Category: Beavers and climate change

BEAVERS AND MEGAFIRES: LETS GET INTO IT

heidi08 Beaver Conference, Beavers, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Fire Prevention July 11, 2022

This was delivered at Beaver Con2 and it’s well worth watching. I know we’ve all have heard Emily’s talk about her dissertation on large fires in five states right? Does she have anything new to teach us now? Yes she does. Her research has grown by leaps and bounds. Which is good because our fire season has grown by leaps and bounds too. How do you think beaver habitat stood up to the new MEGAFIRES we recently invented? Better hang onto your hat. This has a strong updraft.

If I were you I’d watch the whole thing. If I were me I’d probably watch some parts over again after that.

And if I were the governor I’d play it on repeating loop in my lunchroom.

BEAVERS ARE THE ACTION PLAN

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beavers, Beavers and climate change July 8, 2022

I added this to the library two months ago but in all the festival madness we never talked about it directly. We should. This is major. From Emily Fairfax and Chris Jordan.

Beaver: The North American freshwater climate action plan

Abstract

Rivers and streams, when fully connected to their floodplains, are naturally resilient systems that are increasingly part of the conversation on nature-based climate solutions. Reconnecting waterways to their floodplains improves water quality and quantity, supports biodiversity and sensitive species conservation, increases flood, drought and fire resiliency, and bolsters carbon sequestration. But, while the importance of river restoration is clear, beaver-based restoration—for example, strategic coexistence, relocation, and mimicry—remains an underutilized strategy despite ample data demonstrating its efficacy. Climate-driven disturbances are actively pushing streams into increasingly degraded states, and the window of opportunity for restoration will not stay open forever. Therefore, now is the perfect time to apply the science of beaver-based low-tech process-based stream restoration to support building climate resilience across the landscape. Not every stream will be a good candidate for beaver-based restoration, but we have the tools to know which ones are. Let us use them.

Don’t forget the useful tool of GETTING OUT OFF THEIR WAY and letting them decide things for us. People are always underestimating that tool as well.

It may seem trite to say that beavers are a key part of a national climate action plan, but the reality is that they are a force of 15–40 million (Naiman et al., 1988) highly skilled environmental engineers. We cannot afford to work against them any longer; we need to work with them. In most cases, the first step will be starting the physical restoration process before beavers move into a system—setting the stage for functioning floodplain processes (flow, space, structure; Beechie et al., 2010, Cluer & Thorne, 2014, Wheaton et al., 2019). Human intervention may be necessary to restore severely impacted floodplain processes to the point at which beavers and beaver mimicry can be applied (e.g., deeply incised channels, ongoing disruptive land-use practices). In other situations, our first step may be policy changes: for example, if floodplains are intact, but beaver management actions (e.g., the lethal removal of beavers that impact the built environment) prevent population persistence sufficient to further recover these landscapes. Regardless of our role in the conversation, beaver inspired or implemented process-based restoration should be a primary strategy to achieving healthy riverscapes (Macfarlane et al., 2015; Pollock et al., 2015). A stream where beavers thrive is a resilient, productive stream (Pollock et al., 2014). Flourishing beaver populations can be our partner in combating climate change and a bellwether of our progress.

4.5 Ecosystem services

Should we entrust a large rodent with such critical environmental engineering tasks? If restoring riverscapes is really such an important piece of our national climate action plan, should not we do it ourselves? Ultimately, the scale of changes that need to occur are beyond what we can accomplish and maintain on our own. However, beaver-based riverscape restoration has a high return on investment in both revenue and expense control (Baldwin, 2015; Blackfeet Nation, 2018; Blackfeet Nation & Levitus, 2019; Pollock et al., 2015; S. Thompson et al., 2021; Wheaton et al., 2019). Revenue generation typically results from increased tourism and outdoor recreation (e.g., hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, wildlife viewing), while expense reduction from lower expenditures in disaster mitigation, carbon management, water quality assurance, and water conservation. These ecosystem services by beaver, as well as many others not discussed in detail here, is estimated at $69,000 per square kilometer, per year (S. Thompson et al., 2021). Secondary economic benefits of utilizing beaver coexistence and beaver mimicry in riverscape restoration would help offset the already low cost of implementing beaver mimicry and managing human–beaver conflict (Boyles & Savitzky, 2009)

Beavers do it cheaper. Beavers do it Better. Get Outta their way.

5 CONCLUSION: WE NEED (NATURE’S) ENGINEERS

To return the full process-based functionality of connected floodplain systems we must acknowledge the critical role that biological components play—particularly beaver. When we remove beaver from streams and rivers, or prevent them from re-establishing in their ancestral watersheds, the stream-floodplain system falls into disrepair (Wohl, 2021b). Once they are disconnected from their floodplain, down-cut, incised streams simplify into single-threaded channels. Sediment and carbon are exported from long-term storage, water warms and becomes eutrophic, the landscape dries out and fires run for miles across a uniform expanse of fuel, all leaving little in the way of healthy habitat for fish and wildlife. But, beaver managed floodplains are biodiversity hotspots because beaver ponds and wetlands serve as sinks for carbon, processing centers for nitrogen and phosphorus, reservoirs for the storage and cooling of water, and mitigation sites for both drought and flooding. Thus, it is imperative that we foster beaver-dominated areas for the many services they provide.

We need to apply our knowledge of the physical and biological processes of functioning riverscapes and the role that beavers play to drive rapid, comprehensive, and durable action. Actions that address the pervasive degradation of North America’s streams, rivers, and floodplains. Actions that rebuild the natural, functioning dynamics of riverscapes to permit robust responses to disturbance. Riverscape restoration, and in particular process-led and beaver-based restoration, should be the foundation of our national freshwater climate action plan.

Let the beavers lead the way. Sounds good to me.

BEAVERS HELP US AS THE CLIMATE CHANGES

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beavers and climate change June 18, 2022

A week to go. The banners are hung in the park and the auction items are tagged and registered and safely in our volunteers care. I guess this thing is really happening, which makes this all the sweeter timing. Make sure you listen to this short but wonderful report.

In the face of climate change, beavers are engineering a resistance

Emily Fairfax is one of the paper’s authors and an ecohydrologist at California State University Channel Islands. She has become one of the nation’s most prominent beaver experts, and has been studying the Boulder County site for years.

“The beavers here are very industrious,” Faifax said on a cool spring afternoon, knee-deep in one of their ponds. “They’ve built a lot of dams per square area. You just get these totally ridiculous water slides everywhere and waterfalls. You can’t even tell where one dam starts and the other one stops, because they’re all going at weird, wonky angles against each other. It’s totally bizarre.”

Fantastic report. And it’s wonderful to talk about beaver dam complexes.

TAOS TAKES ON BEAVER CHALLENGES

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beavers and climate change May 28, 2022

We are very close to entering a new chapter with beavers. If I had to pinpoint a trigger I would say that the California Beaver Summit made the recent budget proposal possible, and the New Mexico Beaver Summit made the California Beaver Summit possible. We are all standing on the shoulders of giants. New players doing new things with better results. I was thrilled to see this article today.

Town of Taos badgered about beaver dam damage

A bird watcher who frequents the wetland area in Fred Baca Park recorded an atypical sighting on Monday (May 23) when says he spotted a Taos public works crew removing part of a beaver dam on the southern edge of the marsh, dramatically lowering the water level.
“They were just finishing up with a backhoe when I got here around 9 a.m.,” said birder Charlie Woehler, who immediately alerted the Taos bird-watching community. “It’s nesting season, so it’s bad timing.”
Ben Wright, land projects director at the Taos Land Trust, which owns the property adjoining Fred Baca Park to the east, explained what happened.
“It’s a recurring problem because the dam dams up the water, and if the water gets too high debris collects, and the rising water level in theory threatens the [sewer] pipe,” Wright said, adding that beaver will likely fix the dam within a few weeks.
“They’ve done this periodically, and they’re trying to solve a problem, but by removing that dam it’s compromising the habitat for many species, including one that is federally-endangered,” Wright said, adding that he sent a letter to Taos officials on Monday in which he asked them to work collaboratively to identify “coexistent strategies.”

A mayor asking crews to work with coexistence strategies? Wha-a-a-a? That’s a wild idea. I mean it’s almost like he suspects that there might be a better way to do this than hire a backhoe for hours and pull out sticks.

Taos Town Manager Andrew Gonzales did not return messages left this week seeking comment for this story, but during the Taos Council’s Tuesday evening (May 24) meeting, Mayor Pascual Maestas addressed the situation at Fred Baca Park after Councilor Nathanial Evans acknowledged receiving Wright’s letter. Maestas pledged to contact Taos Land Trust regarding the issue, adding, “I will be their beaver mediator.”
Nature’s industrious dam builders, beaver are infamous for causing flooding and interrupting the flow of streams and ditches. But on the Rio Fernando de Taos in Fred Baca Park, and along streams across the country, dams built by the buck-toothed semiaquatic creature also create wetlands, a valuable habitat. The marsh in Fred Baca Park is used by countless species of animals, aquatic creatures and a lot of birds, including the federally-listed southwestern willow flycatcher.
“It’s really important habitat,” said Tom Jackman, another birder who frequents the park. “There’s birds breeding here that were unheard of in Taos county up until recently, particularly Virginia’s rail,” a kind of coot that favors marshy areas. “A buddy of ours discovered Virginia’s rail breeding here four or five years ago. We report all our bird findings through something called eBird, and people came from Albuquerque and all over the state to see it.”
Any mayor who VOLUNTEERS to be a beaver mediator gets the vote in my book! Wowowow! Maybe i’m moving to taos.

Wright said Taos Land Trust hopes to work with the municipality and state wildlife officials on a solution that reduces the beaver-based conflict between important habitat and municipal infrastructure.
“I talked to someone at Game and Fish [Monday] about a system that will allow the water to be stored and released,” Woehler continued. “Its called a pond-leveling system. Beaver are conditioned, when they hear running water, to plug it up. These systems allow water to escape without making any sound, so beaver don’t notice its happening. It’s something that has been implemented and successful.”
Darren Vaughan, with the Information and Education Division of the New Mexico Department of Game & Fish, said the state wildlife department provides technical assistance and guidance for the installation of pond levelers “and other beaver mitigation techniques for both private and public lands.”
“We continue to look for avenues by which we can help mitigate the issues caused by beaver activity, while also keeping them on the landscape to let them provide the positive impacts they have on habitat and wildlife communities,” Vaughan said, adding that pond levelers “work by ‘deceiving’ the beaver into thinking their dam is intact and holding back water, while in reality there is a pipe installed through the dam that allows water to flow and draw the water down to an acceptable level.

Mayors looking for strategies and recommending pond levelers! Am I dreaming? Have I died and woken up in heaven? Are there beavers in heaven?

“I talked to someone at Game and Fish [Monday] about a system that will allow the water to be stored and released,” Woehler continued. “Its called a pond-leveling system. Beaver are conditioned, when they hear running water, to plug it up. These systems allow water to escape without making any sound, so beaver don’t notice its happening. It’s something that has been implemented and successful.”

Darren Vaughan, with the Information and Education Division of the New Mexico Department of Game & Fish, said the state wildlife department provides technical assistance and guidance for the installation of pond levelers “and other beaver mitigation techniques for both private and public lands.”

“We continue to look for avenues by which we can help mitigate the issues caused by beaver activity, while also keeping them on the landscape to let them provide the positive impacts they have on habitat and wildlife communities,” Vaughan said, adding that pond levelers “work by ‘deceiving’ the beaver into thinking their dam is intact and holding back water, while in reality there is a pipe installed through the dam that allows water to flow and draw the water down to an acceptable level.

“Beaver activity and beaver dams are a common source of conflict and damage in many parts of the state,” Vaughan added. “A single beaver dam can hold back acres of water, and if the dams breach or fail — which is not uncommon in New Mexico during high-flow events like spring snow melt or monsoons — all of that water can rush downstream and cause flooding and damage to roads, bridges, buildings, crops. Additionally, water levels may rise behind the dam, causing flooding. Beaver try and dam any moving water, which includes acequias.”

Someone at Fish and Game recommended a pond leveler? You want to hear a funny funny joke? When a handful of Martinez residents called CDFG about these devices they were told to a man “Those things never work”. Isn’t that a funny joke?
We really are in a new world.

Steven Fry, facilitator for the Rio Fernando de Taos Revitalization Collaborative, which includes the Town of Taos, Amigos Bravos, the U.S. Forest Service and the Taos Valley Acequia Association, among other members, said in a statement to the Taos News that the Collaborative “is supportive of beaver restoration and cohabitation in the Rio Fernando Watershed,” adding that “Beaver are indigenous to this area and are a keystone species, meaning their presence positively benefits all other species in the watershed.”
According to Fry, wetlands make up just two percent of the total Taos County landscape, but “80 percent of all species use these areas at some point in their lifecycle.”
Fry said cost-effective beaver mitigation strategies have been employed elsewhere in Taos County to reduce the risk of flooding and allow beaver to remain on the landscape.
“This approach has successfully been demonstrated at the Taos Canyon RV Park, where beaver historically caused flooding that impaired roadways and private property, but is now serving as a demonstration site for how living with beaver can be cost-effective and valuable to our landscapes.”

SONOMA NOTICES BEAVERS IN THE BUDGET

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beavers and climate change May 28, 2022

Finally some press for the beaver budget news!

‘Damtastic!’ Newsom calls for Beaver Restoration Program

A beaver carries some building material up Sonoma Creek. (Photo: Sonoma Ecology Center)

Sonoma wildlife conservationists had one word to describe Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed new Beaver Restoration program: “Damtastic!”

Newsom floated the program as part of a May 13 presentation of his revised 2022-2023 fiscal budget. Pledging $1.67 million this year and $1.44 million in years thereafter, Newsom said the funds would go toward the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s efforts in developing “a comprehensive beaver management plan.”

The North American Beaver is considered a “keystone species” by Fish and Wildlife, which estimates its current population in the state to be between 10 million to 15 million. “Historically, beavers used to live in nearly every stream in North America with an estimated population of 100-200 million,” DFW officials state at wildlife.ca.gov.

In the budget proposal, Newsom described beaver as “an untapped, creative climate solving hero” that helps prevent the loss of biodiversity.

“Beavers are remarkable at creating more resilient ecosystems,” said Newsom. “And therefore thinking through approaches to maximize their unique skills throughout California will benefit our landscapes and help drive more cost-efficient restoration.”

Whooohooo! I like all those quotes and wish there would be a MILLION more! This is one of those civic horns I can’t tell if we should be blowing over and over or just sitting quietly until they slip through official channels and are signed into the budget.

Sometimes when you announce how good something is your cousins try to ruin it.

Sonoma County beaver advocates have been “working hard in Sacramento” the past year to lobby for investment into just such a program, said Brock Dolman, of the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, in an email. Dolman said the next step is to continue to advocate for its inclusion in the final budget, which goes into effect July 1.

Recognition of the role beaver play in watershed health and climate resiliency has heightened in recent years. The wood-gnawing mammals’ lodge-building activities are known to enhance water storage, erosion control, habitat restoration and creation and species recovery, according to the Bring Back the Beaver campaign, the Occidental Ecology Center Water Institute’s beaver-education program.

They can also help with the maintenance of stream flows during dry periods, said Caitlin Cornwall, of the Sonoma Ecology Center.

While Sonoma Valley’s creeks and aquifers are drying out during prolonged periods of drought, Cornwall and the Ecology Center view beaver as “a potential game-changer.”

“Of course, we need to be careful about where they go,” Cornwall told the Index-Tribune. “But they are one of the fastest, cheapest, most reliable allies for bringing abundant water back to Sonoma Valley, both above ground and below ground.”

Added Cornwall: “And that’s good for all of us, human and animal.”

Well I you won’t get any argument from me on that point. They certainly kept all their promises to Martinez.

Before celebrating too much, Dorman is urging supporters not to count their chickens before they’re hatched ― or beavers before they’re lodged, as it were. Gov. Newsom’s amended budget still must be approved by the state legislature, which will hold hearings to review it in June. Both the state Assembly and Senate must adopt a final budget by June 15.

According to the Beaver Restoration proposal, Fish & Wildlife would use the requested funding to:

• Hire five new permanent staff to run and implement the Beaver Restoration Program (three senior environmental scientists and two environmental scientists)

• Purchase equipment to trap, tag and haul beavers

• Conduct beaver health analysis in support of relocation efforts

• Purchase five pickup trucks (one for each staff member)

If the program comes to fruition, Dolman hopes it will ultimately create sustainable “wetland oases” for beaver to continue their natural climate-resilient activities.

“After years of being misperceived as a ‘non-native nuisance,’ beaver are finally being given the acknowledgment they deserve,” said Dolman.

June 15. June 15. June 15. Heyyy I wonder what might be the PERFECT way to celebrate if the budget does pass? I mean something beaver focused outdoors with wildlife 10 days later???

Gee.