Category: Beavers and Forests

Not an April Fool’s Beaver joke

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? April 1, 2016

*On the river Isla: beavers’ bankside felling and stream damming creates a complex habitat that feeds many species. Photograph: Louise Gray*

Beavers pool effort in watery DIY

The dipper bobbing along the top of the dam looks oddly smart in this drunken landscape, his clean white bib reflected in the water below. All around is chaos. The beavers have felled most of the bankside birch, sycamore and other trees they like to eat and use for their dams.

Beavers work at night. During the day it is only humans tap-tapping away with their hammers, building a hide above the Cateran trail to allow walkers to catch a glimpse of the creature that engineered this bog.

Pink-footed geese fly overhead on their way back to Greenland, rooks caw in the beech trees, a charm of chaffinches sing from the dead branches of an alder, and black-headed gulls follow a tractor ploughing in the distance.

Spraint smeared on a rock announces that otters are here too. They have a rather one-sided relationship with beavers. The otters benefit from the increase in fish and invertebrates around the dams. Come spring they will also hunt the vulnerable beaver kits, obliging the mother beaver, twice the size of the predatory mustelid, to patrol the lodge.

The dams, constructed of twigs and branches laid on top of one another, are constantly being repaired and rebuilt to create a series of pools and canals where the beavers can move safely undetected and build entrances to their lodges and subsidiary burrows underwater.

The Burnieshed has been re-braided: forced into narrow rivulets it rushes and tumbles, waiting in pools it fizzes and foams. On Baikie Burn, another tributary of the Isla, the beaver dam has been cleared away, but not before a field nearby was flooded.

A swath of winter wheat is dead, drowned and scorched by the sun. The only sign of life is the tracks of a roe deer pricked into the earth. The burn flows quietly now, past a mink trap and beneath the road.

This article by Louise Gray is a vibrant look at the beaver pond and the many creatures who benefit from it. Environmental writer to the Telegraph and freelance author, Louise has really captured the pond here. I couldn’t be more impressed. She must have spent many hours at the Ramsey’s beaver pond or read this website over many consecutive days! Honestly, she hits every beaver improvement made, right down to the invertebrates and re-braiding rivers. This article is so well written and beautifully phased it reminds me of this:

Onto a slightly less informed but no less passionate article from the editor of the New Carlisle News in Ohio where a Wetlands is being monitored and attended to just outside the town of New Carlisle.

Group Promotes Appreciation for New Carlisle Wetland Species

So there’s a wetlands site in New Carlisle, and it’s kind of a big deal. Laden with unique and threatened plant species, the Brubaker Wetlands is hidden away just a stone’s throw from downtown, and I feel very comfortable calling it the city’s best-kept secret.

Tucked away just off the bike trail that runs through Smith Park, the wetlands truly are a separate microcosm within the city’s hustle and bustle, as the setting is somewhat surreal—full of strange, sometimes stinky plants popping up from the sodden ground—giving the visitor the impression that they’ve stepped far back in time.

One New Carlisle family is devoted to studying the wetlands and sparking an interest in the unique site among fellow residents. Having plans to schedule monthly cleanups along the trail and at the edge of the wetlands, as well as an upcoming snake survey, Nathan Ehlinger has lead the charge of bringing awareness to the unique site rich in biological diversity.

Ehlinger is a biologist who grew up in New Carlisle within sight of the wetlands. Now raising his own three children, he realized how significant the site is for its diversity and positive impact on the city’s drinking water, so he decided to promote it, hoping to instill appreciation for the wetlands in the younger generation.

Hurray! Appreciation for wetlands! In Ohio! A biologist who’s looking out for them! Monthly trail cleanups and classroom education! He invites the editor down to have a look at the outdoors he’s trying to defend. I’m almost entirely thrilled.

Almost.

He noted that the city even has its resident beaver, which has constructed at least five dams in one section of the wetlands. He pointed out that the beaver hasn’t caused any problems, but instead, works to control water levels and create open areas that are ideal for other animal species.

“The engineering of his den provides a habitat for migrating birds, and fish,” Ehlinger said of the beaver’s natural instincts to build.

Raise you’re hand when you see the worrisome part. I’ll wait. Read it again if you need to. “The engineering of his DEN provides habitat for migrating birds and fish.” That’s right. I just connected with Mr. Ehlinger and he assures me he was misquoted. He understands beavers don’t live in the dam and he’s very interested in what we’ve done in Martinez. It never ceases to amaze me, though how many people confuse the concept of lodge/den and dam. I would think some part of them would harken back to their days playing in the mud or building sandcastles as a child. How much water can you possibly hold back with a hollow wall? Beaver dams are solid. Nothing lives inside them, except some very happy invertebrates I guess.

Fish and Game planted beavers in Contra Costa County

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Environmental, History, Who's saving beavers now? March 30, 2016

Did I once know this and just forgot? Did you know? I was stunned to read this paragraph in Donald Tappe’s report. Maybe I was so mortified before by all the inaccuracies it just didn’t register.

I bet you wonder where those beavers went in good ole CCC, don’t you? Well, if you were me, your computer would be cluttered with every paper written by fish and game about beavers in the first fifty years of the 20th century. Leftover from our research days. You could fairly quickly locate this:

Which would let you flip to this.

If this is too small to read, click on it twice to expand. It says that in September and December of 1940, 5 male and 2 female beavers were released in wildcat creek, which flows through tilden and fills lake Anza and Jewel lake. They were released at at an elevation of 50 feet which suggest to me that Mr. Stewart lived somewhere in the area and brought some beavers home to try them out, then tried again at Christmas break. Wildcat creek flows from Alameda County to the mouth of San Pablo bay in Contra Costa. It exits North of Richmond about 35 miles as the beaver swims from Martinez.

In all, 290 beaver were live trapped and released all over California, from Ventura to San Francisco and Plumas counties. Because at that time, the California Department of Fish and Game believed beaver were valuable.

Which is pretty dam amazing.

BeaverTrans_34-D-2_1923_1949

Ascending Beaver Stars

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? March 26, 2016

Today is full of inspiration. I couldn’t be happier. We can start with this fantastic story.

After Muskrats Damaged Pond, Beaver Moves In to Make Repairs

Noelker’s parents, the late Walter and Evelyn Noelker, had built the pond some 80 years ago, and the family used to fish in it.

Then a few years back, muskrats showed up and began burrowing holes into the pond bank, damaging it to the point where it was too weak to hold up anymore, said Noelker. A section of the bank gave way and the pond was drained down to just 3 feet or so of water.

Then about six months ago, Noelker — who can see the pond from his house in neighboring Forest Hills subdivision — noticed the pond looked deeper again, back to its original 8- or 9- foot depth.

When he showed up to investigate he found his answer in a row of tree stumps with pointy tips surrounding the pond and a water-tight dam made from those felled tree trunks, other sticks and mud.

A beaver or a family of them had moved in and repaired the hole in the bank that had been created by muskrats.

How much do you LOVE this story? Not only does Mr. Noelker let nature take its course, he also has the good sense to recognize the help the beaver is providing. If I told you to close your eyes and guess what state this is from you’d be right. The beaver IQ capital of the world: Washington.

“We don’t care that the beaver is here. He’s our buddy now,” Leon Noelker said, smiling.

He rents a cottage on the property and wishes he could see them. We wanna stay! Trust me, they will be amply visible in the coming fine summer days that seem to stretch forever. Those hungry kits will wake up before the sun goes down and then he’ll be in for a real treat. Muskrats AND beavers!

Every beaver’s great friend Glynnis Hood is back in the news, this time international.

Beaver Hills area named UNESCO biosphere reserve

*Glynnis Hood, professor of environmental science at Augustana Campus, lives near Lake Miquelon and guides students’ research in the wetlands of the Beaver Hills area.*

An ecologically rich area of Alberta that is home to a University of Alberta research station and fertile ground for dozens of researchers over the years has won international recognition.

Home to a mix of preserved wetlands, green rolling hills and dense boreal forests, the Beaver Hills area east of Edmonton has been designated as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Biosphere Reserve, under its Man and the Biosphere Programme. The area joins a network of 669 sites in 120 countries that foster ecologically sustainable human and economic development. Researchers from various faculties at the U of A have conducted dozens of studies there over the last 30 years, focused on work ranging from wildlife and outdoor recreation to wetlands and land management.

“It’s a hidden gem,” added Glynnis Hood, an associate professor of environmental science based at the U of A’s Augustana Campus. “Beaver Hills is spectacular because of its subtle beauty. There are ecological surprises around every corner, because you’re not looking for the big features like mountains, but for the small surprises.” One of those surprises is the fisher, a weasel thought to be gone from the area that seems to have a healthy population and is now the subject of a collaborative University of Victoria study involving Augustana Campus.

“The Beaver Hills biosphere offers a rich opportunity to keep exploring questions that are right in our own backyard,” said Hood, who lives near Miquelon Lake and has for years guided students in researching area wetlands. She’s also studied human-wildlife conflicts and is currently researching low-impact wetland management practices.

Okay, I’ll let you guess what habitat-restoring engineer has been working hard to keep beaver hills so biodiverse. I’ll even give you a hint: they named the hills after them. We are always thrilled to see the way Glynnis continues to demonstrate their effect on habitat, and our need for wetlands. Now we have UNESCO appreciating her good work as well. This sentence intrigued me.

Last year she and colleague Glen Hvenegaard led the first field course in environmental science and ecology at the Miquelon Lake Research Station, which opened in 2015.

If that name sounds really familiar it should. Dr. Hvenegaard is the author of this paper on the importance of wildlife festivals which is very near to my heart.

Potential Conservation Benefits of Wildlife Festivals

Wildlife festivals promote a variety of social, educational, economic, recreational, and community development goals. As ecotourism activities, wildlife festivals should also promote conservationgoals. This article examines five potential conservation benefits of wildlife festivals which can be generated by providing: 1) incentives to establish protected areas; 2) revenue for wildlife and habitat management; 3) economic impact to nearby areas, encouraging residents to conserve wildlife; 4) alternatives to other uses that cause more environmental damage; and 5) support for conservation by educating local and nonlocal participants.

Truly a kindred spirit of ours. I’m glad they’re working together to teach the importance of interconnected ecosystems and getting out in them!

A final stunning moment comes this morning from Rusty Cohn of Napa. He used his drone to aerial film the creek and beaver lodge. Yesterday he and Robin Ellison met with the Geography Masters student I met at the State of the beaver conference last year. Alexandra Costello. She interviewed me for an urban beaver paper she’ll be doing a poster session for this year at the upcoming Geography conference in SF. While she’s in the area she wanted to see some urban dams. Robin and Rusty were only two happy to assist. The three had a fantastic visit and really surprised her, because even it’s ‘under construction’ spring state, the Napa dam was still bigger than the urban ones she’d seen in Portland. Those are made entirely of grass and mud, she said, with no sticks.

Roosevelt win!

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Forests, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? March 24, 2016

One for the good guys! Team beaver did a wonderful job in Roosevelt forest, Connecticut. Apparently there was enough of an outpouring that the powers that be actually stopped what they were doing and listened for once. Hurray!

Forest Commission to endorse beaver trapping ban

The uproar caused by the trapping and killing of beavers in Roosevelt Forest will prompt the forest’s commissioners to call for a ban on trapping.

Forest Commission Chairman Bob David said Tuesday that the commission is expected to approve a resolution that would ban trapping of animals or birds in the forest or any public park in town. The commission will vote on the measure at its meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Town Hall.

The resolution reads in part that the town code “prohibits hunting and trapping in Roosevelt Forest” and states that “No person shall do any hunting or trapping of any game birds or animals or discharge any firearms of any kind whatsoever, set any traps or use any bows or other devices for the taking of any birds or animals within the bounds and limits of Roosevelt Forest or any public park located in the Town of Stratford.”

The resolution would also call for the creation of a nuisance Wildlife Subcommittee “to create a long-term wildlife management plan to preserve the forest for safe and enjoyable usage by all town residents for decades to come.”

Hurray for the good folk involved! Protests, letters and public comment. Sometimes it takes enough of a clamor that that you become harder to live with than the beaver problems they’re trying to eliminate. Martinez should know.

Word of the trap placement angered Stratford residents and animal lovers in neighboring towns. Many said it was inhumane and unfair for the town to kill beavers when the animals are only doing what comes naturally to them. Town officials said previously that they had tried to remove one of the dams in order to prevent the beavers from rebuilding, but they only rebuilt.

So far, two beavers have been caught and killed in the traps that were set, said Public Safety Director Larry Ciccarelli. The remaining traps that are in place will be removed tonight, he said.

“What’s important is that as [David] and I worked through this problem, we gained more information and we found information that would help manage the situation in a kindler, gentler fashion than we knew at the beginning,” Ciccarelli said.

Ciccarelli said the solution they heard about was something they had not heard about before. The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said state laws prevent the relocation of beavers.

Let’s be clear. Saying they ‘gained more information‘ is a blazing lie, because I know that myself AND Beaver: Wetlands and Wildlife personally wrote them at the start and told them exactly what to do and how to do it. The ‘information‘ they gained is that other people figured this out too, and weren’t going to stop shouting it in their ears any time soon.

Which I admit, is a revelation of sorts.

I am reminded of the old joke about the stubborn mule. A farmer bragged that all he had to do was ask politely and the mule would do anything he wanted. Then he loaned the mule to his neighbor to plow a field. The mule absolutely refused to pull the plow, so the neighbor dragged him back angrily.

“You said he’d do anything I wanted if I just asked politely. You lied! He won’t even pull the plow.”

The farmer stopped what he was doing and picked up a two by four. He walked over to the mule and walloped him aside the head. (Mind you, when I first heard this joke it was much cringe-worthy and involved a pair of bricks and an appendage) Then he smiled.

” You just need to get his attention, first.”

Now, I was told this joke about teaching teenagers, and I never liked it. But it makes dam good sense about city officials and beavers. Just think of Worth A Dam as a big two by four or pair of bricks, and you get the idea.

Whew, is that all? We worried it was something important…

heidi08 Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now? March 23, 2016

In some states a tannerite blast is so common that nobody lifts an eyebrow when Bubba blows out a couple dams. Heck, I’ve heard some folks pack a picnic to go watch because it’s the best date night in town and better than Viagra at getting cranky old men in the mood.

However, in more civilized climes it can come as quite a shock.

Reports of explosion in Oswego County were beaver dam demolition

NEW HAVEN, N.Y. — Dozens of people across several Oswego County towns reported hearing and feeling an explosion Tuesday night that rattled windows.

Oswego County 911 said it received multiple calls about a possible explosion, but the matter was determined to be non-emergency in nature.

State troopers from the Pulaski barracks responded to a location in the town of New Haven where a subject was trying to dismantle a beaver dam, 911 said, which was apparently the noise and shaking people reported. Dispatchers had no other information.

Listen to the 911 dispatch:

Megan James lives on Miner Road in the town of Scriba. James, a nursing student at Crouse Hospital College of Nursing, was studying for a test around Tuesday night.

“And out of nowhere I heard and felt a huge bang,” she said. “My entire house shook and it sounded like someone was either breaking in or drove a car into the side of the house.”

Firefighters searched roads in the towns of Mexico and New Haven for signs of an explosion. After about an hour a dispatcher reported that someone had called and said they had set off Tannerite.

So the terrorist bomb plot of upstate New York turned out to be just a farmer who had watched too many Duck Dynasty episodes. And everyone was relieved and the police could go back to their donuts or speeding tickets and get to work.

Explain to me again why people blow up beaver dams?

Theoretically they believe they are blasting away an obstruction, but given the fact that a shocking number of people mistakenly think beavers live in the dam, I’m assuming they think they’re getting rid of them too. They’re also blowing up fish and ducks and stirring up a host of debris and mud that they’ll blame the beavers for later.

Which makes this call for a tail bounty in North Carolina fairly commonplace when compared to yesterday’s surprising request to have a beaver expert at the wetlands conference.

I’m so foolish I got all excited when I saw this headline.

Beaver help sought

LUMBERTON — A farmer who is concerned about the increase of beavers in the Saddletree community is asking the Robeson County Board of Commissioners for help.

“I bet we have the World Book of Records for beavers in a two- or three-mile area,” Ronald Hammonds told the commissioners on Monday. “We’ve had a record rain and that’s conducive to increasing the beaver number.”

Hammonds told The Robesonian that 30 beavers have been trapped around Saddletree in recent days. He said that dams are popping up everywhere, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimating there are 15 within four miles.

“We need a beaver management program like they have in Columbus County,” he said. “That program offers a bounty to those who will trap beaver. Any successful program needs to include a bounty as an incentive.”

Robeson County already contracts out with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to supply a wildlife specialist to administer the Beaver Management Assistance Program in Robeson County. That program has been conducted in the county for the past two decades and is credited with saving the county money in beaver-related damage to timber, crops, roadways and drainage structures.

Lumberton is so far south in NC that it is almost SC. Wikipedia lists it as having .1 square mile of water, which makes it pretty hard to imagine 30 beavers being trapped. He says all the rain has made the population increase. (You know, because beavers breed more frequently in damp conditions.) Say what you will about the beaver IQ of this farmer, he’s right at least about one thing.

Just destroying the beaver dams is not the solution.