Because the beaver isn't just an animal; it's an ecosystem!

Category: Beavers and Culvert Protection


Finally we have come upon a day chock full of beaver news. It must be Sunday, because everyone knows the papers save up their flat-tailed animal stories for the weekends. That’s good news though, because you’ll especially enjoy this one.

Battle of the beaver: Hamilton backs off plan to kill beavers causing a dam mess in Ancaster

The battle of the beaver has raged for two years in rural Ancaster.

Every year, an industrious rodent blocks a culvert under Mineral Springs Road with gnawed-off trees and mud to stop the flow of water. Inevitably, a city roads crew comes out to clean out the dam mess before the low-lying dirt road floods — only to see the culvert fill up with sticks days or even hours later.

This spring the battle took a deadly turn, with the city hiring a trapper to snare and “humanely” kill the beaver — or maybe a family of beavers? — over concerns the clogged drain is a danger to road safety.

But Castor Canadensis is winning again — this time thanks to outraged neighbours who won the beavers a stay of execution.

HURRAY! Public outcry saving beavers and stopping a city from taking the easy way out! This is my very favorite kind of story. Yours too. Grab a second cup and settle in for a nice fun read. Ancaster is in Ontario at the end of Lake Eerie and New York. Not a huge commute for Mike Or Skip if city leaders decide they wanted to solve this the right way.

Adrian Firth learned about the “beaver-drowning plan” from a trapper setting snares in the pond near her home a week ago. The nurse — who admits she already has enough on her plate in the midst of pandemic chaos — has nonetheless feverishly organized resistance for days.

“I think it is just crazy. Killing these animals is really best solution they could come up with?” asked Firth, who walked around the pond with about a dozen neighbours Friday simultaneously planning a petition while trying to maintain physical distancing.

“I haven’t seen any real road flooding. But if it’s a problem, maybe just build it up and give us a real road,” she suggested, noting the low-lying gravel thoroughfare is typically pockmarked with potholes.

Ahh Adrian! We like you a lot. And you’re a nurse which makes you TWICE as popular. And it is crazy, I agree. Although there’s an easier way to fix it than building another road and its called a beaver deceiver. Maybe I’ll send a note.

Firth noted much of the area green space, including the pond, is on environmentally protected Hamilton Conservation Authority land. “If you’re a beaver, is this not the place to be? And look around — there are beavers all over the frickin’ area. How many of them do you plan to kill, exactly?”

All of them? I mean think about it. When there are ants in your kitchen you don’t just want to discourage one or two. And if your job depends on unplugged culverts, beavers are ants. Right?

“We’ve tried many things to dissuade this beaver,” said roads superintendent Sarah Poole, who listed protective cages and iron-bar catchbasin lids as examples of failed experiments.

“Everything gets destroyed,” she said, adding the culvert is currently stuffed “six solid feet” with sticks. “This beaver is very good at what he does.”

Unlike all the other beavers. Which are such slackers. Too bad Sarah didn’t get one of those.

Trapping and relocating problem wildlife is also possible — but the law forbids moving an animal further than one kilometre. It’s rare, but not unheard of, for the city to kill beavers when roads are threatened, said Poole. “For us, road safety is something we can’t ignore.”

But it turns out angry residents are also hard to ignore.

They certainly all. Just ask Martinez. And ask Port Moody. And ask yourself, is it worth it? By the way, this is some pretty nice reporting from Matthew Van Dongen. Good work.

 

It’s not a total win — at least one beaver was killed before the traps were removed, say neighbours. But the city estimates there are at least 10 other beavers living in the vicinity, said Ferguson — and for now, they get a “reprieve.”

Ferguson, who also chairs the conservation authority board, said watershed agency officials will meet by teleconference with city roads managers in the coming days to brainstorm a “more humane” solution.

Something tell me a more humane solution might just be on its way. Get ready for an email.


Well, it looks like all of California has now gone the way of the Bay Area. From Sacramento to Santa Barbara people are being asked to shelter-in-place. Hello! Good time to read about beavers, I say.

We are all adapting. Yesterday I heard from Michael Pollock who is still doing well even at ground zero. And I heard from our artist Amy Hall who has now created a virtual Yoga Studio where people can log in to follow their favorite teachers. Mike Callahan sent some photos of the speaker dinner at BeaverCon 2020 and I thought you’d like to see them. I recognize about 30% of their familiar faces. Maybe you can spot some too. Click on a photo for a closer look.

Meanwhile, a park in Vancouver thinks they are installing a Beaver Deceiver and I for one am dying to learn what it actually looks like.

New ‘beaver deceiver’ designed to protect Beaver Lake from beavers

Park planners are hoping a “beaver deceiver” will counter the busyness of beavers in the lake named after them in Stanley Park. Chad Townsend, senior planner for Environment and Sustainability, said four to six resident beavers regularly work to block the grated culvert that leads to Beaver Creek and Burrard Inlet. Every two days or so, they gather enough logs and plant material to block the culvert, which park board staff have to remove to keep water flowing.

They hate this sound,” he said, referring to how beavers regard the sound of flowing water.“They dam it, we pull it out, they dam it, we pull it out.”

He called the new culvert a “beaver deceiver” because of the way it will be designed to allow water to flow but stop beavers from being able to dam it.

Now call me crazy, but I’ve read more than one article where people say proudly they are going to install a beaver deceiver with no consultation and no expert and it actually turns out to be a PEOPLE DECEIVER because it convinces folks officials are “trying” to coexist when in fact it’s almost surely going to fail and justify trapping very soon. That’s the point.

Maybe I’m wrong. Stanley park has been doing some pretty smart beaver management over the years. They are famous for their urban beavers, and not that far from Ben Dittbrenner if they need consultation. Hmm. I’ll cross my fingers for now.

Maybe you should too.


The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, right? And the first step might not be from a ballerina or member of cirque de soleil either. Sometimes just starting the conversation is enough. Like this letter from Renelle Braaten of the park board of Beaver Creek Park in Havre, Montana.

Time to look at changing beaver management in Beaver Creek Park

As you may have read in the paper, as a park board member, I have brought up to the Hill County Park Board that maybe we can look at other options besides trapping for beaver control in the park.

What brought this on is that we had lost our trapper — we have been using trappers for approximately 70 years — so we needed to do something. Of course, the first thought of the board was to “find another trapper.” I suggested that maybe this would be a good time to look at other alternatives, which it appears there are quite a few. There are things like flow devices, beaver deceivers, tree wraps, just to name a few, that could help solve some of our “problems.” These devices/options have been used all around the country with great success. They are not only more humane, but many times they solve the problems better and for longer. And even more good news is that the individual I have been working with on this has some very viable options/possibilities for grant money to accomplish this. If you want to see what a beaver deceiver is for example, this is just one pretty informative YouTube video you can watch:

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Okay, this isn’t what I expected. It’s actually a video I’ve never seen showing Skip Hilliker install a flow device. That Skip worked for the Humane Society in Maine and did many installations there for years.  But I’ve heard over the years from Callahan and the other Skip that some of these were problematic.

Installing a flow device may not be rocket science but it’s not baby science either.

When I watch this I notice a few problems right away, first with the cage to protect the open end, which is far more important than the video emphasizes. In addition to getting triggered into action by the sound of running water, beaver react to the feel of suction and flow and know where a submerged leak is coming from. They can feel it with their stiff guard hairs and vibrasae. Heck. maybe they even feel it in their bones. It’s what they do.

I’m predicting an unprotected cage will be mudded solid in a few nights. Especially if there’s an opening. I think I’ll refer this nice counselor to a someone a little more reliable.

Just killing beaver will often make them breed more, and you just end up with more beavers. It can be a vicious cycle. I strongly feel this is the time to explore our options. I feel working “with” the beavers would be a better way to go than working against them. I do not agree with making trapping our first and only choice. Please feel free to share your thoughts with the park board members if you are so inclined or come join our meeting, the first Monday of each month at the Hill County Courthouse in the Timmons Room at 5:30 p.m.

What I have also learned is that other resource management effects, such as watershed protection, water quality, weed control, ecosystem balance, etc., should be looked at as well. They are all connected. There are lots of ways to make our park as healthy as possible and preserve it for many years to come.

See this argument is so close it’s like when your daughter walks down the hall in your high heels playing office. It’s so plucky and adorable you can’t help but smile. But the stern advocate in me isn’t mollified. I don’t just want to offer solutions, I want to offer solutions that work!f you’re going to march into Montana and tell them to try a flow device then you MUST NOT FAIL. You have to get everything right.

Otherwise, when it doesn’t work the entire community will say forever that flow devices don’t work and trapping is the only thing that does. It’s like a woman running for office. You have to be a million times as good as the male candidate because if you fail they will say its because women can’t do this job and never give another one a chance.

Get it right the first time.

I also think it is important to open our minds to change and try something new. I know that is hard sometimes, but I feel very necessary if we want to grow. I think working with nature is much better than working against her. As Harrison Ford said, “Mother Nature doesn’t need humans, humans need Mother Nature.”

Um…hurray?

 


October is the month I said I’d work on my booklet about urban beavers for BeaverCon 2020. Some pages are going better than others. But I finished Skip Lisle’s piece on culverts yesterday and am very happy with how it looks. He very kindly wrote something up and said it was okay to share on the website too. If the print is too small to read in this image double click on it and it should popup as an insert.


I especially like the idea of culverts being the most ideal damming site EVER made. It certainly explains their popularity. And don ‘t you just love the phrase “Beaver Magnets”? I had to try my hand at making a graphic for that. Skip has a talent for naming things, I’ll say that much.

I’ve been working the back cover too, using images from friends we met over the years. What do you think? I want it to seem like they’re getting beavers whether they like it or not and encourage them to start thinking of long-term solutions.

 I have a few other states I want to add to the mix but I think that gets things started. I’ve also been working on the community education and response pages, maybe ultimately as a centerfold with Amy chalking beavers as the background. These took a while to make but I’m quite fond of them.
Today I’m working on something Mike Callahan wrote about using levelers to control pond height. I was thinking I’d like an urbanish friend to write something about protecting trees.  know Sierra Wildlife Coalition has done a lit but I’d love to show off beaver-mindedness in another state. Maybe Jakob Shockey or one of the groups he’s worked with? Any ideas spring to mind?

 


If you are a regular reader of this sight you will remember that this respected college, the Alma Mater of Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright, has had beaver problems before. Many times before. So many times, in fact, that the campus earned its own beaver killing headline “Welle-SLAY-college and a rewritten anthem.



Ahh that was some mighty good spoofing. I’m partial to a nice beaver killing alma mater.  Looks like times aren’t changing nearly as fast in the ivory tower as they are everywhere else.

Beavers keep Wellesley DPW busy

Wellesley Department of Public Works employees could be seen Wednesday removing debris from a dam constructed by beavers at the State Street pond near the track and football field parking lot. The beavers’ project was obstructing the culvert and causing flooding concerns along the Fuller Brook Path, according to Natural Resources Commission Director Brandon Schmitt.

The town left the beavers alone. Wellesley contracts with an outside firm for beaver removal/relocation in some cases, though only between Nov. 1-April 15.

Pinocchio! Beaver relocation is illegal in your state. Are you saying the DPW commits crimes November through April 15? Or are you just euphamizing readers into a foggy non-awareness of the T-word. Lethal Trapping.

“As the beavers are still there (and busy as beavers), it’s very likely the debris will be back and have to be removed again,” according to the town. “We work very hard to find a way to coexist with the beavers.”

Until November. When we can kill them.

A contraption called a Beaver Deceiver (best animal thwarting device name since the Mosquito Deleto) has been used to prevent damming at Rosemary Brook But State Street pond doesn’t have the depth and size to allow for this technique there.

Here that Skip? Your name gets a compliment, even though the school can’t be bothered to hire your expertise.  Here’s guessing they wouldn’t spring for Mike either, even though he’s an hour away.

Better just to complain and kill at regular intervals, then find a reporter who is so gullible she can lie about it with a straight face.

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