Category: Beaver ponds

MAYBE LET THE RODENT DO THE WORK?

Well despite the stupid senator, they are getting smarter about beavers.

West Virginia (kinda) Enlists Beavers To Help Ducks

Natural methods used to improve wetlands.

Despite rugged mountains dominating most of its landscape, West Virginia hosts a small but diverse number of waterfowl during migration and breeding seasons. Keeping the states scarce wetlands intact and healthy is crucial for these ducks.

Ducks Unlimited in 2021 helped the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources fund new restoration projects on a portion of Pleasant Creek Wildlife Management Area. The 3,000-acre complex is in the northern part of West Virginia, about 80 miles south of Pittsburgh. (more…)

IT TURNS OUT PONDS REALLY MATTER

heidi08 Beaver ponds, Beavers and Fire Prevention, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and water December 5, 2021

I sure hope you’re sitting down when you visit the website today, because the findings of this new study on fires in the west are going to knock you off your feet entirely. Chalk this up to the “I told you so” category.

Researchers investigate combined effect of drought, fire on stream communities, highlighting importance of headwaters

Despite the importance of these waterways, scientists still don’t fully understand how they respond to fires. That’s why a team at UC Santa Barbara and the National Forest Service have studied wildfire impacts on streams over the past five years in parts of the Los Padres National Forest. The scientists’ new findings appear as the cover story in the December issue of Freshwater Science.

The results of this study also highlighted the significance of stream headwaters as refuges for sensitive aquatic species during fire and drought. After favorable conditions return, fish, amphibians and invertebrates can repopulate suitable downstream areas. This insight reinforced the importance of protecting these areas to ensure the resilience and biodiversity of watersheds as a whole.

What? Are you saying that headwaters matter to sensitive species like frogs and steelhead? Gee if ONLY there were some kind of animal that could protect them every day for free, I’m wracking my brain to think of what it could be,

A flurry of research activity followed the Zaca Fire in 2007 and Jesusita Fire in 2009. “That work showed that the riparian zone—the area of streamside vegetation—is really important in determining stream responses because if the riparian zone burns, it opens up the canopy,” said lead author Scott Cooper, a research professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology. The added sunshine increases water temperatures and promotes algal growth, which in turn fosters a different community of algae-eating aquatic invertebrates. The reduced vegetation also results in increased runoff, erosion and sediment inputs that can change stream flow patterns, water quality and ultimately the community of animals in the stream.

In the short term, fires and landslides can increase creek flows because there are fewer plants drawing water from the soils and channels, Cooper explained. Increased flows during storms can scour streams and displace their flora and fauna, reducing their populations. Algae and certain invertebrates can quickly recolonize streams after flows recede, particularly if fire has opened up the riparian canopy. Streams often recover to pre-fire conditions within one to two years, he added, because vegetation quickly re-establishes in Mediterranean climates with their year-round growing seasons.

Gee that vegetation returning sure matters to streams. I guess it’s important that the roots reach the water and that mean’s it’s important the water table is as high as possible. It really would be great if there was something that helped these plants recover.

It’s still an open question whether drought hastens or delays an ecosystem’s reaction to fire. Fires often occur during droughts, when fuel is dry and temperatures are high. If these conditions continue, then the lack of water can slow the recovery of plants and delay a stream’s responses to later rain. On the other hand, heavy rains after a fire can cause floods, choke stream beds with sediment and, in extreme cases, lead to debris that remove most of the riparian vegetation. That said, rain can also promote the growth, which stabilizes soils and reduces erosion. “Over different timeframes, you can get very complicated results because rain can both stimulate plant growth while increasing stream disturbance,” Cooper said.

One thing consistently held true, though: Pools in stream headwaters were critical to the ecosystem’s recovery. “They’re refuges, through drought and wildfire, for fish and other aquatic animals,” Cooper said. “This is where sensitive species survive during inclement times, then recolonize downstream reaches when conditions become more amenable.” As a consequence, populations contract and expand through droughts, wildfires and favorable conditions, preventing the disappearance of species from creeks.

Wait, pools matter THAT much? They’re the game changer? You mean IF there are pools wildlife survive after a fire and if there aren’t they don’t? Gosh these pools sound really important. Have you thought about what might make them? Like some kind of pool-creating creature that just goes around building spots where water piles up?

Oh right! That kind of creature!

CRANBROOK HATES NATURE IN ITS NATURE PARK

heidi08 Beaver ponds, Beaver relocation, Urban beavers October 19, 2021

Now I may have been watching too many westerns, but this story leaves me “PLUMB CONFUSED”. I thought relocation wasn’t allowed in Canada? You know I can remember when Martinez was fairly unusual for rallying around its beavers. Now we’re surrounded.

Cranbrook beavers in city park to be relocated, but some citizens want them to stay

The City of Cranbrook, B.C., will delay the relocation of a family of beavers in a city park until the spring of next year, but some citizens say staff is ignoring alternatives to ensure the family can stay where they are. Beavers had set up a dam in Idlewild Lake, within the city’s Idlewild Park, in spring of this year. Stephanie Lacey, a mother of two pre-schoolers, said her children had noticed the dam getting bigger and bigger all year.

But recently, she was alerted to live traps that the city had placed in order to relocate the beavers. She then set up a petition asking the city to consider alternatives. The petition says relocating the beaver family in the winter “does not give the beavers enough time” to find food and create a new lodge, and that the city had refused to work with citizens on the matter.

Cranbrook is in the bottom middle of Canada, right above Montana, I’m pretty sure that them minister of never moving beavers told all our beaver friends that such a thing was illegal. Do you suppose there’s been an exemption granted? Or maybe just a baldfaced lie? That sure doesn’t look like any live beaver trap I’ve ever seen.

In a statement on Monday, a spokesperson for the city said the relocation would be put off until spring next year, and that Idlewild Lake is not a traditional, natural habitat for beavers. Lacey says that is untrue.

“Beavers are very intelligent animals, and they don’t build a lodge and a dam in a place that would run out of food sources for them,” she told CBC News. “There’s tons of trees and vegetation around Idlewild. So it’s the perfect location for beavers.”

“It definitely feels to me like it’s more about the monetary loss of [trees] the city has put into the park already for, like, their own beautification of it.”

I had no idea I was such a type. The little lady that causes such a fuss in the city when they try to get rid of beavers. You know how it is. You think you’re the only one. Apparently I’m a dime a dozen.

The city says the relocation is being done due to the risk of flooding upstream, and to protect the bigger Idlewild Dam set up on the lake.

“The City understands and appreciates the very positive draw this beaver family has created around Idlewild,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The relocation will be done but not until the spring.”

Colleen Bailey, a certified technical wildlife rescuer and rehabilitator living in Cranbrook, calls the decision to relocate the beavers foolish.

She says the latest reasons provided by the city for the relocation are among numerous “excuses” provided in the past few weeks alone, including that the beavers would allegedly pollute the lake.

“The City of Cranbrook’s own master plan for this park was to increase biodiversity, ecology, and natural interaction,” she said.

“I know they don’t like [the beavers] because nature is actually doing what nature does. So it’s ridiculous. It’s almost comical.”

Ohhh we just HATE nature showing up in nature parks. Nothing makes cities madder. A nature park is supposed to have a bird or two and maybe a squirrel. Not a huge great rodent building dams and flooding the pathways. Sheesh.

Bailey says the beaver dams can increase the risk of flooding or damage to planted trees, but that the city has refused to install pond levellers or employ other mitigation strategies used in other cities. She says a non-profit group presented the city a report about beaver mitigation strategies, but officials have not yet tried them.

“These mitigation efforts would permit the beavers to do what they do naturally,” she said. “If there wasn’t enough food sources, the family would move along on their own.”

Bailey thinks the beavers are an opportunity for Cranbrook to prove to the rest of the province that they can coexist with wildlife. She said she has a “team of people” willing to volunteer to help the beavers survive.

She and Lacey have promised to continue to ask the city questions about the relocation, including making use of freedom-of-information requests.

Your move Cranbrook. Do you want to shine even more of a spotlight on the illegal act your claiming you’re going to commit when the media awakens all of its cousins and objects to this? Or will you sit down with your citizens and make a plan to coexist?

We’ll wait while you think it over. You might want to have a chat with our mayor and city manager before you decide.

BEAVER APPRECIATION IN MASSACHUSETTS

heidi08 Beaver News, Beaver ponds February 2, 2021

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.

BEAVER RESEARCH: FULLY FUNDED

heidi08 Beaver ponds, Beavers, Beavers and Flooding, Beavers and water September 1, 2020

We’re officially caught up with beaver news. For a month I have had a stack of articles waiting to tell you about because apparently August is the right time for good beaver news. Now it’s September and we’re moving into the days soon of BAD beaver news. Beavers in the fall are raising their dams and people are getting worried about flooding. Soon we’ll hear about the reasons folks in Wichita or Boise need to trap.

But there’s one last victory to celebrate.

Funding for prospective students

Dam beavers: quantifying the impacts of nature’s water engineers on the fluvial geomorphology and flood regimes of streams and rivers, Geography – PhD (Funded)

The University of Exeter’s College of Life and Environmental Sciences, in partnership with the National Trust, is inviting applications for a fully-funded PhD studentship to commence in October 2020 or as soon as possible thereafter. For eligible students the studentship will cover UK/EU tuition fees plus an annual tax-free stipend of at least £15,285 for 4 years full-time, or pro rata for part-time study. The student would be based in Geography in the College of Life and Environmental Sciences at the Streatham Campus in Exeter.

The Eurasian Beaver (Castor Fiber) was hunted to extinction in Great Britain and near-extinction in Europe. Over recent decades, it has made a comeback, with numbers now nearing 1 million in mainland Europe and with a number of reintroductions and licensed trials established in GB to improve understanding of the role that this ecosystem engineer might play if more widespread. Since beavers were absent from GB, landscapes have been modified extensively in support of agricultural intensification, with an emphasis upon the drainage of the land to deliver enhanced production of food. Waterways are now straightened and deepened, fields under-drained and often bare of vegetation, to maximise drainage efficiency, but with detrimental impacts downstream. Thus, there are very few, if any ‘natural’ streams or rivers in GB, which means that research is required to understand what impact beavers might deliver, as they return into densely populated, intensively-farmed ecosystems. This PhD will deliver new understanding of the ways in which streams and channels will respond to beaver activity and will therefore provide fundamental science to guide both decision and policymakers and land managers as to how to respond.

How much do you want to be THIS PhD candidate? Hired to measure streams or walk around dams for 4 years as a fully funded doctoral student? Knowing that your dissertation is guaranteed to break ground and change the country for decades to come?

The overall aim of this project is to quantify the impacts that beavers will have on the fluvial geomorphology and flood regimes of a wide range of surface waters in Great Britain. It is noted here that the PhD student will both refine and redesign this project, as their ownership of the research develops, however we have established the following hypotheses to test:
1. Beaver activity (particularly beaver dams) will force channel-planform change across a range of stream orders (at least 1st to 4th), increasing sinuosity, decreasing width:depth ratios and increasing the presence of multi-thread channels in the landscape, which engage more regularly with floodplains.
2. Within-channel bed characteristics will be significantly altered via beaver dam construction, with along-channel heterogeneity of bed material increasing; becoming finer upstream of dams and coarser downstream.
3. Channel long-profiles will be altered towards more step-formed geometry due to the presence of beaver dams and these geomorphic changes will persist, delivering changes to hydraulic behaviour along beaver-dammed reaches, when compared with non-dammed reaches.
4. Beaver dammed channels will deliver flow attenuation, reducing peak flows and increasing lag times in a comparable manner to more conventional natural flood management techniques such as woody debris dams.

The project will deploy a Multiple Before-After-Control-Impact experimental design, deploying methods including: ground-based surveys, structure-from-motion drone-based photogrammetry, hydrological monitoring, suspended sediment and bedload monitoring, numerical modelling and GIS.

Oh my goodness. Something tells me excited grad students across the country are lining up to pack their wellies and do this work themselves! Great job Richard Brazier and Alan Puttock. We can’t see to hear who you chose and what the find!

My work is entirely unfunded, but as you can see, it’s still productive. Now we just need to bring in some real artists.