Category: Beavers and Forests

THE BEST GAME OF TELEPHONE EVER

My beaver reporting gig has changed in the past 6 months. It seems like there is so much good news because of Ben Goldfarb’s book I am too impatient to be bothered with the usual whining from Scottish farmers or duck hunters in Mississippi who think they need to blow up the beaver dam so there’s more room to shoot. I just want to talk about good news!

Like this for instance.

Working together with beavers is the answer

I’m thrilled to know that Torrey Ritter will be helping FWP to integrate beavers into the agency’s goals for watershed health and native fish recovery. Since much beaver habitat is currently unoccupied in our region, I commend FWP’s commitment to explore all options for restoration, including active reintroduction of beavers in the right place at the right time. Successful beaver relocations around the West are increasingly accompanied by “beaver dam analogues” or other structures that mimic and initiate the beaver’s likelihood of success. Transplanting mated pairs or family units has been shown to be effective, and I fully trust that FWP will take advantage of these and all other measures of the best available science for relocation outcomes that benefit people, beavers and habitat.

While we are lucky enough to have beavers existing on – or naturally returning to – our landscapes, there are several non-lethal solutions to traditional conflicts. Some, like wrapping special trees in wire fencing, are simple and cheap.

What a nice positive column from Montana of all places! Watching the story of beavers catch on is one of my favorite, favorite things.

“Flow devices” are another solution, and while they require some planning, a 310 permit and modest funds, they are durable, versatile investments that pay back in ecosystem services for years to come. Using a system of pipes and fencing to deter culvert blockage and excessive flooding, flow devices can be calibrated to avoid property damage while keeping the beavers in place. Far more than a compromise, studies have shown that for every dollar spent on flow devices, managers saved $8.37 in annual infrastructure repairs.

We have the tools and skills to work with these water-storing, fire-buffering, habitat-diversifying creatures. For more stories about how beavers are benefiting ranchers, urbanites, fish biologists and so many others, I suggest Ben Goldfarb’s excellent new book, “Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter.” Our watersheds have many problems but it is good to know that by working together – with beavers – we can be the answer.

Did you ever play the game of telephone as a child? Take a moment and remember the eager feeling of waiting for the secret to come your way as you watch the ring of giggling classmate faces whisper into each other’s ears – the message that you know is coming to you eventually. That’s honestly how this feels. Except we know the secret already. And it’s not a secret. As the game unfolds this message is staying remarkably in tact.

I’d like to thank the Pathfinder and Biologist Scott Eggeman for last week’s excellent column exploring the history, ecology and growing importance of beavers. As we increasingly face the unpredictable stresses of fires, droughts and floods, I appreciate Eggeman’s nod to the rodent’s keystone role in a resilient ecosystem.

Which reminds me to also thanks to beaver friend Lisa Robertson of Wyoming Untrapped who recently sent me this snippet from an older film by Jeff Hogan.

EMILY AND THE 360 VIEW BEAVER POND

One of the continually interesting perks about maintaining a beaver website is that fascinating people from around the world seem to filter like manna onto your doorstep. Not too long ago I was contacted by Emily Fairfax, a graduate student in geological sciences at University of Colorado at Boulder who happens have a special interest in beaver dams and the water they hold. She has been following this website and even sent her mother-in-law to check out our beaver festival last year. (!) When she made contact she said

“The vast majority of my work has been on how beaver dams change arid/semi-arid landscapes from a hydrologic perspective.’

Her research website says:

My current research focuses on the ecohydrology of riparian areas, particularly those that have been impacted by beaver damming. I use a combination of remote sensing, modeling, and field to work understand how beaver damming changes these landscapes and on what timescales those changes operate.

She especially was looking for stories or anecdotes about how beaver ponds help in fire situations, so I introduced her to some folks and showed her what I had come up with over the years. Which lead me to pay special attention when a recent discussion came up with Lisa Robertson on the Wyoming Untrapped FB page, which brought me to this amazing photo and story by Jeff Hogan.

Jeff is an extraordinary wildlife cinematographer. If you’ve ever watched a wildlife film by National Geographic or the BBC, you have probably seen his work.

This is the kind of thing he captures every day.

jeffhoganfilmsI’ve been filming beavers for 20 years now illustrating the benefits of an active beaver colony and pond. Live beavers are very important to our wild forest lands and watersheds. Far more important than whatever benefit humans may enjoy from trapping these beavers. I believe that a wildlife management plan that allows trapping of beavers is highly irresponsible and reckless! This image illustrates the benefit of a beaver pond in fighting forest fires. Filmed in 2001. Beaver pond is located in Granite Creek.

Now Jeff just happened to be at the wednesday night reading in Teton Wyoming of Eager with Ben Goldfarb and Wyoming Untrapped’s director Lisa Robertson. So Jeff made sure Ben had this photo and I made sure Emily had it too. You can see that the helicopter is scooping water to fight the fire out of the only place it’s available: a lovely beaver pond. You can even see the lodge in the middle.

Beavers make a difference in firefighting, as they do in so many other ways. I’m excited to see Emily’s finished work so we can document just how much. In case all this feels too much like school, take a moment to enjoy some of Emily’s delightful offerings on her website.

You don’t want to miss this. Follow the link to her amazing 360 view of a beaver pond. Go look, I’m serious. It’s so frickin’ cool.

“Visit” a Beaver Pond!

Think beaver dams are cool? Visit one of my favorite ponds via a 360 degree photo I took. It’s the main beaver pond up at Schwabacher’s Landing in Grand Teton National Park! The link can be viewed on your computer in the web browser, in the Google Street View app on your phone, or in a Google Cardboard virtual reality headset!

Beaver Pond at Schwabacher’s Landing

BEAVER FIRE-BREAK

heidi08 Beavers and Fire Prevention September 11, 2018

Today’s post is brought to you by Dr. Joe Wheaton’s twitter feed. Please share it with every Californian you know. At least all those that live in flammable areas. (Meaning all of them in oxygen-based areas.)

This is Baugh Creek (a tributary to the Little Wood in Idaho) and this is part of the Sharps Fire.

The Sharps fire in Idaho was started by an accidental spark from target practice and has now burned more than 65,000 acres and was finally contained by crews at the end of August. I’m hoping there’s more water upstream that we can see in this photo where some beavers can go shopping because otherwise those are going to be some mighty hungry dam-builders.

FIREPROOF BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Fire Prevention August 1, 2018

As California continues to set itself on fire like a Hindi widow faithful, it might be useful to think specifically of one thing in particular that beavers do. They happen to do it better than anyone else in the world. And its all they do, every day, everywhere, 24/7 with minimal tools, for free.

Can you guess where I’m going with this? All the way to Alberta and this great article by Brenda Schoepp.

What do you want your fresh water used for?

It all began with industrious engineers who understood hydrology and the importance of water. They built dams and created wetlands throughout Canada, and in doing so had a system in place for water preservation and purification.

The harvest of the beaver had an impact on wetlands and our current-day contribution to climatic change. Wetlands are multifunctional systems that purify water and encourage a system of regeneration. It is estimated that 70 per cent of wetlands in Canada (65 per cent in Alberta) have been lost as part of this disruption in the natural order of things.

How do we protect the quality of the water when we don’t know what beavers know? How do we use less water when the economy is exploding? Do we fully appreciate and understand the profound relationship between action and consequence? And is there a political will to invest in science and technology to ensure water for all?

Good questions every one. And there probably isn’t a single answer, but one of them surely is furry. This is as good a time as any to revisit this wonderful chestnut by Ralph Maughan for Wildlife News.

Beaver restoration would reduce wildfires

After almost every large wildfire or fires that do significant damage to structures, people ask for proactive measures. The desire for this is rational. It needs no explanation.

The most common plausible sounding solution used in the Western United States is large scale fuel reduction — little fuel; little fire. A big problem with fuels reduction is that you have to pay to have it done. Potential fuel covers hundreds of millions of acres. We say “potential” fuel because what will burn varies greatly. Some years are too wet. Every year hundreds of fires burn out, but a wind, not drought could make them quickly into great conflagrations. Politicians often use the words “logging” and “fuel reduction” in the same breath, but commercial logging, where the land owner gets paid, only works for good timber. That’s mostly not what is burning. Dry brush, droughty green trees, dying or dead trees, cheatgrass, and annual weeds — that’s what is usually burning. It is difficult and far too expensive to eliminate these.

One idea that is rarely mentioned is to keep the stream bottoms green and raise the humidity. How could this be done? Let’s restore beaver to the creeks of the Western United States. This is much less expensive than cutting out or clearing potential fuels. It also has significant fish and wildlife benefits. We can often add flood control too, plus the recharge of aquifers.

A string of beaver ponds up a drainage is like a permanent fire break. The ponds not only enlarge the area covered with water, more importantly, they increase the portion of the creek or streamside area (the riparian zone) that stays green all summer. They raise the ground water level. Beaver ponds also increase the humidity of air in the drainage. The result is fewer hours in a day when wildfires can burn hot and hard.

Beaver could be a powerful tool to tame the effects of climate change.

Can we talk about those spongy marshlands that beavers make now? Can California look up from the raging torrents in Redding and Clearlake and think, gosh maybe I should be using a different method to clean my culverts besides killing the water-savers.

Anyone who puts two and two together will come up with this.

Lucky Beavers In Capable Hands

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Chewing, Beavers, Beavers and Forests, Beavers elsewhere, Urban beavers, Who's saving beavers now? November 10, 2017

I received an update yesterday from the hardy Judy Taylor-Atkinson of Port Moody Vancouver who is working to save the beavers at the development where she lives. She is doing a wonderful job focusing public attention on the beavers and getting the community interested in them. In fact she’s doing SUCH a fine job that I’m pretty sure at this point our beavers are jealous.

Yesterday she wrote this:

We had our first mini crisis last week when the beavers knocked down a large unwrapped black cottonwood tree and it landed on a homeowners fence, just damaging it slightly. I was immediately notified by people in our neighbourhood who love the beavers and I went to work posting messages on our community facebook page and notifying the city arborist, Steve, (who actually likes the beavers) and requesting the trees in that area be wrapped. Steve sent his two staff, Alex and Doug, who have been trained by Adrian Nelson on the proper way to wrap trees, the next day.

My facebook post read –

“Jim just came back and Silverlining landscape have removed the top of the aspen tree and Jim advised them to leave the branches and cuttings close to the stream bank for the beavers. We will meet with the city arborist today and wrap that stand of trees. The beavers have been eating mostly willow, dogwood, poplar and shrubs. Some trees will be wrapped and others will be left as food sources because there is a natural balance between beavers and trees. Beavers open up the tree canopy to let light in and smaller trees will grow. Some species of trees, like willow, have evolved with beavers and they actually grow faster if a beaver chops them down. The greenbelt is changing from a “stream” ecosystem to a “pond” ecosystem.”

That post seemed to settle everyone down (Jim is my husband). The next day, I posted a picture of Doug and Alex wrapping the trees with the post –

“Thank you to Doug and Alex for wrapping the cottonwoods this morning and to Steve (our city arborist) for his valuable knowledge about our trees along Pigeon Creek. Steve said they are busy right now removing downed trees throughout the city (due to a bad combination of drought followed by intense rain and now a cold snap).”

Thankfully, Steve, the city arborist seems to be quite supportive (and interested) in the beavers. When the beavers first turned up a year ago Steve didn’t know anything about them and now you should hear him! He knows what kind of trees they prefer (and why), which trees offer the most nutrition for beavers (cottonwoods, poplars) and he’s not concerned about the willows at all. He just has to make sure the trees don’t fall on a building and now he has a plan to wrap those trees. He has also been along the stream and is quite sure that the trees the beavers could potentially knock down will not fall away from the stream.

Isn’t that wonderful? She is committed to making beaver friends wherever she goes, and NOW those lucky beavers even have an arborist who is learning to love them! (Does Martinez even have an arborist? Or know the word?) I asked for her permission to share this because I think it is inspiring to others who are thinking of doing something similar. She and her husband are hard at work in the community encouraging, explaining and de-mystifying beaver behavior. I wish very much I could resist this little rhyme that has crept into my mind, because she deserves so much better, but there’s no avoiding it now.

Thank heavens for Judy
On duty
In Port Moody

There’s excellent beaver management news this morning from Idaho where the watershed guardians just installed a pond leveler for veterans day. Given the hard time that many beavers face in the Gem state, these critters are lucky indeed! Great work Mike Settell and team Pocatello!

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“Thank you, Bruce, for serving on the Watershed Guardians board, providing inspiration, leadership and flatout hard work. We will honor your volunteerism by carrying on our work to help the Portneuf River Watershed, one beaver at a time!”