Beavers and Forests – Page 44

Blame it on the Rodent Again

heidi08 Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Beavers or Social Ambasadors, Creative Solutions, Who's saving beavers now? December 6, 2015

Last night, this was the headline on Iowa’s The Gazette:

Discerning readers will be scratching their head and saying, “hey that’s not a beaver”. And they’d be right. It’s actually a ground hog! The paper posted a mislabeled photo by mistake. I wrote the author, Michael Castranova, last night and he immediately wrote back. This morning there is no photo, only a very interesting article about the pilgrims and the fur trade.

The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World, a New History,” explains that, “In the 1620s, a single beaver pelt fetched the same amount of money required to rent nine acres of English farmland for a year.”

So to Weston and the Fellowship, this seemed liked a reasonable business risk: Put up the cash for a number determined folk who were in a rush to flee the country — King James I referred to the Puritans as “pestes,” and the 30-Years War was about to chase them out of the Netherlands where these one-time farmers had taken up clothing-factory jobs — and then, oh boy, just wait for those spiffy beaver pelts to come flowing back.

But as with many a business venture, several calculations came undone. One of the two hired ships sprung more leaks than a rusty colander and had to turn back. And, in their dash to get going, they’d shipped out in September 1620 rather than wait until spring. That meant by the time they reached North America, two months later, planting season — and one assumes, beaver-catching season — was well and truly past.

And, even worse, they landed 200 miles off course. What they found upon arrival was not other colonists but “a whole country of woods and thickets.” Almost half the colonists died that first winter, and the Mayflower was sent back to England in 1621 with no financial benefit for the investors.

Now I knew Canada was settled by folk looking for beaver pelts, but I had NO IDEA America was. The price of a pelt was worth a year’s rent for 9 acres of farmland? Think about that, nearly a decade in a prime live-work space that will provide your home and your income. For one lousy beaver. Who knew? I think when I made this graphic years ago I was just kidding. Apparently it was almost true, or would have been true if they knew how to find them. Considering that in 1620 when they left there hadn’t been beaver in England for nearly 200 years. Nobody knew what they looked like. And nobody’s grandfather could tell them how to catch one.

Onto a great article from Louise Ramsay about the issue of farmers shooting beavers, this time in the ecologist.

Scotland’s wild beaver ‘shoot to kill’ policy is illegal and wrong

The Tay Beavers began when three of the animals escaped from a wildlife park in 2001. Nine years later, having bred and dispersed and been added to by subsequent escapes from enclosures in the same catchment, they came under threat of official elimination in the autumn of 2010.

A campaign to save them led to a SNH study that estimated their numbers at 106-187 (midpoint 147) in 2012 and mapped their spread across hundreds of square miles of the linked catchments of the Earn and Tay, from Rannoch to Comrie, Blair Atholl, Forfar and Bridge of Earn.

The presence of beavers and the wetlands that they build also brings great improvements in biodiversity, and the mitigation of both flooding and drought by re-naturalisation of the waterways. Recent research by Dr Alan Law has shown how beaver dams reduce peak flow by an average of 18 hours. A fact he tweeted in reaction to a farmer who falsely accused the beavers of having made the flooding worse.

In California, beavers are also credited with restoring rivers, wetlands and watersheds, creating conditions for the return of Coho salmon and increases in their populations.

We are calling on SNH and the Scottish Government to immediately place a moratorium on the shooting of beavers as another breeding season approaches, and to afford the animals the legal protection they are due as soon as possible.

But above all the two bodies – and nature lovers everywhere – need to recognise that the return to Scotland of this wonderful keystone species is something to be enjoyed and celebrated.

Nicely done, Louise. There are grand videos on the article too, as well as a link to Maria Finn’s California beaver article, so go see for yourself. Probably more so than any woman on the planet I feel a deep kinship with Louise who’s mild-mannered life was completely transformed by some unsuspecting beavers. She’s done a valiant job trying to keep all the correct people talking to each other, and managing some pretty challenging personalities with a single goal. And now, after finally getting the reprieve from the government they worked so hard to achieve, she is dealing with farmers shooting the beavers she worked to save.

Battle on!

From hats to heroes

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? November 28, 2015

Looks like Frances Backhouse book has hit the Canadian market in time for the holidays and is making quite an impression. I hope she sells many, many copies! I’m imagining Christmas morning all around the hemisphere is filled with happy fathers, grandmas, CEOS and science teachers reading about beavers over their morning coffee.

(Mind you, it would be great if she had a few extra copies lying around left over to donate to the silent auction at the beaver festival.)

Review: Frances Backhouse’s Once They Were Hats is fascinating and smartly written

Backhouse plots an absorbing itinerary that takes the reader on a tour of beaver habitats, as well as stops at a fast and furious Toronto fur auction and a visit to Smithbilt Hats, the legendary Calgary maker of western headwear. Among Smithbilt’s creations is the “Gus,” worn by Robert Duvall’s character in the series Lonesome Dove. Today, you can buy a wool version of the Gus from the company’s website for $110, but the highly prized, incomparably durable, full beaver model will run you $1,000. Sounds steep until you consider the guarantee that, “Once you get one, you’ll never need another.”

Most importantly, Backhouse identifies the beaver as a “keystone species.” By that definition, the beaver is “central to how a particular ecological community functions.” As such, its “effect on other animals and plants is disproportionately large.” Looking forward, the beaver’s positive impact on hydrology and water conservation could lessen the impact of drought caused by climate change. While not presented as a panacea, a strong case is made for how a “détente” between Homo sapiens and Castor canadensis can work to the benefit of both.

Hot dam! Beavers — extremely weird, and essential to who we are

Once They Were Hats is deeply, enthrallingly, page-turningly fascinating. Backhouse plays two roles in Once They Were Hats: narrator and historian; in one chapter she may be investigating the evolution of the beaver species — visiting the Canadian Museum of Nature’s warehouse to look at some whittled, wooden evidence of prehistoric beaver-like animals — and in another she is describing through dialogue her visit with a Native elder, whose Deisheetaan clan held the beaver as a crest animal. It’s in this way that Once They Were Hats is both a reliable source of scientific information and an interesting anthropological text, drawing two parallel lines through Canadian history: one human, one beaver.

Biologists began to redefine the beaver’s ecological significance — which is as or more interesting than its historical one. Beavers, like few other species, dictate their environments: their tendency toward deforestation has informed the evolution of many plant species, and the dams they build affect waterways and irrigation. They literally transform the landscape: One wetland scientist late in Once They Were Hats tells Backhouse that the near-extinction of beavers “fundamentally changed the way watersheds operate.”

How exciting for a beaver book to be heralded in this way! Congratulations Frances, and I hope it continues to generate adulations. I’m always especially thrilled to see folks talking about beaver benefits in the press. I would of course assume that this meant great things for beavers if I were not SO old that I remember the reviews of Glynnis Hood’s book that pronounced beaver as an “eco-saviour” and how dizzying that glorious inevitability seemed at the time. I was naive enough to write about it as “the New Gold Standard” in 2011, because I was sure the world’s attitude toward beavers was going to finally change at any moment.

Not so much. I guess Canadians are happy to celebrate beaver at regular intervals – just so long as they can keep killing them.

Kudos also to our good friend Robin Ellison from Napa whose lovely photos from the Tulocay beaver pond graced not one but two months of 2016 RCD calendar! A fine kit and a very regal pond turtle. You realize of course, that once adorable beaver kits adorn the watershed calendar the birds and otters are going to have to fight for space. Expect more grand beaver photos next year. The calendar isn’t for sale, but if you make a donation I’m sure they’ll let you pick one up at the RCD office (1303 Jefferson St, Suite 500B, Napa).

Bonus points for putting the beaver on my birthday month.

Beaver and Taiga

heidi08 Beavers and Forests, Beavers elsewhere November 23, 2015

The Boreal forest (or Taiga) is the largest biomes in the world and our greatest ally in the seemingly unwinnable war against carbon. It consists of hardwood and deciduous forests occurring between the 50 and 60 latitude belt across Canada, parts of North America, Scandinavia and Finland. The climate where it grows has short wet summers and long cold winters. It is always in danger of being logged out, and every time we lose a little of it the earth itself pays the price.

Guess who helps Taiga do what she needs to do?

Beavers restore dead wood in boreal forests

Dead wood has decreased dramatically in the boreal zone due to intensive forest management. Several species dependent on dead wood have suffered from this decline. Beavers dam water systems, raising floods into surrounding shore forests. The flooding kills the trees due to oxygen deprivation.

Researchers at the University of Helsinki, Finland, compared dead wood quantities and types in southern Finland. The shore forests of beaver sites had significantly larger quantities of dead wood compared to non-beaver sites. Beavers use wood for nutrition and as the building material for their nests and dams. This wood resource is used up by the beavers’ actions within a few years, forcing the beavers to change location. This creates several dead wood hotspots in the area, benefitting a large number of species.

Certain dead wood types have become exceptionally rare in managed forests, e.g. standing dead trees (snags) and deciduous dead wood. Beavers create a wide variety of dead wood types, but they particularly produce standing and deciduous dead wood. The dead wood-dependent species living at beaver sites may differ from those found in managed forests or fire areas.

Honestly beavers have been featured in so many Phys.org articles this year I think they need a new section entirely. Don’t you? How much more proof to we need? Wait, don’t answer that.

I’ll see if I can float the idea, but in the meantime, you should amuse yourself with the grisly native story sent to me by Dorrie Langley of the Martinez Arts Association. See if you don’t read it as a hard hitting metaphor for the devastating fur trade. It was collected and published by Russell K Greater.

Replace the word ‘eat’ with the word ‘consume’ and it works for me. Trappers definitely stink. And besides it certainly explains this!