Category: Beavers and Forests

Wyoming Wonders

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? July 22, 2017

Whew! Things are back to normal. The solar unit needs insurance, I woke up at 4 and my email has completely stopped working. That seems more like it. While I try and manage radio silence if you need to reach me try this. Mean while there’s still plenty to talk about.

Starting with our friends Wyominguntrapped. They have some pretty heavy hitters as partners, including the Forest Service. The beaver awareness project website was launched yesterday and looks awesome. The program director said yesterday that her dream was to have their own beaver festival one day.:-)

Following several meetings between the Forest Service and Wyoming Untrapped in which the benefits that beavers have to the forest were a topic, an idea was formed that would bring together many community partners and would help to reestablish populations of beavers on National Forest Service land.

There is a lack of tolerance for beavers as well as a lack of public awareness of the benefits that beavers provide ecologically. Beavers are an integral keystone species that gets little attention by wildlife managers but have substantial, positive impacts to the ecosystem. Increasing knowledge and a love of beavers in children will increase the understanding of this unique species which will lead to a growth in tolerance and co-existence with this valuable, beneficial species. Students will gain scientific knowledge about hydrology, ecology, biology, and engineering using hands-on solutions to real-world problems. Students will gain knowledge of careers by meeting members of the community to whom they are rarely exposed.

Go to their website and check it out, but there are a few special treasures I want to focus on today. In addition to our lovely poster and links to this site they have some fantastic footage by Filmmaker Jeff Hogan. If his name sounds familiar it should because every single PBS or BBC documentary you have seen of the region uses his work. And with good reason. This footage complete took me by surprise.

I’ve been doing this every morning since Bush was president. I’ve watched 25 beavers grow up and 5 beavers die and seen things I never expected time and time again. But this blew me away. Seriously. Watch it.

Beaver Centerfold

heidi08 Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? July 15, 2017

Yesterday the bookmarks arrived and they are every BIT as cute as you might imagine. Jon ran some over to our buddies at Parks and Recreation and the oohed and passed them around with glee. Yesterday was also very exciting because I suddenly realized I didn’t have the contract for the solar panel, and fell into a state of panic that I hadn’t ordered it this year. What if all the bands were lined up and the sound guy was there and there was NO SOUND! I called them in alarm only to find out that every single representative was at a big meeting and they would call me on monday. I must have sounded so truly forlorn that they made Ryan call me back from the meeting – which I found out was IN HAWAII by the way – YES they would help me, not a problem, but please let the man go back to his hawaii meeting so he can spend the last part of his last weekend at the beach.

Whew.

Good lord. That was close. I know I spoke to someone about something way back in March, but I also know nothing is firm without a contract and they need us to show our event insurance will cover their panel and these things take time. Three weeks should do it. So that’s good.

Meanwhile our friend Kent Woodruff at Methow was being rewarded by a lovely, slick magazine profile in the outdoor clothing store of Filson’s. Even though the head quarters is in Seattle they have a store in San Francisco so I have NO idea why they aren’t donating to the beaver festival, but good for Ken (again), it’s still lovely to share.

Region 6: Planting Beavers, Raising Waters

Beaver ponds store a lot of water. Millions of gallons. And scientists are now realizing that reintroducing the animals to struggling streams is a way to buck a drying trend. This Filson Life is part of Filson’s celebration of the Forest Service and the people of the Pacific Northwest Region of the USFS, Region 6.
As the Northwest gets less snow, Kent Woodruff says it needs more beavers.

Less snow means less rainfall. Less rainfall means less water for farms and streams – which leads to a decrease in spawning ground and shelter for salmon. Beavers dam streams and streams flood their floodplains, which produces more trees for more dams and provides millions of gallons of water for everything in the vicinity. It even provides shade for salmon.

“One of the things we know is that beavers improve streams,” says Woodruff, a beaver biologist with the Forest Service. “Beavers make things better by adding complexity to streams to enhance everything that needs to happen out there.”

For the past ten years Woodruff has been the driving force behind the Methow Beaver Project, a partnership that relocates problem beavers – those that have dammed up irrigation ditches or felled high-value fruit trees – from private land to mountain streams in the National Forest surrounding Central Washington’s Methow Valley.

“We’re in a very water-limited situation in the Methow Valley,” he says. “So we do this balancing act between the towns, the rural folks, the agriculturalists, and the fish. To find a natural solution in beavers for water storage and temperature moderation, which are critical limiting factors to endangered salmon, is really exciting to what we do.”

After trapping a problem beaver, Woodruff temporarily keeps it at an old fish hatchery that he’s set up with beaver homes. He’s found that relocating beavers is best done with male-female pairs, and he waits until he traps a beaver of the opposite sex before pairing the two at the fish hatchery. He then transplants the pair—with a bundle of sticks and willow switches they’ve been chewing at the hatchery—to a suitable, beaver-free stream in the forest.

“We’ve found that a male-female pair is a lot more sticky than just a lone beaver,” he says. “Two of them are more likely to stay where we put them than just one.”

Half a dozen universities are making plans to use his beaver restoration work as laboratories to answer questions about the role of wetlands in the larger ecosystem. How much carbon does a large beaver complex store? How do beaver ponds contribute to the insect life of a river? How many gallons of water are stored in the spongy soil surrounding a wetland? Interns, graduate students, and Ph.D. candidates from colleges and universities around the Northwest will show up in the Methow Valley this summer to work toward answering those questions.

Woodruff and Johnson estimate that their pro-beaver message reached 2.8 million people in 2015. The benefits of beavers, Woodruff says, are becoming more widely recognized. Biologists in Canada, Mexico, and Europe are interested in the work coming out of the Methow Valley and elsewhere around the region.

“California is very interested in modernizing its approach to beavers,” Woodruff says.

“Washington state is beginning to take similar steps. We’re talking to people in Britain where beavers have been extinct for 600 years, and now in the past ten years they have them in five different places. Idaho has a fledgling relocation program, too. It feels to me like we are just getting started learning where beavers could help.”

Nice review! Wonderful to see beaver benefits emphasized. This is a rugged outdoor clothing profile so they chose the strapping young Ph.D. candidate for the photo, which is foolish because Ken’s very handsome and there are way more mature shoppers than young ones, but never mind. It’s a nice spread with a good focus on salmon and water and I’m very grateful about that. Of course I’m very impatient with ANY article that mentions problem beavers without talking about beaver solutions.

But still.

I confess I was alarmed reading that in 2015 reached their message reached 2.8 million people, because how on earth is that even possible? This meager website gets 10,000 hits a week, and over 10 years that’s maybe 1 million, but how are they so much more visible than we are? What’s WRONG with us? But then I though they maybe meant through Sarah’s great film, which was wonderful and really allowed a lot of people very quickly to learn the story of why beavers matter. And they have more supporting players (NGO’s and GO’s) than god. And plus, people are always happier thinking they’re doing good for the environment when they get rid of beavers than when someone tells them to keep them.

But I admit it. I had beaver envy.

SNF: Every Beaver Everywhere

I try to stay beaver-centric on this website, but once in a great while an article about general ecology grabs and holds my attention so much that I can’t entirely escape. Besides, this entire article might as be about beavers anyway. Every Single Beaver Everywhere.

The big ecological roles of small natural features

Ecologists and conservationists have long recognized that keystone species have major ecological importance disproportionate to their abundance or size. Think beavers, sea stars and prairie dogs—species that >Similarly across landscapes, the keystone concept of disproportionate importance extends to other ecological elements, such as salt marshes in estuaries. Now an international group of researchers is exploring the disproportionate ecological importance of small natural features—unique environmental elements that provide significant ecological and economic impacts.

Desert springs. Caves harboring bat colonies. Rocky outcrops. Strips of natural vegetation edging agricultural fields. Riparian zones. Small coral heads. Tiny islands. Large old trees.

These small natural features are often overlooked, relatively vulnerable yet environmentally mighty in their ecosystem. They also are at the opposite end of the spatial scale from the Earth’s large conservation superstars—the Serengeti, Yellowstone and the Great Barrier Reef.

Or hey, maybe an unexpected beaver pond in an city stream? Sustaining unique habitat even in the middle of town?

Small natural features have big ecological roles, according to the 37 researchers from 11 countries writing in a Special Issue of “Biological Conservation.” Sometimes they can provide resources that limit key populations or processes that influence a much larger area. Sometimes they support unusual diversity, abundance or productivity.

They also are small enough to efficiently maintain or restore, while traditional land-use activities continue in close proximity, such as forestry, fishing and grazing.

“Small natural features are an example of what can be termed ‘The Frodo Effect,'” writes Malcolm Hunter, University of Maine professor of wildlife resources and Libra Professor of Conservation Biology, in the journal introduction.

“In the ‘Lord of the Rings,’ the small and unassuming hobbit Frodo has more strength than any of his larger peers and saves Middle Earth with his brave actions,” says Hunter. “Gandalf and the rest of the fellowship of the ring go to great ends to protect him, because they know this.”

And you thought that only techs could be geeks. Apparently what Star Wars is to silicon valley, Tolkein is to biologists. They love thems some Frodo. We’ll let them have their fun, but that’s silly, because it’s not even the passage I would have chosen for this significant contribution played by very small things.

“For you little gardener and lover of trees,’ she said to Sam, ‘I have only a small gift.’ She put into his hand a little box of plain grey wood, unadorned save for a single silver rune upon the lid… ‘In this box there is earth from my orchard, and such blessing as Galadriel has still to bestow is upon it. It will not keep you on your road, nor defend you against any peril; but if you keep it and see your home again at last, then perhaps it may reward you. Though you should find all barren and laid waste, there will be few gardens in Middle-earth that will bloom like your garden, if you sprinkle this earth there. Then you may remember Galadriel, and catch a glimpse far off of Lórien….”

Isn’t that much better? Now let’s get back to the subject of this article. Small natural features (SNF) like a big oak tree, or a small rock outcropping, or even a drowned stump in the river, are often the nexus around which a collection of wildlife is gathered. And if it wasn’t there, the collection wouldn’t be either. More than this, the researchers argue that actually saving that frog pond or small stand of trees beside the field might have as important an impact as a large scale restoration project that costs hundreds of thousands more dollars.

Will someone PLEASE argue this case in court to save a beaver pond in the next 6 months?

Every time an individual city or landowner makes the decision NOT to rip out a beaver dam, they are allowing one of these important SNF’s to exist. And every time they trap a beaver they are destroying one. Don’t believe me? Here’s some of the biodiversity our friend Rusty Cohn photographed at the tulocay beaver pond between a hotel and a car dealership in downtown Napa last week.

Beavers can change things if we can change things for beavers

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water June 24, 2017

Yesterday I found out that the Martinez Library pastport project will conclude on the day of the beaver festival. And features a beaver Herald! Of course I immediately made friends with the organizer and arranged to have postcards of our event on display.

On Monday I’m off to Auburn to present on the beaver-salmon connection to our friends at SARSAS again. Apparently I’ve worn down Mary Tappel because she isn’t presenting there as well for the first time since calendars were invented. But there will still be plenty of controversy. On Thursday they got an email from a member opposed to beavers who dramatically said he had seen a 20 inch salmon skewered on the protruding stick of a beaver dam just down stream. Whatever research is being presented by me about beavers, it doesn’t apply to streams in Placer Country, because Gold Country!

Once again Pigpen’s cloud of controversy will follow me wherever I go. Wish me luck!

Back where I come from there are men and women who do nothing but good deeds for beavers all day, they are called… good deed doers! Just look at a sample of their work.

Taylor Creek Visitor Center to host family-friendly nature, bird festivals

The “Wild Tahoe Weekend” kicks off on Saturday, June 24, with the sixth annual Native Species Festival. Field professionals will lead nature walks, and a variety of agencies from around the basin will be hosting educational booths and activities for all ages.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will have live Lahontan cutthroat trout in an aquarium, California State Parks will have stuffed examples of native birds of prey, and Sierra Wildlife Coalition will discuss beavers and coyotes. The Friends of Grover Hot Springs will also be on hand to discuss invasive species.

[Ed’s note] “which the beaver is NOT”. Good work Sherry and Ted! Because sometimes you do good work on the front lines, and sometimes in the back room there’s this from beaver guardian Stan Petowski.

OK seven years of work with a great group of people. Salem, Oregon yesterday the Governor ceremonially signed Senate Bill 3. This law protects approximately 23,000 miles of Oregon river system salmon and lamprey habitat from suction dredge mining. The law was approved by a bipartisan vote in the Oregon House and Senate. Lots of work with savvy people. Thank you all for working with me and teaching me to work with you. Native Fish Society, Mark P. Sherwood and Jake Crawford, thank you so much for carrying so much of the weight.

Approved!

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Who's saving beavers now? June 21, 2017

Beaver Festival 10 was officially approved by the Parks, Recreation, Marina and Cultural Commission last night, including the waving of park fees for the event. Michael Chandler assured me they were implementing the proposal to extend wifi to the park and Daniel Radke the chair thanked me for my generous 10 years of service. There were no challenges or questions, just an easy fast approval.

Some things have indeed changed in a decade.

Then I found out from Frances that her ‘idea city’ presentation had gone very well over the weekend and was currently available to watch. It’s a delightful 17 minutes that packs a huge punch showing why beavers matter, although I wish she had squeezed in a little information on how to live with them. You should really watch it from start to finish. Even if you have been in the beaver business longer than I have, it will surprise you.