Category: Beaver relocation

THE SOUND OF BEAVERS – PAUL SIMON MISSED THIS

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver relocation August 31, 2019

A friend just shared this on facebook. It’s from wildlife camerman Michael Forsberg and filmed on the Platte River in Nebraska. Make sure you turn your speakers way up for this treat.

Friday night – Movie night! Here’s a dusk to dawn video sequence of a beaver mom and her kit preparing and then repairing their lodge after an intense nighttime thunderstorm ripped through the Platte River Valley last week in central Nebraska. Watch the big storm roll through and make sure your sound is up! This footage was captured from a customized surveillance camera system that we have had in place for over three years now documenting activities on the lodge 24/7 year-round. It has been a fascinating experience with these remarkable creatures. To see more from our Live camera locations, visit the @plattebasin website www.plattebasintimelapse.com and click on LIVE in the menu.

Aren’t beavers wonderful? And don’t they work hard? It was a whine just like that which sealed my fate lo these many years ago. I remember standing at dawn next to Starbucks, watching the kits complain to each other, and thinking, “Do the people that want these beavers dead even KNOW about that sound?” And then, more somberly, “If I don’t do something to stop this myself when am I ever going to hear that sound again?”

So I figured I’d work on saving the beavers for the weekend. Maybe for the entire week. How long could it possibly take?

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Famous last words, I know. This morning we have some great words from a successful beaver relocation in Wyoming. It’s good to know folks there are doing the right thing for the right reasons.

Beaver relocation a win-win

CODY, WY — Three beavers are happy in their new homes after Wyoming Game & Fish relocated them this summer. They’re also doing important restoration work.

The beavers were trapped on private land south of Cody where they were causing flooding over roads. Game & Fish biologists captured and relocated them to a stream south of Meeteetse, where they will help in long-term efforts to improve riparian and stream habitat.

Habitat Biologist Jerry Altermatt said that beaver can be beneficial to both habitat and other wildlife. “As beavers build dams and pond water is created, riparian vegetation is improved along the stream, stabilizing stream banks, which creates better habitat for fish and wildlife. Beaver dams create ponds that allow beavers to escape predators, but these ponds are also productive wetlands that many birds, deer, moose, and other wildlife depend on. They also increase habitat diversity for trout, recharge groundwater, increase late-season flows and filter sediment and nutrients from water,” Altermatt said.

Oh yes they can, Jerry, And hey its nice when they get to stay where they choose and ,make that difference, but relocated is better than dead, we agree. And it sound like they work hard to relocate the entire family together.

RELOCATING BEAVERS WITH THE BEST

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beaver relocation August 25, 2019

I am pretty particular when it comes to a beaver relocation story. In order for me to feel truly positive about a moving-beaver article it has to have a few key points. First off, it has to make clear why beavers matter. Next, it has to mention that there are easy solutions that might have been done to keep those beavers where they were in the first place. And lastly and most importantly, it has to involve Sherri Tippie.

This one meets all the criteria.

Nature’s Engineers Help Defenders Prevent, Protect and Restore

Beaver are natures engineers, changing the world around them. They are safest from predators when swimming in water, so they build dams to make ponds that they can swim in. These ponds allow them to safely enter their lodge from underwater, and access more trees and herbaceous plants without leaving the water. They modify their habitat for themselves, but their actions have huge impacts on other species. Fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, aquatic insects, trees and plants all benefit from the changes that beaver create on the landscape.

Sometimes, beaver cause trouble for landowners because they change their habitat so much. There are simple solutions which often allow landowners to live with beaver, such as fencing trees to protect them, but on some occasions, this is not possible. In those instances, Defenders tries to relocate the entire beaver family to lands where they are wanted.

Two down, one to go.

This August, Defenders, along with local live-trapper Sherri Tippie from Wildlife2000, relocated a beaver family north of Denver, Colorado. Relocating a beaver family is a lot of work. Beavers live in extended families, often with four generations living in the same lodge. A mated pair, this year’s kits, and juveniles from the past one or two summers all live together. We set live-traps in the evening and check them first thing in the morning. The traps work like a giant suitcase, folding up when a beaver steps in the middle. We moved nine individuals, including five kits born this spring, to new habitat in the mountains. Their new home used to have beaver, but they have been absent for several years. The old beaver ponds are still there but have not been maintained. The new family will likely repair these ponds, and hopefully create new ones of their own, creating and improving habitat for at-risk native species such as cutthroat trout, leopard frogs, and boreal toads.

Huzzah! We have a trifecta! Nothing but good news in this beaver relocation. Wonderful to read about, Well, except for the line about beavers living in the lodge with four generations. i know what they mean but that’s not accurately phrased. That would be like kits living with their great grandparents, right? Technically there are two generations (parents and children) and two batches (kits and yearlings).

In light of the new Endangered Species Act regulations released last week, it’s as important as ever that we prevent species from needing to be listed. The habitat that we allow beaver to create on the landscape are critical for some of these imperiled species, and the presence of indicator species like amphibians help to show that the habitats are healthy. Defenders works to prevent, protect, and restore: prevent species from becoming endangered, protect already imperiled species, and restore species to the landscape. Beaver are one of the many natural tools that fit in our arsenal for wildlife conservation!

Lovely to see. Thanks Aaron Hall for this excellent article. I had cued it up for yesterday’s post but the local headline of “otters teaching beavers” pushed it back a day. It’s great to see Sherri at work, doing what she does better than anyone in all the world.

Speaking of sticking with what you know, I got an inspiration yesterday to do a booklet specifically about urban beavers and have it available for Beaver Con 202o. I wrote folks asking for their contributions and I’m going to need your help too. If you were lucky enough to watch beavers in your city, maybe you could send me a line or two about what it was like? Send it to mtzbeavers@gmail.com. I’d love to put together something that captures not only how to manage beavers without trapping and why its good for wildlife, but how it enriches communities of humans too.

Here’s the possible first page. What do you think?

BEAVERS IN A S.E.P FIELD

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver relocation July 20, 2019

“A Somebody Else’s Problem field, or S.E.P., is a useful way of safely protecting something from unwanted eyes. An S.E.P. can run almost indefinitely on a torch or a 9 volt battery, and is able to do so because it utilises a person’s natural tendency to ignore things they don’t easily accept, like, for example, aliens at a cricket match. Any object around which an S.E.P. is applied will cease to be noticed, because any problems one may have understanding it (and therefore accepting its existence) become Somebody Else’s Problem. An object becomes not so much invisible as unnoticed.”

The great and forever lost-to-us-way-too-early author Douglas Adams first described the SEP field in his book Life, the Universe and Everything. Basically its a way to hide things in plain sight because we are so good at NOT SEEING something that is somebody else’s problem.

Like Beavers for instance.

Just in: Beaver! Relocation program safely removes nuisance gnawers

The beaver project is in its second year, and has so far taken 20 nuisance beavers from private shoreline propLife, the Universe and everythingerty and moved them to wilder habitat up the Wenatchee River watershed.

“We take a nuisance beaver and relocate it to a suitable location much higher in the watershed,” Gillin says. “One of our biggest project partners, landowner partners, is the Forest Service, but we have other public and private landowners as well that have supported us in our relocation efforts. ”

Just like that the problem disappears! Poof!

No need to go though all that tedious labor of wrapping trees of installing a flow device. Just call us in, lean back, pull the tap, kick back and watch your problem vanish forever,

Well – not exaxtly forever because new beavers are going to move in and do this again very soon – but for right now – for a good couple of months anyway. A man can drink a lot of beers in a couple months.

Their next stop is a concrete raceway at the hatchery, where project workers have set up temporary beaver habitat. The transfer usually goes easy — unless an animal decides to prematurely nudge her cage door open.

Beavers run in family groups, so it takes multiple trappings to clear out a shoreline where they’re active. Once all are gathered, there’s an acclimation period, followed by a move to a new upriver home, farther away from conflicts with humans.

Once there, the hope is they’ll carry on with the kind of brush-clearing and dam-building that helps maintain stable populations of wild fish.

“In a dry desert environment, beavers are creating little pockets of extremely biodiverse wetland habitat … and that is essential for many, many plants and animals that live around here,” Gillin says. “Trout Unlimited got involved in this project mostly targeting those sensitive salmonids, salmon and trout, that are listed under the Endangered Species Act.”

Let us S.E.P those beavers away so you can get back to your previous activities and never have to learn anything new! The whole things on us. We got a grant from fish and wildlife or fish and somebody. We’re doing this for the fish, you know.

Or maybe it’s for the fishermen. One things for sure. It’s definitely not for the beavers.

SHERRI AND TELL(I) ABOUT BEAVERS

heidi08 Beaver relocation March 20, 2019

How did this ever slip by me? I am sure I read the title about “70 years of trapping” and it went into the recycle folder. I’ve just about had it with the glorious recollections of an aging trapper, but I will NEVER NEVER get tired of articles like this.

LEAVE IT TO TIPPIE: Nationally-renowned beaver trapper recalls decades of tales

Sherri Tippie sits at a table in her home that is filled with stuffed beavers, which she collects.
Portrait by Philip B. Poston/Sentinel Colorado

Tippie — a Denver local who has been called North America’s best beaver trapper — is featured in “The Beaver Believers”, a documentary underscoring the role that beavers, and their dams, play in preserving scarce water as climate change and drought intensifies.

Early this month the film was screened at the Banff Mountain Film Festival in Denver, and it’s picked up awards on a cross-country tour.

Tippie features prominently in the full-length documentary alongside five scientists introducing beavers into habitats as a means of preserving increasingly scarce water. Although Tippie is not a scientist — in fact, she’s a hairdresser by trade — she’s become an authority on beavers and their ecosystems through more than 30 years of trapping the aquatic rodents in Colorado.

Ahhh Sherri! It is wonderful to read about you getting the press you deserve with Sarah’s documentary. I hope there was a long time of discussion about this movie and why beaver matter. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see her still fighting the good fight and getting credit for it.

For decades, Tippie has fielded requests from local governments and landowners to safely remove beavers from metro-area streams and irrigation ditches where they do what they do best: Down trees, build dams and flood waterways.

Instead of killing the industrious but irksome creatures, Tippie live-traps entire families of beavers, holds them in her Denver backyard for several days and then deposits them safe and sound where landowners or governments want them, usually in Colorado’s high country.

For Tippie, beavers are more of an obsession than an occupation.

Denver home is chock-full of beaver-themed knick-knacks: Tiny clay beavers she’d made herself, piles of beaver stuffed animals and even bath towels threaded with little beavers. Her sweater had a picture of a beaver on it.

HA! Tell me about it! I’m sure beavers just arrive on your doorstep like ours. It’s not so much of a decorative flair as a constant stream of things coming your direction. Believe me, I’m learning all about it.

As a recognized authority on trapping, she’s been featured in many newspapers during her three decades of work including Sentinel Colorado, Time and her favorite — Costco’s magazine.

For Tippie, beavers are more than just a beautiful animal: They’re a keystone species that create entire ecosystems by damming streams, creating rich conditions for plant and animal life and keeping water in dry soil for longer.

She spoke frankly about local governments and politicians who she thinks are abandoning beavers and destroying the environment. She swears like a sailor and isn’t afraid to tell people how she feels, she said.

Ahh Sherri. Speaking truth to power in every room she visits. That’s the way to change the world. You have been an inspiration to me for more years than I can count.

Tippie was a natural subject to feature in “The Beaver Believers”, said Washington-based director Sarah Koenigsberg. She originally heard Tippie speak at a beaver education event in Utah, she said.

“This woman is a firecracker. I’ve got to track her down,” Koenigsberg recalled thinking. “Obviously, she captivated everyone.”

Koenigsberg met with and filmed scientists across the West; and in Colorado, her crew camped out in Tippie’s backyard for about 10 days. They forged a deep friendship.

Lucky Sarah. Lucky beavers. When I am at the edge of endurance and sick and tired of all the negative attention beavers receive in the world, Sherri always inspires me to try a little bit longer. She remains a national treasure and we should all be grateful for her many decades long hard work.

BEAVER RELOCATION: WAYS AND MEANS

heidi08 Beaver relocation March 13, 2019

Gone are the days when eager students could spend a summer with Sherri Tippie and come back an expert in all the details of beaver relocation. What once was an art has become more of a science, although getting beavers to successfully stay put is still a challenge. Learn everything you need to know and earn certification for UFW with Joe Eaton’s upcoming three day course.

This is a three-day hands-on, field-based workshop designed for practitioners to learn how to interact with and manage beavers that are occupying sensitive areas and to relocate them to areas where they are wanted for stream restoration. This course is designed for individuals and groups who are interested in live trapping and relocating beaver for stream restoration. It is anticipated that this course will meet the training requirements of the State of Utah’s live beaver trapping certification.

The workshop will cover the three core components of translocation: (1) live trapping; (2) holding/handling, and (3) release. This workshop will count as training for participants who wish to become certified by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources at live trapping.

Taught by the best of the best, this workshop will make sure you are relocation-ready. Just look at who your instructors will be.

Torre Stockard: Methow Project

Nik Bouwes: ETAL USU Anabranch Solutions

Steve Bennett: USU ETAL Anabranch Solutions

Now if you’re ME you’d be tempted to point out that it’s kinda ironic they’re doing this work in Logan where they got famous for letting beavers stay put, thank you very much. But hey, I guess relocation is better than killing so good luck with that.

To learn more about the course go here:

And if all this education makes you hungry to learn more why not follow beavers to Oxford? Yes OXFORD. Where the motto Dominus Illuminatio Mea will soon be transformed to “Castorum Illumination Mea“. Thanks to our good friend Ben Goldfarb.

Environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb discusses the subject of his latest, award-winning book, the Beaver and how its reintroduction is benefiting the world’s ecosystems

Environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb discusses the subject of his latest, award-winning book, the Beaver and how its reintroduction is benefiting the world’s ecosystems

Date 6 June 2019

During this fascinating lecture Environmental journalist, Ben Goldfarb, reveals that everything we think we know about what a healthy landscape looks like and how it functions is inaccurate a historical artefact produced by the removal of beavers from their former haunts.

Across the Western Hemisphere, a coalition of `beaver believers – including scientists, government officials, and farmers have begun to recognize that ecosystems with beavers are far healthier, for humans and non-humans alike, than those without them, and to restore these industrious rodents to streams throughout North American and Europe.

It’s a powerful story about one of the world’s most influential species, how North America was settled, the secret ways in which our landscapes have changed over the centuries and the measures we can take to mitigate drought, flooding, wildfire, biodiversity loss, and the ravages of climate change. And ultimately, it’s about how we can learn to co-exist, harmoniously and even beneficially, with our fellow travellers on this planet.

This event includes a chance to buy a signed copy of Ben’s E.O. Wilson prize winning book.

Okay, now THIS makes me jealous. Giving or attending or working as a restroom attendant during a lecture at Oxford is the very definition of everything I covert. Jon and I once spent a day lurking and punting around Cambridge and I felt positively faint the entire time. I can’t imagine what Ben will sound like in those hallowed halls but I bet he will be tempted to use even bigger words.

The date is my least favorite part of this story. Being in England at the beginning of June means he’s very very unlikely to be in Martinez at the end of June. Wistful sigh. But the beaver festival will just have to march on without him.

I’m still going to celebrate beavers getting into Oxford. It only took 400 years.