IT’LL NEVER LOOK THE SAME AGAIN, THANKS TO BEAVERS

You and I have limited appetites for the BEAVERS CAUSING GLOBAL WARMING narrative but I just had to listen to this short interview with the author of the study. It won’t let me embed the audio and I can’t seem to record it yet so I’ll just transcribe and rely on you to listen for yourself.

Hot dam: Beavers have gnawed their way into the Arctic, speeding permafrost thaw

Beavers are moving to the Arctic as the Alaskan tundra heats up and the beaver population rebounds after centuries of trapping. A study published in December shows the small, industrious mammal is accelerating climate change in the north.

Beaver ponds are showing up in places they’ve never been before. For the past five years, ecologist Ken Tape has used satellite imagery and old aerial photos to map where beavers have dammed streams and created ponds. The University of Alaska Fairbanks professor says he was shocked by the magnitude of change.

What are they eating up their? Ice? I bet that’s it. They worm their way in. Eat up all the ice. And cause global warming!

Now I know you meant that as an insult to beavers but honestly, it’s the first time I’ve ever heard a scientist be truthful about how much impact they truly have have and how much their removal means to any stream. I’m sure you meant it as hyperbole. But it’s actually true. That’s certainly what we learned in Martinez.

When beavers dam a stream, it creates a pond that’s deeper than the stream was, and it retains more heat. Tape says if you liked the Arctic the way it was, this is not a good thing. He says to think of ponds as little oases for creatures that don’t usually live in the Arctic. They thaw permafrost and release carbon dioxide. It’s a case where increased biodiversity isn’t healthy for the native ecology.

Oh puleeze. Ya the beavers are doing all that.Just ruining the artic. That’s what they do.

“The landscape is falling apart with permafrost thaw, and beavers are that trend on steroids. And one of the big reasons is that permafrost is really rapidly impacted by changes in hydrology and surface water. And that’s precisely what beavers do,” Tape said.

The full effects of these new beaver ponds on fish and water quality aren’t clear yet — Tape says last season kicked off what will be about five years of field study around Nome and Kotzebue. He says he has an idea of the big picture, but it’s the people in arctic communities who can help him learn how beavers are changing life and livelihood in the North.

Yes. Because we have ZERO idea how beavers affect water quality and fish. It obviously has never been researched before by anyone. Because this whole permafrost thing. It’s a game changer.

Hey if a growing beaver population depletes permafrost, do you think the decimated one in the 1800’s might have expanded it? I mean do you think you’re whole expectation level might be wrong because of shifting baselines?

Gee.

THE SMITHSONIAN HAS LOST ALL FACULTIES OF REASON: ARCTIC BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers and climate change January 9, 2022

Have you a daughter?
I have my lord.
Let her not walk in the sun. Conception is a blessing but as your daughter may conceive, Look to’t.

Hamlet II:2

Will somebody please put a wet blanket over this story once and for all? Or find the NOAA scientist that spawned it and send him on a one way trip to Jamaica? You would think that Chevron drilling holes in the ice and driving huge trucks back and forth across the permafrost would get an occasional mention, but obviously the BEAVER CALAMITY is taking up all the bandwith.

After all, there are only so many pages in a magazine like the Smithsonian.

Beavers Are Reshaping the Arctic Tundra. Here’s Why Scientists Are Concerned

Beavers have the ability to completely transform landscapes. They gnaw through trees, build dams and flood new areas to create ponds, earning them the title of “ecosystem engineers.” But a northward migration of these bucktoothed builders has scientists concerned, Hannah Osborne reports for Newsweek. (more…)

OUR SECRET WEAPON AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beavers and climate change December 24, 2021

For the past week every SINGLE beaver headline that rolls across my desk has been about beavers ruining the tundra and causing climate change, I guess we like blaming beavers a hell of a lot more than blaming Chevron or Shell. Well seeing this headline was a welcome relief and I was happy to watch the film again.

Unleashing Beaver to Restore Ecosystems and Combat the Climate Crisis

While indigenous communities, farmers, and those living close to the land have known for generations the role that beavers play in maintaining healthy ecosystems, more and more scientists have been experimenting and gathering data on just how essential these animals are. Through their actions, beaver (and humans mimicking their actions) can help restore river-based ecosystems, improve wildfire resilience, bring fish & other animals back to habitats, and fight drought.

Beaver should be our national climate action plan because connected floodplains store water, store carbon, improve water quality, improve the resilience to wildfire, and what beaver do play an enormous role in controlling the dynamics of those systems. So, yeah, it sounds really trite to give a national climate action plan to some rodents. But if we don’t do that directly, we should at least be trying to mimic what they do.

Now I can’t find a thing to argue with in those paragraphs. I know I posted this when it came out but it’s very worth a second look.

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“Across North America and Europe, public agencies and private actors have reintroduced beavers through “re-wilding” initiatives. In California and Oregon, beavers are enhancing wetlands that are critical breeding habitat for salmonids, amphibians, and waterfowl. In Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico, environmental groups have partnered with ranchers and farmers to encourage beaver activity on small streams. Watershed advocates in California are leading a campaign to have beavers removed from the state’s non-native species list, so that they can be managed as a keystone species rather than a nuisance. And federal policy is shifting, too. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sees beavers as “partners in restoration,” and the Forest Service has supported efforts like the Methow Beaver Project, which mitigates water shortages in North Central Washington. Since 2017, the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service has funded beaver initiatives through its Aquatic Restoration Program.”

Just to be clear. Not in California because beaver relocation isn’t legal in California. In the golden state we can only kill them.

(more…)

SOME SAY BEAVERS WILL END THE WORLD IN ICE, SOME IN FIRE

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver ecological impact, Beavers and climate change December 16, 2021

Yesterday the earth was trembling with news about the latest dire news from the artic, noting that the permafrost wasn’t so perma anymore and the precipitation that was falling was rain not snow because of the rising temperatures. And the beavers with their great gnashing of teeth and wicked ponding ways were building dams all over the place changing the tundra, which was changing where the salmon were which was changing where the things that came to eat the salmon were and Please GOD make it stop!!!

Imagine a thousand panicked headlines like this one.

US study: Record highs, rain and beaver damage in Arctic

The Arctic continues to deteriorate from global warming, not setting as many records this year as in the past, but still changing so rapidly that federal scientists call it alarming in their annual Arctic report card.

The 16th straight health check for the northern polar region spotlighted the first ever rainfall at Greenland summit station, record warm temperatures between October and December 2020, and the new problem of expansion of beavers in the Arctic.

he 2020-2021 polar year—scientists study the Arctic on a yearly basis from October to September—was only the 7th warmest on record. However, October to December in 2020 set a record for the warmest autumn. (more…)

BEAVERS AS “SUPER-RESTORERS”

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver ecological impact, Beavers and climate change, Educational November 22, 2021

Now this is the kind of article that doesn’t come along every day. It’s written about England but is really talking to every single community that unexpectedly rediscovers beavers in their midst. Not to be way more self-focused than usual, but it could have been written each word for magical word about Martinez. But I guess you knew that, right?

Potential psychological benefits of nature enrichment through the reintroduction of the Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) to Britain: A narrative literature review

(Okay replace the word “reintroduction” with the word “discovery” and replace castor fiber with castor canadensis and replace to Britain with to Martinez and you get the point.)

It starts by noting that biodiversity is decreasing in the UK (and everywhere else) and that people are feeling more and more stressed out and hopeless about the environment (in England and everywhere else) and that reintroducing beavers is a way to show that we CAN take action that makes things better on a grand scale.

Beavers could act as a ‘super restorer’, facilitating psychological as well as ecological restoration through a beneficial synergy of effects. Through their eco-engineering activities, beavers increase biodiversity at the landscape scale and facilitate habitat restoration and creation (creating a mosaic of green and blue space, and a sense of wilderness) all of which can increase the psychological well-being of visitors. (more…)