Category: Beavers and Fire Prevention

BEAVERS IN THE WP: AND IT’S JUST RIGHT

Yes beavers have been getting a good news cycle for a while and yes it’s nice to finally read positive things about them after pushing this pony cart for sooo many years, but honestly the recent influx of news has left me a little unsatisfied. Whether it’s been saying beavers live in the dam or that they look like nutria or mixing up the story in Martinez, I’ve been like Goldilocks hopping from one bowl of cold oatmeal to one stiff chair and one short bed to the next. It’s all too little or too hard or too just too damn full of spiders.

Until Now.

Beavers offer natural solution to fighting wildfires

When Smokey Bear says, “Only YOU can prevent forest fires,” he’s talking to humans. But humans aren’t the only ones who can help. Beavers, North America’s largest rodents, are succeeding at fighting fires and reducing wildfire destruction.

It’s common sense. Water, soggy ground and well-hydrated vegetation reduce fire’s ability to spread.

Beavers create deep ponds by building dams, then dig fingerlike canals to slowly spread that water throughout the flood plain. The stream’s reduced speed allows collected water to seep into the ground where it encourages deep plant roots and an abundance of wildlife to thrive.

Beavers’ water highways are not for our benefit, but theirs. The canals allow them to quickly escape predators. The water also lets them float logs and branches needed for food and construction projects.

Of course, beavers don’t know they are also creating very effective firebreaks, or obstacles to the spreading of fire. But scientists are taking notice.

Oh my goodness. My favorite topic written by a true beaver friend and written about a true beaver friend! Of course I had to check the byline. Ann Cameron Siegal has been a beaver buddy since Obama was president. A long time ago I saw one of her photos in the post and was so enamored I tracked her down like a dog (as have done every other friend of this website) and we’ve cooresponded ever since. She donated to the festival. We’re friends on facebook. Where we’re are probably the only California liberal and tea party friends in the entire world. But beavers. It’s for BEAVERS. With beavers all things are possible.

Emily Fairfax is a California-based ecohydrologist, that’s someone who studies how water interacts with soil and living things. She wondered whether beaver-created wetlands could survive huge wildfires, reducing the devastating damage done to large areas of land.

Fighting wildfires is a greater test of endurance as season gets longer

Scientists need data to convince others to consider workable solutions to problems such as rising average temperatures and drought.

“We used Google Earth to identify and map beaver dams and channels within fire perimeters,” Fairfax said.

By studying years of aerial photographs from five Western states where major wildfires and droughts occurred, her team showed that beavers create broad underground irrigation systems, decreasing erosion and soil loss. Most important, large beaver wetlands were still green and healthy after a fire

I am beaming. This was published in the “Kids section” of the WP because the world isn’t totally sure whether to take beavers seriously or not. But that suits me just fine. Kids are smart. They know why beavers matter.

“Areas without beavers averaged three times more damage than those with beavers,” Fairfax said. “Where you don’t have beavers or rain, plants dry out and become crispy fuel for fires.” Where beavers were allowed to do their thing, the wetlands also became lifesaving oases for wildlife that couldn’t “out fly, out swim or out waddle the flames.”

But what if there are no beavers in an area?

Many places prohibit the relocation of beavers, so an alternative is to create a beaver-friendly habitat through basic stream restoration before an environmental crisis occurs. Using local, natural materials such as logs to build man-made starter dams can increase water depth, creating conditions that encourage beavers to move in and take over maintenance of the dams while expanding the wetland habitat.

Beavers aren’t always wanted in an area because humans want to adapt the landscape to fit their needs, draining wetlands and building houses in floodplains.

Fortunately, there are many tools for flood control and tree protection to make coexisting with beavers easier for landowners. After identifying fire-prone areas, communities can reduce a fire’s capacity to become an extreme event by taking advantage of beavers’ low-tech, natural and free engineering abilities.

Fairfax said her original hypothesis shifted from “where can this happen” to “is there anywhere where this cannot happen?”

“The more rivers and streams you have in healthy conditions,” she said, “the more fire resistant a region will be.

I’ll tell you what. If there are no beavers in the area that area is suffering. Worst than drought. Worst than biodiversity crisis. Beaver shortage is the worst kind of shortage the land suffers. And we made it ourselves. Many times. We nearly made it in Martinez. We are living through it now.

Many forest fires are inevitable and necessary to clear out overgrown vegetation and replenish soil nutrients. Beavers are protecting sensitive ecosystems that don’t need intense fire as much.
Beavers don’t kill all the trees in an area. They selectively use logs and branches to create the wetlands that increase biodiversity for wildlife and vegetation. When they chew their favorite trees — aspen, willow, cottonwood, among others — those trees usually grow back stronger and healthier afterward.
By slowing, spreading and storing water, beaver dams increase drought resistance and downstream water quality. Several research projects are underway to measure how effective beaver structures are in filtering out contaminants, ash and sediment, particularly after a wildfire.
Beavers are herbivores or plant eaters. Twigs, grasses, leaves, bark and aquatic plants are on their menu, as is the soft inner-layer of bark, called cambium. They don’t eat fish but create fish-friendly habitats. Otters eat fish, so that may account for some of the confusion as otters and beavers often share habitats.

And on the seventh day, she rested. Whatever wonders the world has given me in my 57 years this is going to stay near the top. That for one day in one major newspaper in one country that all the other papers read I got exactly what I wanted. There were no nutrias, no beavers eating fish, and no living in the dam.

Thanks to Ann, Emily and beavers.

Now can we talk about flow devices?

ALEX BRINGS OUT THE BIG GUNS

heidi08 Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Fire Prevention July 19, 2022

More great beaver reporting from Alex Hagar at KUNC in colorado. He is officially a believer, This one even includes Ellen Wohl which I would officially call the bring out the “Big guns”.

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

The study is largely a summary of existing research, pulling together and contextualizing established science about rivers and beavers. It makes the case that beavers were once pivotal in shaping and maintaining healthy riverscapes before their populations were crippled by years of trapping.

Chris Jordan, an Oregon-based ecologist with the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, is one of the study’s co-authors. He said the research stands in the face of “dire warnings” and the “doom” of harm beyond our control.

“In reality,” he said, “it’s not out of our control. Here is something that we can do. Here is something that we can think about as an adaptation and mitigation strategy – returning riverscapes to their natural state. And that’s going to give us climate change protection and resilience.”

That protection and resilience comes in a few forms. The first is a safeguard against flooding. Warming temperatures are increasing the frequency of heavy rain and rapidly melting snow. In the channel of a narrow stream or river, that surge of water is likely to quickly overtop the banks and flood. Beaver wetlands, with their wide swaths of soggy land, would help spread some of that water out and limit flooding downstream.

Just as they are helpful in the face of too much water, beaver complexes have proven useful in areas with not enough. High-mountain snow serves as a kind of natural reservoir for the region, slowly releasing water throughout the spring and early summer, assuring a steady supply to the places where humans divert and collect it. But as the West rapidly warms and dries, snowpack is getting smaller and melting earlier. Beavers, meanwhile, are essentially building miniature reservoirs in mountainous areas throughout the region.

Drought also means an increased risk of wildfires, and beavers have proven their mettle against the flames. Even in areas completely ravaged by wildfire, where tree trunks are scorched into blackened toothpicks and soil is left gray and ashen, beaver complexes survive unscathed. The wet earth and thriving greenery resist burning, leaving oases of green in the middle of the lifeless moonscapes left behind by wildfire.

Spreading water out across valley floors also has proven benefits for water temperature, water quality and even carbon sequestration. Water laden with sediment, nitrates or carbon slows down in beaver ponds, allowing particles in it to settle or get consumed by microbes, unlike in a fast-moving stream.

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 TO THE RESCUE

heidi08 Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Fire Prevention, Beavers and Forests May 16, 2022

I would like to formally request more opinion pieces like this. Pretty please?

Opinion: Give the job of wildfire prevention to nature’s architects

Our friend the beaver

As a wildland firefighter, I have witnessed the impacts of larger and longer fire seasons. I have smelled the charred earth and watched the soil blown away into dust. In 2020, Colorado had its most destructive fires to date, with the Cameron Peak and East Troublesome fires burning more than 402,725 acres; that’s equivalent to more than 300,000 football field.

In a state with an expanding population and increasing wildfire risk, we need innovative solutions to protect our communities and watersheds from larger, more ferocious, and more frequent wildfires.

One potential solution involves beavers.

Yes, you read that correctly. Beavers. Let me explain how these critters can play an important role in combating wildfire.

Oh my goodness. I am so crushing on this author right now. I am fully prepared to listen intelligently to everything you’re likely to say, but I should let you know ahead if time and save you any trouble. “You had me at ‘beavers’.”

Recently, legislation was proposed directing the U.S. Forest Service to immediately suppress wildfires on National Forest Service Lands. The bill requires the Forest Service to “use all available resources to carry out wildfire suppression with the purpose of extinguishing wildfires detected on National Forest System lands not later than 24 hours after such a wildfire is detected.”

While this legislation is well intentioned, I think we need to investigate solutions outside of total suppression of fire.

The federal government has plans to spend $50 billion to aid in fire mitigation. Battling larger blazes costs taxpayer dollars, the health of our forests, and precious human lives. In a time of increasing wildfire behavior, why are our leader’s proposing legislation that is business as usual?

One such idea, which does not spring to most people’s minds, is the mass reintroduction of beavers on federal lands. Before colonization, beavers were abundant across the continent, numbering in the tens of millions. Numbers dwindled as Europeans trapped beaver for a lucrative fur industry back in Europe.

Oooh I’m liking this already. Well I’d change your language from “Introduction” to “allowance”. The beavers are there of course. They just get killed before they can do any good. Let’s stop that, okay?

Could we help reduce wildfire risk and return beaver populations to their historic ranges? I say yes!

Beavers are nature’s architects and provide a host of ecological benefits. Beaver ponds and dams filter out pollutants. The wetlands created from their damming activities diversify habitat for many other species, creating an aquatic food web that supports the life cycle of many game species across the continent such as salmon, lamprey and steelhead that humans have depended on for thousands of years.

Beaver dams and ponds aid in slowing flood waters in heavy rainfall and snowmelt events, helping to safeguard downstream communities. Beavers create canals from their ponds, which aid in rehydrating landscapes, giving groundwater the chance to cool and seep into the soil.

Now THAT’s what I’m talking about. Don’t pussy foot it. Just lay it on the line. And hey if my home burns down next year can I sue the neighbor who had the beavers trapped out of his stream for increasing fire risk?

As demonstrated in a recent study, post-wildfire areas with beavers did not burn to the same extent as the surrounding area. Wet, hydrated landscapes are less likely to burn with the same severity as drier or non-hydrated landscapes. This has great benefits for post fire recovery.

The wetlands created by beavers offer a haven for species during and after wildfire events. Beaver dwellings help protect downstream water sheds, as well. The dams and ponds act as collection sites for silt and ash from surrounding hillsides and give them time to settle, providing a filtration system for the water sources we depend on.

You are definitely ringing the bell. Now let’s bring it home. One final push over the finish line.

To be sure, beaver reintroduction is not the complete answer to reducing wildfire risk, but one tool among many that can aid in reducing the risk. Recently, researchers have found that most people associate beavers with creating trouble in residential and agricultural areas, causing flooding of neighborhoods and pastures. With smart management, the benefits of beavers on federal lands far outweigh the potential risks to human communities — especially here in the fire-prone West.

Wildfires across the West are only going to intensify in the coming years. Instead of just trying to suppress fire as we have historically done, we need to search for innovative solutions to changing wildfire behavior. The encouragement of beaver populations on federal lands may be one tool of many to help us on our path forward to becoming fire resilient communities.

With all the ecological benefits beavers offer, this is a low-cost win for our communities and wildlands. We all have a role to play in becoming resilient to changing fire behavior. I encourage you to contact Colorado Parks and Wildlife and your federal representatives and demand innovative solutions to fire policy.

Beavers are HIRED! I sure wish this article was syndicated everywhere flammable. By which I mean, everywhere. Thanks Jeremiah Gorske for telling everyone the truth!

PLACER COUNTY NOTICES BEAVERS: FOX WEATHER CHANNEL

heidi08 Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Fire Prevention, Beavers and water April 27, 2022

Let’s just say this couldn’t happen to a better county, or, as fate would have it, at a better time.
If you don’t hit play on this video you will be very lonely at the water cooler.