Category: Beavers and climate change

BEAVER BONUSES BRING BENEFITS – WENATCHEE

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and trout April 16, 2022

There’s just nothing about this article that I don’t like. I guess that means we know its from Washington State.

Sarah Ortiz and Michael Dello Russo: Learning to live with beavers offers bonuses

These mammalian guests, named Scar and Chewy by project staff, may at first appear out of place at a fish hatchery, but the beavers are integral salmon conservation partners. Beavers perform a variety of ecosystem services, including fish habitat restoration and climate change mitigation; but when these animals build dams and forage on private property, conflict arises.

The relocation of Scar and Chewy is part of a collaboration between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Trout Unlimited.

The goal of the Wenatchee Beaver Project is to reduce conflict between beavers and landowners in Chelan and Douglas counties, while helping support the important environmental benefits this unique mammal can generate. This is accomplished through the installation of non-lethal beaver deterrents where needed and the relocation of nuisance beavers from private to public land. These measures can help this important species continue to shape riverine habitat without disturbing local property owners.

Reducing conflict to let beavers work their magic. Oh when when will California learn this?

Although the Wenatchee Beaver Project has had success with relocation, the project team aims for on-site management when possible. Solutions as simple as caging desirable trees or painting tree trunks with gritty paint can deter beavers from chewing. When flooding is an issue, “beaver deceivers” are installed. A beaver deceiver consists of a large pipe put through a beaver dam and caged at both ends. Like a culvert underneath a road, the pipe allows water to flow through, and the cages prevent beavers from plugging the ends. This device will keep the water level in a beaver pond from exceeding a desired depth. If these methods are impossible to apply, then trapping and relocation are used as a last resort.

That sounds like a lot of trouble. Why should we bother?

Beaver dams benefit a multitude of other species, including cold-water-loving trout and salmon. Beaver ponds store cool water in summer, creating habitat for the region’s important native fish species, like endangered steelhead and spring Chinook. This is especially important today with record high summer temperatures and longer periods of low flow conditions predicted to continue across the Pacific Northwest in coming years.

Additionally, beaver ponds store groundwater which fuels riverside vegetation. This vegetation, in turn, shades rivers and streams, further cooling the water for native fish. In many cases the stored groundwater also returns to surface flow in downstream reaches, providing important cool water to chill too-warm summer streams. This means that a healthy beaver population acts to conserve native fish species in the Wenatchee Valley, allowing future generations to witness iconic trout and salmon on this picturesque landscape.

Jaspers explains that beaver “affect our landscape on a big level when it comes to fire and climate resiliency.” Recent research suggests that beavers help to protect people and their property from wildfires. Riverside vegetation fed by beaver ponds acts as a fire break, stopping wildfires from advancing across the landscape. In 2021, 20 times more land was burned by wildfires in Washington and Oregon than in 2020. With increasing rates of wildfire in the region, beavers may be an important defense against fire-induced property damage and destruction.

GO Jaspers GO. Nothing makes me happier than seeing beaver benefits preached at a grand scale. Help fish? Check. Fight fires? Check. Raise groundwater? Check. We got this.

The whole thing would make an awesome Tshirt. What do you think for this year’s festival attire?

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SHERRI TIPPIE GETS TOAST OF BEAVER BEER

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver ecological impact, Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers and climate change April 2, 2022

Well this was a surprise to come across. I have been so buried in festival details I forgot international beaver day is fast approaching!

Belching Beaver Donates $10K To Wildlife 2000 Through Give A Dam Campaign

Did you know National Beer Day and International Beaver day are on the same day? April 7 hosts both of these holidays, and Belching Beaver is celebrating by teaming up with Wildlife 2000 to drive awareness, through it’s Give A Dam campaign, of how beavers help create biodiversity and other positive ecological benefits.

“The state of California has antiquated laws,” said Eric Robinson of Wildlife 2000. “They don’t allow anyone to move beaver anywhere in the state without a permit, and the permits are not given to anyone, they have lots of reasons not to move beaver.” “You can kill them, about 2,000 per year, mostly in Northern California.” “There are plenty of permits given to lethally remove them, but not for humanely putting them back in the land where they can do some good.”

Belching Beaver’s donation to Wildlife 2000 will fund efforts to try and get these laws updated and changed.

Wildlife 2000 is the advocacy group run by Sherri Tippie. So of course when I saw this I called her right away. She sounded very cheerful and excited about the whole thing. And she says hi to everyone, of course.

“To be honest, I’ve never seen a beaver, and I’ve lived in California my whole life, but now I know why, they are being killed,” said Haley Smith Marketing Manager at Belching Beaver Brewery. “I’ve always been a lover of animals, and I understand that some can see beavers as a nuisance, but I don’t think they should just be killed.” “This is their home, and they are just doing what they know to do, build dams, and raise their kits.”

The brewery is working with their distributor partners to create displays in retail locations to try and drive awareness about these animals. The displays will consist of marketing pieces that give facts about beavers and host a QR code that can be scanned to learn more about Wildlife 2000 and their partnership.

A special release beer was also created, Operation Beaver Drop Lemon Wheat Ale, to shine light on a successful beaver relocation project that took place in Idaho. Beavers were put into aerated boxes and parachuted down to a new environment, instead of the alternative of being trapped lethally.

Wow, Eric Robinson is the point person that made this happen, and he is a FORCE of nature for beavers. He has been hard on the beaver relocation rule change for years now. and doesn’t seem to be getting weary.

Operation Beaver Drop is a light and refreshing wheat ale brewed with lemon peel, lemongrass and grains of paradise. It will be available throughout the brewery’s distribution footprint in 4-pack 16 oz cans starting April 1.

Belching Beaver is also hosting a special Pint Night at their Oceanside location on April 7. Wildlife 2000 will be there to talk more about their mission and how, and why we should protect beavers. There will be a video as well as special giveaways.

Well well well, They use our name but they aren’t giving us any money. Hmm. I suppose raising awareness of the importance of beavers is good new, even if they don’t contribute to the beaver festival. And I’m always happy to have a reason to call Sherri and here her happy and taking on the world. So that’s a plus plus plus!

Oh I saw our ad in the new issue of Bay Nature yesterday. It’s on the second page right hand corner top, right where you open to.

BEAVERS MAKE A DIFFERENCE AND SO CAN YOU

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beavers and climate change April 1, 2022

It’s been a weird week. I’m been racing at a great rate trying to remember all the details about how to possibly throw a beaver festival and terrified there is never enough time or energy to get it done. Then I wake up to the same predictable article we have read from the north for the past few months. And was shocked to one particular difference.

See if you can spot the addition.

Experts sound alarm as thousands of beavers migrate north

Concerned researchers held their first meeting this month to discuss a catastrophic group arriving in the North: beavers.

The Arctic Beaver Observation Network, an Alaskan group, seeks to coordinate research and observation of the emerging threat to permafrost and ecosystems in Alaska, Canada, Europe and Russia.

At a two-day virtual conference, scientists, Indigenous leaders, land managers and local observers heard speakers discuss the proliferation of big and small beaver dams from Nunavik to Inuvik.

Ya ya ya, You read this novel already right? Beavers are moving in, causing global warming and killing all the salmon. Tell me something I don’t already know.

Ayles said at-risk species like the Dolly Varden char will be especially affected.

“The Dolly Varden char really depend on certain individual streams. They feed in the summer in the Beaufort Sea but in the winter, it’s too cold for them and they need to return to the Babbage River,” he said.

“If even one beaver dam blocked them from returning over the winter, it could in a very short time completely destroy this unique fish population.”

Yeah those dam beavers, ruining things for fish. You know how they are. Of course the article mentions more incentives for trapping!!!

And then they surprising mention this:

Heidi Perryman, founder of beaver advocacy group Worth a Dam and organizer of an annual beaver festival in California, published an open letter in response to an interview given by Helen Wheeler on US public radio network NPR.

Wheeler, a wildlife ecologist based in the UK, gave a presentation at the Arctic Beaver Observation Network’s March conference and is planning to conduct her next study in the NWT.

For the past 20 years, Perryman wrote, NOAA Fisheries – the US agency responsible for fisheries – has been “researching and reporting that beaver dams are in fact crucial to salmonids and provide deep, unfrozen pools where juveniles can grow and fatten.”

Her letter continued: “Obviously, as the planet warms, many species are extending their range looking for suitable forage or habitat. The newly beaver-created ponds will help sustain an ecosystem that we have forced to become nomadic with our failure to stop burning fossil fuels.

“What remains stunning to me is how eager NPR and others are to blame beavers for extending the effects of a warming climate. I’m assuming that there will be similar reports blaming glaciers when the oceans rise?”

You know how it is. You trod along doing the same thing every day since time was invented and arguing the same points to the same people over and over and you think “Does it really matter? Does any of this really matter? Am I making even the faintest appearance of a dent in the teflon surface of beaver ignorance that manages most of this planet?

And then something happens. And it’s all a little big different. I’m not saying the war has been won but we’ve definitely changed the battlefield. I know readers of this website will remember that Placer County in California kills the most beavers of anywhere in the state. I’ve talked to them, railed at them, met with their CDFW and presented to their fish and game commission.

This morning this site went active on FB. Go like it fast before the universe catches up to us.

MAYBE BEAVERS WON’T DESTROY THE PLANET AFTER ALL

heidi08 Beavers and climate change March 19, 2022

Remember all those articles about beavers increasing global warming by destroying the permafrost in the Arctic? Well, nevermind.

Lower methane emissions when permafrost disappears

Thawing permafrost in the Arctic does not always have to lead to increased emissions of the greenhouse gas methane. When thawed soil dries up, emissions can decline instead. A new study at the University of Gothenburg demonstrates this.

Warmer climates thaw permafrost in Arctic areas, which can create very large emissions of carbon in the form of methane gas, among other things.

“Much of our knowledge about methane emissions when permafrost thaws comes from carbon-rich areas in the Arctic that generate large greenhouse gas emissions,” says Mats Björkman, a researcher at the Department of Earth Sciences. “Our study, on the other hand, was done in mineral-rich soils near Abisko in northern Sweden. There we saw a tenfold reduction in methane emissions when we compared areas where thawing occurred 15 to 25 years ago.”

The researchers noted that when the permafrost disappeared the surface layer of the soil became drier. As a result, conditions that allow the production of methane change.

Ohhh that? Well we couldn’t have known that before we sent a five million trappers to kill all the beavers before they destroyed the planet. Never mind. They’re just rodents. And how could we have guessed? (more…)

ARIZONA GETS BEAVER NPR

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beavers and climate change March 17, 2022

Arizona Public radio gets a lesson on beaver ecology.

Earth Notes: The Beaver Ecology and Relocation Center

Beavers are known as ‘ecosystem engineers’ and they fit that job description perfectly. They use their fast-growing teeth to gnaw down whole trees and build elaborate dams, turning running creeks into still ponds. That’s good for desert ecosystems. Many other animals thrive in beaver-created wetlands. The dams also slow spring floods and raise groundwater levels.

But people and beavers don’t always get along. Often, beavers are killed when they plug up the wrong stream or cut down the wrong trees. The Beaver Ecology and Relocation Center in Utah is working to change that, by live-trapping unwanted beavers and finding them new homes.