby.

 


Hurray for June! Guess what our Napa beaver friend saw yesterday morning for the very first time! Go ahead, guess!

2018 Napa kit: Rusty Cohn

Ohhh so beautiful! When I was done being ravenously jealous (and it took a while) I was very, very happy for him. i remember that breathless feeling very of kit discovery so well. It will stay fresh in my mind until the very last thing is forgotten. It  was something that happened annually for nine years, and every single time was different and magical in its own way. 2007 was such a surprise I hardly believed it. 201o was wrought with heartbreak.

2013 is probably my favorite, though.

There was so much more. Yesterday was a wild swarm of wonders, starting in the morning when city staff came to the park to hang the banners. I can’t tell you what an awesome feeling of pride it gave us to see them go up – both because they were amazing looking AND because the city of Martinez was spending manpower hours to benefit a beaver festival. After the all the hours they spent trying to get rid of them! There are 14 in all, and he carefully hung them and ziptied along the bottom to secure.

It turns out that winning the argument is the best revenge.

Doesn’t that look wonderful? Amelia did such a fine job! The ones the children colored at earth day were especially beautiful hung in place. We put all those in the center of the park so that folks could sit and study them,

While we were hanging them a man strolled by with his son to ask about the festival. He said that his son went to Creekside Montessori – the daycare right beside where the beavers live that happens to be run by someone who is not a fan,  The man said his son and all the kids knew about the beaver dam and the beavers and loved them! They would be sure to make it on the day.

(If there are better ways to put pressure on the adults to do the right thing I surely can’t think of any.)

Just to give you an idea of how bizarrely fluttery my day felt yesterday, I later got a note from Ben’s publisher saying the book was being released and they were sending me a copy. Then I got a note from Ben himself, asking very politely if he could have 100 copies delivered to the house for the events he is doing when he gets here. And posters too. Could we just put them in the garage of something until he arrives?

100 beaver books delivered to my house? Guess what I said! Go ahead, guess!

 

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