First a sorry follow up to the Sparks NV beaver story, I heard from Sherry of the Sierra Wildlife Coalition that 5 beavers were reportedly trapped over the weekend. And just for added insult the news station chose to STEAL Cheryl’s lovely photo of happy urban beaver to discuss why urban beavers couldn’t possibly be tolerated. Letters were written.
Speaking of the bumpy path of urban beavers, I was realizing that our chapter would have more weight if we could say something about how common this issue is in the country. There isn’t any data base that would possibly tell us that, but one special place that I happen to know of and have access to. I went through and did a spread sheet of all the beaver stories in or near cities I reported this year on the website. Now mind you, I don’t cover EVERY SINGLE story, but consider this a minimum. Cities all across the country, from Bakersfield CA to Ackron OH, San Marcos TX and Cumberland RI. There have been 107 so far in 38 states, with various complaints including flooding and chewing trees. The vast majority end in depredation, but it was heartening to see that a fair number ended this year in mitigation.
California and Massachusetts are apparently numbers 1 & 2 on the list, although assume some observer bias because one is the state I live in and one is the state Beaver solutions lives in. I’d love to have this data for the past 5 years, so we could spot trends and changes, but I don’t think I’m that patient. Even the states missing this year I know I’ve reported on in the past.
Well, except Hawaii.
This was a lot of work, so now a treat from the Cheyenne Zoo via LK. Heartening to see Ginger doing what she can do, regardless of the odds.
Here’s a nice article from last month’s Freshwater Magazine. It’s a sweet piece of writing with some delicious frosting added yesterday that I’ll tell you about later. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.
When a group of five scientists in the Pacific Northwest began advertising for workshops on the science of beaver restoration, they didn’t anticipate a few things.
The workshops would be filled to capacity within a week. There was so much interest they needed to increase both the workshop size and the total number of workshops offered. There would be a waitlist, followed by phone calls and emails from people clamoring to get in.
“People are starting to see the value of beaver for more than just their pelts or more than just pests, but how we can work in concert with them to fix more rivers and streams.”
Regulatory agency staff, nonprofits, tribal representatives, private landowners, members of the general public and others paid the $50 fee for one-day intensives on the science behind how beaver restore streams.
But the sharing of knowledge and best practices would live beyond the day-long events. Workshop discussions were captured in an official guidebook on beaver restoration, published this past June.
“The publication is meant to be an accessible resource for anyone using beaver to restore waterways,” said Greg Lewallen, a master’s student at Portland State University and the research assistant for the project. “With enough educational outreach, the perception of these animals will start to change. That’s why it’s critical we continue to spread the word about the large role that these animals play in ecosystems.”
This article does a great job of emphasizing how thrilled they were by the response they got. Waiting lists are a reminder that the west was hungry for this information. You probably remember this publication from the delightful cover that featured Cheryl’s photo. People were really excited by this information. Now the crew was so estatic by the response they got that they want to work on volume II.
Only in this second version they want to include a chapter on the topic dearest to my heart. Are you sitting down? They want to include a chapter on this:
Did you know that 81% of all Americans live in urban settings? So if most of us are going to deal with beavers its going to be someplace next to sidewalks and parking meters. And if the fact that they were including a chapter on the topic was all the news for this morning, that would be enough. I’d be in heaven floating on a pink fluffy cloud.
But that is not all. No, that is not all.
Now if you want to study tortoises you go to the Galapagos, if you want to see the works of Michaelanglo you go to Rome, and apparently if you want to learn about Urban Beavers you contact Martinez. Greg wrote me this week and we arranged a fantastic phone call for yesterday, where I told him the long and winding story of our beavers and the tireless work the people of Martinez had done to save them.
I was so flattered to be asked, and thrilled to think that before our city the topic of Urban Beavers was never even discussed. (In fact the words were probably only paired as an obscure reference to leggy females that drank Manhattans and smoked black cigarettes.) But now the words actually existed. And Urban Beavers were a THING, like open space or two-way traffic. And they wanted to include them in the next edition!!!
My excitement could only be described with this video short.
So I was as excited as little Madeline here during our conversation, and kept missing words and skipping over myself. But, since this was a story I had told a thousand times before, I found my way well enough. And before the conversation was over, a little moth of a thought started fluttering wistfully in my mind. I shushed it away many times but it came only back stronger.
What if I could be a co-author on this chapter. Was it even possible?
All through the hour long conversation I waived the fluttering thought away and tried to imagine whether I was qualified for such an auspicious venture. It’s true I had already co-authored two papers on beavers that were published in scientific journals. And a few in my trained field of psychology, where I had even been sole author. So maybe it wasn’t a crazy idea. But was it impossible? This was NOAA, Fish and Wildlife and the USFS; did my scrabbling, back room beaver-tactics really belong there?
Well, some dreams never see the light of day, and some apples fall to the ground before they ripen.We can never know what would have happened if I had summoned the courage to ask Greg if I could be a co-author of the chapter.
Because HE ASKED ME FIRST.
Guess what I answered. Go ahead, guess, I can wait.
The first truly exciting article I read about beaver was from High Country News in 2009. It described the way we had forgotten what watersheds were supposed to look like and introduced me to the dynamic character of Mary Obrien, describing her ‘long think rope of a gray braid.’ I was so excited to see her on the schedule at the first beaver conference that I peeked around looking for long gray hair, and was dissappointed that there were too many possibilities to guess. It was okay, she had cut her hair by then, but we met anyway, went to lunch and next year she came to the beaver festival. Remember?
Well this morning High Country News has done it again: celebrated beaver contribution on a grand scale with an article about the much beloved Methow Project and its guiding light Kent Woodruff. I feel obliged to say that the great headline was hijacked from the Canadian version of Jari Osborne’s game-changing documentary. But the rest of the text is golden.
The lovers are wards of the Methow Valley Beaver Project, a partnership between the U.S. Forest Service, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Methow Salmon Recovery Foundation that, since 2008, has moved more than 300 beavers around the eastern Cascades. These beavers have damaged trees and irrigation infrastructure, and landowners want them gone. Rather than calling lethal trappers, a growing contingent notifies the Methow crew, which captures and relocates the offenders to the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest and state land.
Why would Washington invite ditch-clogging nuisances — so loathed that federal Wildlife Services killed 22,000 nationwide in 2014 — into its wildlands? To hear Methow project coordinator Kent Woodruff tell it, beavers are landscape miracle drugs. Need to enhance salmon runs? There’s a beaver for that. Want to recharge groundwater? Add a beaver. Hoping to adapt to climate change? Take two beavers and check back in a year.
Decades of research support Woodruff’s enthusiasm. Beaver wetlands filter sediments and pollutants from streams. They spread rivers across floodplains, allowing water to percolate into aquifers. They provide rearing grounds for young fish, limit flooding and keep ephemeral creeks flowing year-round.
“We want these guys everywhere,” says Woodruff, a white-stubbled Forest Service biologist with an evangelical gleam in his blue eyes. On this sweltering July morning, he watches as wildlife scientists Catherine Means and Katie Weber hoist Chomper and Sandy, now caged, into the truck that will convey them to the Okanogan-Wenatchee. “We want beavers up every stream, in all the headwaters.”
Yes we do. And mouth too. (Ahem). I’m so happy this is getting the attention of the higher-ups. Kent is a mild-mannered but passionate man who makes easy alliances across party lines. I’ve always been a little jealous of him. Compared to our hard scrabble here in Martinez, the Methow project has always lived a fairly charmed life because it has SO much agency support. Here’s the list of partners in 2014:
So you can see he’s very gifted at playing well with others. One thing I love about the article is getting the back story about Kent himself;
That’s where Woodruff came in. Since arriving in the Okanagan in 1989, he’d focused on birds, installing nesting platforms for owls. But he yearned to leave an enduring legacy, and in 2008 his opportunity -arrived. John Rohrer, Woodruff’s supervisor, had been relocating beavers on a small scale since 2001 — even digging a holding pool in his own backyard. Meanwhile, the Washington Department of Ecology wanted to improve regional water quality. Woodruff thought beavers could help. He offered to expand Rohrer’s endeavor.
I never knew he was a bird man! Cheryl will be happy to read that. Now I’m a purist and want there to be a sentence in here crediting Sherri Tippie for the realization that beaver families do better when they’re relocated as a unit. But I guess saving beavers is a bit like the story of Stone Soup if you’re lucky. Everyone contributes what they can without realizing it matters and in the end helps create something nourishing.
Anyway, its a great article. Go read the whole thing, and if you feel inclined leave a comment about the valuable role beavers can play in urban landscapes.
Here’s was my contribution yesterday, which is an timely response to the articles implication that the answer to our beaver problems is to take them out of the city and move them up country. (As you know, I believe the answer is to let them move wherever they dam well please and make adjustments accordingly.) Credit where its due, the play on words comes from our friend Tom Rusert in Sonoma. But I’m fairly happy with its application here. See if you can tell what city this is:
Oh no, I hate when this happens. There are too many good beaver things to write about at once. I’m going to have to shuffle some to the back burner. Well, no matter. We have to make room for this:
Clatskanie resident Karin Hunt has always called her land Batwater Station, or BW for short, but there was time when the BW stood for Beaver War. She said the critters put up a prolonged fight against attempts to clear Batwater Station, a fight Eventually, the beavers’ tenacity and inclination towards plugging water flows led to a confrontation, pitting them against Hunt’s tide gates and culverts. Hunt’s attempts to regulate the water level on her land were matched at every step by the critters efforts to the contrary.
Hunt collaborated with Tyler Joki at the Columbia County Soil and Water Conservation District and Bill Bennett at the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership and they helped to apply for grants. The process of evaluation began, hydrological and other studies were conducted during a two-year period, and it was determined that a levee breach would have the most impact in restoring the land, returning the natural activity of the river to the area.
“What was amazing was how quick it happened,” Hunt said. “All because of the good old beaver.”
Since moving forward with the land restoration, the area has continued to develop its wildlife population. Ducks, frogs, otters, osprey and turtles are among the creatures that frequent Batwater Station, sometimes in such fruitful numbers that Hunt has to turn away prospective hunters.
“Our goal is to give the land back to nature and let it run its own course,” Tillson said.
How quickly can we all move to Oregon? This is an excellent report and I’m very impressed not only with Karen and her husband, but with the agencies involved who were committed to keeping beavers on the stream, enough that they made a plan to puncture a levee!
Someone tape this story to Sacramento’s forehead.
On to England, where this nice report was recently released. It was just tagged with a copy right warning so I lent a helping hand in case its removed. It has amazing footage from Tom Buckley who is obviously the Moses Silva of Cornwall. Watch:
Love the footage of her moving the kits and snuffling for danger after the dog intrusion is pretty nice to see also. Even though Tom is worried by not seeing the kits, this recent report was pretty reassuring.
Devon Wildlife Trust has said there is ‘no cause for concern’ over the disappearance of England’s only wild beavers.
The colony – the country’s first wild beavers in over 400 years – have not been seen at their usual riverside home for six weeks.
Amateur wildlife cameraman Tom Buckley, who photographed the creatures last February in the River Otter, fears human visitors may have scared them away.
But Trust chief executive Harry Barton said they have more than likely moved to a new lodge upstream.
“Where they have been is a rather public place but its not unusual for beavers to move around and there are sings of activity,” he told the Western Morning News.
I am not wholly reassured by the DWT saying the beavers are fine, because in my experience the folks actually watching the beaver every day usually know better than the folks overseeing things. But I am comforted by the general resilience of beavers, and think its way more likely that they moved to greener pastures and tastier shoots than were killed by a farmer or his dogs.
I sometimes like to think of this website like a big spiders ‘web’ in the corner of a very active barn. Everything that flows through beaver-related breezes winds up passing thru here in one way or another.
First, I’d like to thank you for featuring some of our videos from Oregon Public Broadcasting on your website. That’s very kind. I’m a reporter with Oregon Public Broadcasting’s “Oregon Field Guide.” My latest story is about urban beavers.
We are in search of video of beavers in Oregon, especially in urban areas. Might you know who would have some? Or could you please share my inquiry with your members in the Portland metro area? I saw one video on line which credited Heidi Perryman and Worth A Dam. Could you put me in touch with her?
Thanks for any help you can lend!
Vince Patton OPB News Oregon Field Guide Producer
What do you think, could I put him in touch with Heidi Perryman? He was working on a piece about urban beavers and wondered if I had any footage he could use. I put him in touch with lots of local resources because I was having lots of conversations with local folks at the time about the Tiger and Greenway beavers. He didn’t really need footage from here, as you can see. But was grateful for the contacts.
You never know if projects are going to amount to anything. So you can imagine how happy I was to see this:
Isn’t that wonderful? Don’t you want to meet all those people who are cooperating with beaver in their own yards? Don’t you want to buy those houses and live there yourself! Vince did an EXCELLENT job telling this story and, go figure, when I hear city officials saying why its good to live with beavers I instantly tear up.
I am pretty certain that line “beavers change thing. It’s what they do.” is a direct quote from me. But don’t worry. I don’t want credit.
I just want my own way, and obviously I’m getting it in Portland.
More stunning video was released yesterday with such fanfare that, in addition to beaver experts, my niece and cousin sent it along excitedly! This from 1950 by the Idaho Fish and Game commission showing the reintroduction of muskrats, beavers and fisher. The muskrats are tossed by their tails, but the beavers are thrown from a plane and dropped by parachute.
This has been a story from the beaver history books for years now, and it’s nice to finally see the [mostly cruel] footage. I’m sure they were thinking it was a win-win for them. Either the beavers thrived in the upcountry and improved conditions, OR they died on impact and they got to get rid of a nuisance once and for all.
Either way, it was worth spending government money on.
California and Massachusetts are apparently numbers 1 & 2 on the list, although assume some observer bias because one is the state I live in and one is the state Beaver solutions lives in. I’d love to have this data for the past 5 years, so we could spot trends and changes, but I don’t think I’m that patient. Even the states missing this year I know I’ve reported on in the past.
and fisher. The muskrats are tossed by their tails, but the beavers are thrown from a plane and dropped by parachute.
