Category: Beavers and Birds

To Beaver or Not To Beaver?

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? May 25, 2017

More silly mulling from the Scottish countyside: Should beavers be allowed or not? A reader on the Tayside group pointed out that this same argument could have been made 15 years ago, I say probably longer than that.

Beaver reintroduction – what’s the story?

Their reputation as strong swimmers and prodigious engineers is not an understatement. Their large incisors and clawed front feet enable them to construct dams and lodges that can extend for hundreds of metres, as well as burrows of up to 20 metres into the riverbank.

“Any species introduction, particularly if it has not been in this country for hundreds of years, can have a massive impact on the many benefits that the countryside delivers,” Mark Pope, an arable farmer from Somerset who has instigated numerous initiatives to provide habitat and food for birds and insects and encourage diverse plant species on his farm, said.

“In the case of beavers, the NFU has concerns about the damage to farmland and the landscape caused by their physical activities.” Mark, who is also chair of the NFU Environment Forum, added. “Farmers and the public must have the tools to manage the impacts beavers will have to farmland, the countryside, flood defences and urban areas.

“Beavers can add biodiversity, as well as the interest, enjoyment and socio-economic benefits they can provide to many people. What the NFU is very clear on is that in some locations there is a clear need to manage this species to minimise undesirable impacts on agriculture, forestry, inland waters and other land uses.”

There is increasing interest in the beneficial role beavers could bring to habitats. The natural activities of beavers could help to regulate flooding and improve water quality, if managed properly. The Devon trial on the River Otter, led by the Devon Wildlife Trust in partnership with Clinton Devon Estates, the University of Exeter and the Derek Gow Partnership, has been exploring the role of beavers in managing and creating wetland habitats, the impacts on water quality, and influence on water flow and flood risk.

Tolkein once wrote “Go not to the elves for council, for they will say both ‘No’ and ‘Yes’.” Mostly no, though.

On the other hand, beaver burrows near watercourses can weaken river embankments and flood defences. Material felled and gathered by beavers for dams and lodges can create flood risk downstream and block drains upstream. The potential consequences of this for farmland and the rural economy is a cause for concern.

It is estimated that the costs of the 2007 and 2013-14 floods on agricultural businesses alone were £50m and £19m respectively, not to mention the wider economic impacts on local employment, infrastructure and utilities and the damage caused to people’s homes and communities.

The knock-on effects can be wide-ranging. The loss of productive farmland, for instance, would have a detrimental effect on food production and supply.

The Scottish Beaver Trial was a five-year project between the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, the Scottish Wildlife Trust and Forestry Commission Scotland to undertake a trial reintroduction of beavers to Knapdale, Mid-Argyll. The trial concluded in 2014 and as a result the Scottish government is considering recognising the European beaver as a native species.

A change in the legal status of beavers raises additional concerns. This is because beavers have no natural predators in the UK so it is important that populations can be managed, particularly if they are present in extensive low-lying areas such as East Anglia, Wiltshire and the Somerset Levels where their activities could block field drains leading to waterlogging (known as ‘wetting up’) of productive farmland.

Clarification: Beavers might benefit us if they don’t kills us all first. “We killed off all their natural predators in the UK so there’s nothing left to kill them and their numbers will swell like taxes with national health”. Are there no otters? No bacteria? No vehicles in your land? Beavers just don’t get killed by predators you know. And honestly, why act like you want to explore an issue and ONLY speak to one farming fiend from the National Farmers Union?

Who’s going to list all the many benefits for fish, wildlife, birds and water storage that come with beavers? Who’s going to talk about how much you can learn about nature by watching them? Who’s going to say how much they improve the health and vitality of urban waterways?

We need a National Beavers Union!!!

That’s great, just great!

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Birds May 20, 2017

Recently we’ve been having a bit of discussion about the Great Blue Heron. It started when I asked the artist to make the tattoo of the heron ‘bluer’ so that’s it clear what it is. She responded that it is often more gray than blue, which is true. But our project needs his bluest moments. Sibley’s points out it even has a white morph that looks more like an egret. Nevertheless, I persisted. In preparation for our awesome nature journals Jon and I carved 170 sticks with beaver chews for the bindings this week at my parents property in the sierra foothills. It’s going to be wonderful!

Meanwhile, Rusty Cohn of Napa captured the perfect moments yesterday, with more proof that beavers are great blue heron helpers.

BeaverGBHRusty — *GBH and Beaver: Rusty Cohn*

gbhbeaverswimming — *GBH and beaver swimming: Rusty Cohn*

The Great Blue Heron is there to eat the fish, which are there to eat the invertebrates, which are there because of the beaver dam and constant digging in the mud. It’s what makes articles like this possible.

Beavers save Great Blue Heron nesting ground

Beavers and Great Blue Herons might seem like unlikely bedfellows, but a recent beaver-led construction project on the grounds of a nature center in New York is proving yet again that symbiosis can be oh so satisfying.

The forested grounds of Sterling Nature Center, nestled along the shore of Lake Ontario in Sterling, NY has long been a haven for local wildlife and nature-lovers. It wasn’t until the early 1990s however, when group of beavers settled along a creek there and constructed a dam, that the park would welcome its most popular inhabitants — dozens of Great Blue Herons.

As it turns out, the 80-acre pond and defoliated trees which resulted from the beaver dam created an ideal fishing ground for the birds, and as many as 65 herons chose the spot to hatch their young. The beavers were happy; the birds were happy; and, thanks to the crowds they drew, the nature center was happy too.

This is just the time we’d see Great Blue Herons at our beaver ponds, because it’s summertime and the living is easy. Which animals are visiting the beaver pond near you? You better go see for yourself.

And a little child shall lead them…

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Earth Day, Educational, Who's saving beavers now? April 17, 2017

Let me start right off by being all meta and saying might just notice something new this morning. It’s the appearance of our ‘links’ which was kindly updated by a new beaver friend who happened to cross our paths. Christopher R. Scharf is a web designer and avid wildlife photographer who contacted me after the recent Times article hoping to photograph beavers. I introduced him to Rusty took him on a beaver trek and afterwards suggested he might not be adverse to lending a little hand. So Chris spent a couple weekends peering at the funky CSS on this site and tweaking the way links appeared (like that one right back there, watch what happens when you scroll over it with your cursor) so they would be easier for you, the very important readers of this page, to follow.

Because beaver friends come and many mysterious packages. Thank you, Chris!

Websites and technology are so important when it comes to saving beavers. Just look at this film which was made of the recent 4th grade visit to the Draper Utah wetlands by the Mapps lab with the Childrens Media Workshop. They even incorporate our favorite clip from Leave it to Beavers with our friends Suzanne Fouty and Carol Evans. Ahh, Jari Osborne’s masterpiece really is the gift that keeps on giving! Looks like Kelly visited the classroom first, then students visited his property to learn about the wetlands in Draper, Utah.

I particularly love the teachers in this video, who are patient, cheerful and informed about all the way beavers matter. Not to mention the students, who all deserve to attend their very own beaver festival soon. On Earthday the McAdams family will allow visitors to their property to see the wetlands for themselves. He is doing an expansive, admirable job to keep what matters. Here’s another video slideshow made about the day and sent by the class System Support Coach, Patti White. Why not leave some nice comments so they know how wonderful this is?

“Beavers are the cure we don’t want to take.”

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? April 8, 2017

You’ve heard of a red letter day? Well yesterday was a red-beaver day. Here at beaver central we are good at picking up trends and regional changes. We’re usually at the front of the line when it comes to hearing good news. But I’ll be honest, I never expected this.

Draper Fight Centers On Beaver Dams, Wetlands, Flood Control

Two, small beaver dams lie at the heart of a quarrel in Draper. County flood officials are ordering residents to take them down. But the homeowners say the dams protect the wildlife and value of their homes.

Kelly McAdams says the notice of violation letter came on Christmas Eve.

“Inspection by Salt Lake County Flood Control,” he says, reading from the letter, “has indicated that fallen tree limbs and debris have been deposited in the form of a beaver dam into Big Willow Creek, a county-wide drainage facility, without authorization.”

Next month, McAdams goes before an administrative law judge and expects to lose, considering beavers and wetlands have no standing in county law. But he and his wife are set on preserving this patch of habitat for the beavers and all the other creatures that rely on this wetland wonderland.

Make sure you listen to the story which made NPR this morning and sign the petition, then check out SLTribune.

Leave it to beaver? No way, says Salt Lake County

Draper • Big Willow Creek bends and meanders behind Kelly McAdams’ Draper home and her backyard steps down into an urban wildlife preserve.

Thanks to a string of beaver dams, the creek pools into wetlands teaming with life. Ducks and geese nest on the banks lined with cattails; herons and pelicans visit to dine on the 18-inch carp and catfish. Neighborhood kids also fish the ponds.

But where McAdams, his wife, Kris Burns, and neighbors on Dunning Court see an ecological sanctuary, Salt Lake County sees “unauthorized modifications to a countywide drainage facility.”

The county Division of Flood Control has ordered them to remove the dams or face a $25-a-day fine, even though federal wildlife officials say these dams enhance the water quality, hydraulics and riparian habitat

The waterways and channels need to be clear and run and serve their purposes. There is a balancing act,” Graham said. “The county has demonstrated many times it balances wildlife habitat on creeks and waterways as they run through the city.”

Graham has overruled McAdams’ appeal, which is slated to go before an administrative law judge on April 26.

Because my life is just like that I had already heard about this case from the real estate agent representing them who contacted me on April 1 looking for supportive letters to the court on the issue of beavers, water storage, and biodiversity. I put out the usual appeal for help to our beaver friends in Utah but with this new flurry of news I heard this morning from Mary Obrien who is on it. Joe Wheaton is in Europe but I’m hoping he can contribute or at least assign a student to do so. I also heard from our retired attorney friend who won the famous Lake Skinner Beaver case at the appellate level that he would be happy to talk to them and has some ideas to pursue.

“You have all these ecosystem services that keep the entire stream corridor functioning as it should,” said Jones, with the Wild Utah Project. “Many other municipalities across the county are starting to allow beavers back to perform this critical engineering service.”

Meanwhile I know Worth A Dam will write something and mention how a Contra Costa County Flood Control Specialist was on our beaver subcommittee and approved the flow device that controlled flooding and washouts for nearly a decade. I have personally contacted everyone I can think of that might help ‘circle the wagons’ in this case, but more is always needed. If you want to help, email me and I’ll give you contact info. The entire Tribune article is excellent and even talks about flow devices but y requires a little persistent to get past their subscriber wall.

Meanwhile, completely independently but not unrelated, I heard from Michael Pollock yesterday about this prayer-answering article from the unlookedfor source of BeefProducer newsletter. No seriously. It is beautifully written by Editor Alan Newport and he starts out with one of the VERY best lines I’ve ever read. Send this article to every old curmudgeon you know who won’t listen to reason.

In defense of beavers

To reverse streambed erosion the hated beaver is the most likely candidate.

Beavers are the cure we don’t want to take.

No matter how much we improve our grazing, no matter how many water-control structures we build, our streams and other watercourses will cut deeper and deeper into the landscape, robbing us of soil and drying out our pastures and fields.

It took me many years of study and observation to come to this point in my thinking, but today there is no longer any question in my mind. Read on and you’ll learn why I say so.

I’m almost 60 years old and throughout those years I’ve watched the streams cut deeper and deeper into the soil near my home. On my uncle and aunt’s farm, the little rocky crossing we walked across and drove tractors across and rode horses across without a thought disappeared years ago into a gulch. The entire creek today is much deeper than it was, and so is every other creek, stream and wash I know of.

So the question, I reasoned, was what process had previously stopped this from being a natural course of events that outpaced the normal upturn of new soil through movement of the earth’s crust?

In North America, the only answer I‘ve ever found was … beavers! They once lived by the millions in every state in the union, and new evidence says their homeland stretched across much of Mexico and into the arctic tundra of Canada. I have more recently learned beavers also were common across Europe and Asia.

With all this in our knowledge base now, it seems if beavers were the agent of change and good in streams for hundreds of thousands of years before we arrived, then they could be and should be again. They work day and night, like the cow, without us lifting a finger.

I understand that beavers are a pain in the neck, but so is erosion and droughty land.

I have no particular love for beavers, but I do love the land and God’s creation. It’s my understanding we are to be stewards in His image. So here I stand, saying kind things about one of the most hated creatures in the world of agriculture.

Go read the whole article. And then read it again. It’s really well written and contains an impressive amount of research. It’s even more impressive when you realize that Alan is the editor of BeefProducer and lives in Oklahoma. Meanwhile I’m going to be busy thinking up a graphic for that AWESOME first line and writing my amicus brief to the court in Utah.

Then I may just lie back and smoke a cigarette. This has been an incredible morning.

Beaver Trash and Treasure

heidi08 Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? April 1, 2017

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down right? Let’s have something sweet and something not-so-sweet today because beavers face all kind of receptions. Here’s the response they’re getting in a park in Madison Wisconsin, because really who ever heard of wildlife in a park!

Beavers create controversy at Madison park

They say, in addition to tree damage, beavers often build dams that could create flooding across the park. With raised water levels, that could also increase the likelihood of fish dying.

People also say they’re upset the public was not notified. The city says trapping is a longstanding wildlife management practice. They says it’s not practical to have a public process prior to each instance of trapping being authorized, given the timing of a quick response.

That’s right, the mean beavers will make the water too deep and the fish might drown! And we do this all the time whenever we want to so don’t complain! We’re glad at least that people are upset about this. Because anytime people are forced to talk about their silly decisions on the nightly news there is a spark of hope the right people will think about changing.

Necessity may be the mother of invention. But discomfort is the precursor to listening.

Well, pay attention. You should take a lesson from two states (and some lakes) folks really paid attention to Joe Wheaton teaching about beaver benefits. Not clear why this article is being written in Pennsylvania but I’m sure glad it is.

To Aid Streams Simply, Think Like a Beaver

A buck-toothed rodent could teach people a thing or two about stream restoration.

Beavers have been building dams along North American streams for centuries, and their habits suggest cheap, simple ways to improve water quality, said Joseph Wheaton, an associate professor of watershed sciences at Utah State University.

Most current stream restoration practices are costly and require heavy machinery to rework small tracts of land.

“I would argue we spend that money so disproportionately on little postage-stamp restoration projects here and there, leaving millions of miles of streams neglected,” Wheaton said during a March 22 USDA webinar.

Wow, it was a webinar that inspired this article? Good work, somebody was paying attention. I wonder who. The author, Philip Gruber? He’s a staff writer, but maybe one with a eye on this? The only other name mentioned in the article is a sage brush specialist from Portland, Jeremy Maestas.Someone who works for Lancaster Farming wanted this written, and I, for one, am thrilled. Pennsylvania is one big kill-beavers state, so it’s remarkable. Dr. Wheaton must have been very convincing.

Beavers have contributed to those changes in the course of streams. To keep safe from predators, beavers like to have an underwater entrance to their above-water lodge. If the water is not deep enough to have such an entrance — often the case on headwater streams — beavers build dams to make it work.

Beavers are found across much of North America, almost anywhere there’s water and wood. They are well-established in most areas of Pennsylvania.

In places where they aren’t, such as Lancaster and Berks counties, excessive trapping and landowners’ distaste for beaver damage are the main reasons, according to a 2008 report by the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

The idea of using beavers as conservation accomplices dates back at least 60 years, when Idaho parachuted beavers into a wilderness area to improve trout habitat and reduce the risk of flooding.

That turned out to be fairly cheap and effective, Wheaton said, although he isn’t necessarily prescribing a furry air drop for Kutztown or Quarryville.

Humans can build beaver-damlike structures themselves with logs and large woody debris.

These structures can slow down a “bowling alley of a stream” and turn it into a more complex, more gently flowing habitat, he said.

Dubbed beaver dam analogues, these structures can be built with hand labor. Even volunteers and children can get involved — no heavy machinery required.

A beaver dam analogue can easily be adapted to fit the location, and it’s relatively simple to build a complex of dams as beavers often do, Wheaton said.

Considering they are made of raw wood, beaver dam analogues don’t have a super long life span — one to 10 years, depending on conditions.

That’s OK, Wheaton said. “Sometimes the failure of these dams produces some of the best habitat.”

Wait for it…here comes my favorite part.

Artificial beaver dams don’t work quite as well as actual beaver dams do, so once people have laid the groundwork, it often is possible to turn the conservation work over to the critters themselves.

HERE ENDETH THE LESSON. The moral of the story is that you can get your buddies together and run around cutting up trees and pretending to be beavers every few years or you can simply stop killing the animals and let the be themselves, making repairs as needed and constantly improving their work.

Which one sounds easier to you?