Category: Beaver News

Wetlands inconvenienced by beavers

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Chewing, Beaver Conference, Beaver News, City Reports, Environmental, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now? December 17, 2016

Not a bad beaver report considering its from Indiana. I can’t embed it here but click on it for a nice review of the issues. Even though they newscaster can’t tell a lodge and a dam apart, there is actually discussion about beaver benefits and options supposedly being considered.

Damming Up the Place

A family of beavers is currently living the Hawthorne Park Wetlands it’s kind of like having, squatters move into your neighborhood. The rodents are causing a big problem and the Vigo County Parks Department is facing a tough decision.

The Parks Dept. say trapping and killing the beavers in the area is an option. The other alternative would be to capture and relocate the animals, but that equipment can cost around $200 per beaver. The issue is the dams they build can cause water back up in other areas.

On a cold, frosty day there’s not much activity at Hawthorne Park. But there’s definitely something going on.. and it concerns the wildlife here. In particular some pesky beavers.

“When they create dams, stop up water bodies, which creates sort of artificial wetlands in areas where people might not want those wetlands to be,” Falyn Owens, said

Owens, Urban Wildlife Biologist with Department of Natural Resources says the ideal would be to put up barriers to stop the animals. But if something more drastic is needed, then trap and kill is favored over capture and release because then the beaver essentially becomes someone else’s problem.

The beaver taking down trees and potentially causing flooding are primary concerns, but the animal does a lot of good too.

“They are what we call ecosystem engineers which makes them an incredibly important species in the natural system, just like human beings, they have the capacity to change their environment,” Owens said.

Since we’re talking about Indiana I would ordinarily hold little hope for these beavers, but I was tipped to the story by someone who works for the parks department who was tipped by the reporter. I was able to pull up email for Ms. Owens and the park superintendent, and send them information about flow devices and beaver benefits. Who knows? At least there’s a chance things could work out.

To be honest I was surprised they have a biologist in charge of Urban Wildlife at all. And Falyn Owens wrote me back twice, basically saying I can’t do anything and the park has a license to kill. But still. We’re grading on a curve.

Robin let me know that the infamous dollar store beaver made his way to Anderson Cooper at CNN the other night. Apparently causing him to get a bit of the giggles. Discretion being the furrier part of valor, I won’t comment. Sit thru a short commercial and enjoy the clip.

Restoring Neighborhood Streams with beavers

heidi08 Beaver Conference, Beaver News, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? September 10, 2016

I had a nice surprise yesterday in the mail with the arrival of Ann Riley’s much awaited urban creek book. Her first one published 25 years ago and became the restoration bible. It is still a valuable asset and regarded as a necessary resource even though others on the subject have been published since. This second one is all about successful creek restoration stories – both labor intensive and natural. And guess who’s in it from page 171-179? That would be the story of the Martinez Beavers, who moved into an urban creek and transformed it all by themselves.

Riley has been a good friend of the beavers over the years but she wasn’t exactly forthcoming with this part of her book. It was strange and exciting to read our story told by an outsider and see myself consistently described as ‘Perryman’. Ha. The scan came out horrible but here are some wonderful segments worth sharing.

I love having this documented correctly in a book that will likely survive the next 25 years and beyond. Riley works for the SF waterboard and has done several trainings about planting trees out here. It’s through her that we were able to have the watershed stewards the last couple of years working with the conservation core. I particularly love how she cracks open the creek scientists pretend enviromental reports that the city paid for to have justification for their impulses. And of course I loved THIS.

How happy do you think the city will to be to read about that historic sheetpile? Maybe they’ll throw me a parade? That whole ordeal was such a nauseating bundle of tension that I have long repressed it: I was terrified every moment that the beavers would be killed. I can’t believe they survived. And I remain very partial to this video.

I am bursting with pride at this paragraph and you can certainly see why this reference made the wikipedia challenger disappear. Maybe its just me but I find it a little terrifying that many years ago in a panic I just happened to come across the 2005 ecological survey and made the decision to contrast it with the species we saw over time. I’m sure there were all kinds of reasons a well-trained person wouldn’t have done it. But I was right here when it all happened, and I remember how rare a thing it used to be to see a green heron or muskrat in the creek and how common it became.

Riley & Cory plan the attack! — *Ann Riley & WSP intern plan the tree planting*

More than anything else in the ENTIRE world I am wishing that some other city looks at this chapter and says hmmm, maybe we should try that. (And I’m looking at you, Mountain House). If allowing beavers to restore urban streams needed to be proven then I’m thrilled that Martinez was a testcase. I met Riley through Lisa Owens Vianni who I met through the SF bay Estuary project where she used to work. That got my foot in the proverbial door but it was my presentation at the Santa Barbra Salmonid Restoration Conference that impressed her.

She said it was might have been the best presentation they ever had.

There are a few picky things I would have changed about this chapter. The meeting wasn’t in chambers it was at the High School, and it was a Sacramento Splittail not a SPITTAIL and good lord I never want 5000 people at the beaver festival! But I’m so happy we’re in this very important book and the role our beavers played is documented forever. Thank you Ann Riley for bringing our story to the next level.

Anyone who cares about creeks and beavers should go buy a copy right now. It will pay for itself may times over.

Scientific American Beavers

heidi08 Beaver News, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? July 26, 2016

Our friend Nick Bouwes is in the news again, this time in Scientific American.

Here’s a nice discussion of his work and findings on ’60 second science’ by Jason G. Goldman. You really should stop what you’re doing and listen because it will make much more sense than anything I’m going to write this morning.

CLICK TO LISTEN

Don’t you love it when people are talking about beavers in Scientific American? Better yet, when SA is talking about a subject YOU ALREADY KNOW about. Yes we are cutting edge here at beaver central, scientific institutions with large budgets and research teams are scrambling to keep up.

It occurs to me that there is a trace of Rick Lanman’s influence evident in this article. His intelligent re-examination of historic writing and lore was fairly unheard of in beaver research before our historic prevalence papers. Now even Bridge Creek is talking about Lewis and Clark as a way to understand what was lost when all the water-savers were killed.

Nice work, Rick!

I’m driving back to Auburn tomorrow to give a presentation to the Fish and Game Commission of Placer. It should be mighty interesting to talk to them about what Martinez did and gained in contrast their own particularly horrific track record. I’m hoping that they’ll at least start thinking about what else they might be losing by killing 7 times more beavers than any county in the state. Wish me luck.

From the sublime to the ridiculous!

heidi08 Beaver Chewing, Beaver News, Beavers, Beavers and climate change, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? July 6, 2016

Global beaver citizens that we are, I woke up with an email from the Edinbugh professor and regular reader of this website J. Suilin Lavelle, who said she just ran into Roisin Campbell at the mammal conference on the weekend! Roisin told her she had a lot of fun on her visit to Vermont meeting Patti and Skip. (Which I wrote about a few days ago because, honestly that’s how small the beaver world is.) The beaver champions of that nation are currently in a Brexit-induced panic because the Scottish government had dragged their beaver decision out for so long, and now the insanity over the EU vote might delay or derail everything.

You probably didn’t realize that Brexit was bad news for beavers too, did you?

Meanwhile, there’s a nice bit of news from the Mendenhall Glacier beaver cam this year, which I was recently alerted to by a US Forestry friend here in Vallejo.

Thousands Around the World Tune In to Snoop on a Beaver Den

Watching the beavers sleep has kept thousands of viewers occupied since June 28, when the US Forest Service installed an infrared camera in the den to record in real time the beavers’ activities. As nocturnal creatures, that means sleeping most of the day and getting up periodically to stretch, eat, or relieve themselves. Recommended viewing is between 7 AM and 7 PM Alaska Standard Time.

Natural resource specialist Peter Schneider and fisheries biologist Don Martin initially set up a beaver camera in 2004 to satiate their curiosities about a collection of food outside the beaver lodge on Steep Creek. To monitor the beavers’ activities, they set up a camera outside the lodge and even had it insulated throughout the winter.

Are you keeping track of the mileage with your atlas at home here? The beaver story has gone from Scotland to Vermont to Juneau to Vallejo to Martinez so far. Some 2500+miles and counting. Not bad for a morning’s work!

And just so we don’t feel too smugly accomplished, here’s a glimpse of how far we have yet to go courtesy of the silliest research ever published.

13614929_10207072161388714_3577635218269275857_n — **Yes. that photo is what you suspect it is; because you, dear reader are smart and this article is stoo-pid.**

As more beaver colonies form, the rodents have an adverse effect on the climate by changing levels of methane gas. This happens because beaver colonies are formed in ponds constructed by the beaver dams. These tend to be pockets of shallow water (no more than 1.5 meters high.) Within this oxygen-poor standing water, methane gas levels build up and the gas, because it cannot dissolve in the water, is eventually released into the atmosphere.

According to Professor Colin J. Whitfield (University of Saskatchewan in Canada), compared with 100 years ago, 200 times more of greenhouse gas is released into the atmosphere from beaver colonies. This has come from a study into beaver colonies in Eurasia (the Castor fiber species) and North America (the Castor Canadensis species.)

The model suggests beavers currently contribute 0.80 teragrams (or 800 million kilograms) of methane into the atmosphere. Interviewed by International Business Times, Professor Whitfield suggest this problem not going away anytime soon unless action is taken: “Continued range expansion, coupled with changes in population and pond densities, may dramatically increase the amount of water impounded by the beaver…[this] suggests that the contribution of beaver activity to global methane emissions may continue to grow.

Truly the reporter selected the IDEAL photo to accompany this groundbreaking research, it really communicates the level of intelligence of those involved. (Nutria) See Dr. Whitfield is from the university of Saskatchewan which is famous for the kill contest they held this year. He teamed up with Dr. Cherie Westbrook of Alberta who was probably just happy to publish something without the name Glynnis Hood on it, and I’ve been told that she regrets how this study has been misused. But I spare her no mercy and want this supposedly seminal research to be the beaver albatross around her educated neck. She should have known that folks would be only too happy for another bogus reason to blame beavers.

Let me explain this again for those who are mislead, yes beaver dams release methane, which is one of the green house gasses we are not really worried about. It dissolves in 2-3 years, unlike carbon, which we are VERY worried about, which lasts for decades. (When you drive to work your car doesn’t release methane.) Along the way beavers increase the water supply which we are going to need as carbon numbers keep rising. Beavers also aid biodiversity, which we need in on a planet that is rapidly losing species. (I of course tried to write the editor yesterday about the photo, but it appears they are obviously not overly concerned with accuracy.)

Oh and did you know that we successfully entered Jupiter’s orbit after the fireworks on independence day? We’re on a 20 month rotation studying a planet at 540,000,000 miles away. And the five year mission predictions were accurate to within 1 second.

Welcome to Jupiter!

The Un-memorial Mural

heidi08 Beaver News, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? May 31, 2016

Okay, you really need to watch this. It took nearly all day to make and I’m kind of proud of the integration of our photos with Mario’s images. The painting process is done, he’s just sealing today, so it’s the right time for an un-memorial to christen the piece.

Mario said the mayor AND Dave Scola came by to congratulate him on how beautiful it is. And I just got an email from Lara on the council saying the same thing. There was a blurb about it in the community focus, and kids have been excited about the frog and the turtle. This was a hard project to complete at almost ever level, first convincing Worth A Dam that it was okay to do something that felt like a memorial, then convincing the city to let us, then wrestling with everyone get the project insured: it was a battle at every step.

But we won. The battle and the war. And now Martinez will have a beaver dam on Alhambra Creek forever.

Well it’s time to celebrate now. How about enjoying the 12th annual beaver pageant in Durham North Carolina. The fun part is, that Worth A Dam’s Lory Bruno will be attending so we have a beaver emissary!

The Beaver Queen Pageant brings puns, fur and fun to an ecological cause

Scarlett O’Beavah takes her reign at the 2010 pageant.

The Beaver Queen Pageant is not a beauty pageant with a twist. Rather, it’s a beauty pageant with a lot of twists. More twists and turns than its longtime beneficiary, Durham’s Ellerbe Creek Watershed.

For starters, its contestants dress up as beavers. In drag.

Still with us? Good. Now note that points are taken off if contestants’ tails aren’t at least partially, um, functional. Engineering is essential.

Contestants assume various alter egos. This year’s winner was a comer named Scarlett O’Beavah. Ostensibly, the lovelies are judged on the quality of their tail, evening wear, stage presence, something called wetland-ready wear and talent—which almost invariably involves pop songs rewritten for the occasion. (One year featured a mysterious contestant known only as Belvis.)

But at this pageant, the judges are gleefully on the take, available to the highest bidder—once, that is, they’ve bought their way into their seats. The more budget-conscious vote-riggers can help fudge the selection process by stuffing the ballot box with the perfectly good votes they’ve paid for. With their own (or other people’s) money.

In the tradition of the other kind of voter-financed elections that have marred North Carolina politics for too long, this exercise in civic representation isn’t merely pay-to-play: It’s strictly cash-and-carry.

Over the past six years, the pageant has substantially raised the visibility of its namesake—the beavers that have now made an unlikely lodge in a wetland behind a Roxboro Road strip mall. “The attention they’ve drawn has cleaned up that natural resource,” notes Duke Park resident Bill Anderson. “I can remember the Cub Scouts coming down to that marsh and pulling out five tons of trash in the early days.

“You go there now, it’s just amazingly clean, when in the old days it was a dump zone.”

But the Beaver Queen Pageant has done more than exhort neighbors to clean up an environmental eyesore. The $15,000 they’ve raised over the past half decade has helped the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association buy the wetlands the beavers call home this past year, as a part of their land trust efforts in acquiring and protecting ecologically significant areas in Durham’s urban environment. Their philanthropy has been “an enormous help in mobilizing the community to steward and maximize the benefits of the Beaver Marsh and our other preserves,” says Diana Tetens, the association’s executive director.

Still, this family-friendly neighborhood party and environmental, philanthropic endeavor started out as something significantly different. Picture an underground, after-hours drag pageant in 2005 led by activist Katherine O’Brien.

HA! This definitely has a more ‘diversity’ than ‘biodiversity’ flavor to it, but I’m thrilled that anyone in North Carolina is saving wetlands or valuing beavers! We loved their last slogan of ‘Peace. Love. and Beavers’. So we can only assume this year’s will be awesome too. Lory is bringing a flyer of our festival with her to cross pollinate!

Go see the mural today. Snap a photo of yourself with your favorite part and I’ll be happy to share it on the website!