Because the beaver isn't just an animal; it's an ecosystem!

Category: Beavers and Forests


I pretty much think of blogs as the most ridiculous and least read information on the web. I rank it right below that note your mom packed saying to brush your teeth and the .gif of the cat jumping on the counter as soon as its owners leave the house. I am always surprised to remember people read this. And always surprised when other blogs act like they matter.

Kotte,org calls itself one of the oldest on the web and the guardian in 2013 called it one of the 50 most important blogs in the world. So who knows, maybe this matter?

Perhaps the Beavers Will Save Us

Beavers are unusual among animals in their ability to radically alter their habitat. They build dams to turn small streams and flood plains into ponds that they use to store food and hide from predators.

It turns out that this is useful for other species who like to radically alter their habitats, like humans. Let’s say you’ve got a dried out flood plain in California you want to restore in order to mitigate the effects of a drought, or even to help stop wildfires. Why not hire some beavers?

The Doty Ravine project cost about $58,000, money that went toward preparing the site for beavers to do their work.

In comparison, a traditional constructed restoration project using heavy equipment across that much land could cost $1 to $2 million, according to Batt…

“It’s huge when you think about fires in California because time is so valuable,” Fairfax said. “If you can stall the fire, if you can stop it from just ripping through the landscape, even if that beaver pond can’t actually stop the fire itself, just stalling it can give the firefighters a chance to get a hold on it.”

These lush green beaver wetlands also protect wildlife that can’t outrun a wildfire.

Ahhh, its nice when good news travels. It could have traveled a little faster and I wouldn’t complain, but if it creeps its way into consciousness eventually I guess that’s good.

The idea that beavers might be a low-cost, low-impact way to mitigate the destruction of the environment by climate change (and other forms of human meddling) is an attractive one. But we have to be careful not to introduce beavers (or any other species) anyplace where they are unlikely to thrive, or where they’re just going to come into conflict with humans or other species, starting a cycle of destruction all over again.

I can say that beavers have WAY better natures than me, because if I were killed off 2 continents and persecuted for three thousand years you can bet I’d think twice before saving any of you.

Beavers forgive.


That’s the thing about good ideas. The really good ones get stolen and passed off as original. I’m sure there were lot of tossers saying they came up with the theory of evolution too when Origin of the species was first published. From the point of view that getting the word out is the only good thing, it’s still good news.

How a group of beavers prevented a wildfire and saved California a million dollars

Graig Graziosi

A dried-out floodplain in Place County – just north of Sacramento, California – was in perfect condition to fuel wildfires. It was 2014, and California was in the midst of its worst drought in decades. The floodplain was full of dry brush and devoid of moisture. Fire prevention and ecological workers in the state were desperately working to mitigate potential wildfire fuel sources anywhere they could. Ecologists – facing a dangerously dry floodplain and a price tag of $1m to $2m for a major construction project to fix the site – did something surprising. They called in the beavers.

Note that the stealing is so entirely opportunistic that they didn’t even have the sense to get the NAME right. It’s Placer county, you moron. Not Place county. Sheesh. Of course this article isn’t written by “GRAIG” but by Isabella Bloom who was once the intern at the Sacramento Bee and is now at the UCB graduate school of journalism.

The Sacramento Bee spoke with researchers involved in the furry gambit to protect the state and revitalise the land.

Ultimately the Doty Ravine project only cost $58,000, which was used to prepare the land for the beavers to come in and do what they do.

Damon Ciotti, a US Fish and Wildlife Service restoration biologist who led the project, estimated that the beavers would take about a decade to return the dried out land to streams in the region, but the critters blew away his expectations. By year three, water was back in the floodplain.

The success of the project has spun off a number of other projects using beavers for land revitalisation throughout California.

Yeah yeah yeah. We know, Because we read it four days ago in an American paper, you lazy Brit. And besides that’s a ridiculous way to spell “Graig”.

Ms Batt said that federal programmes were beginning to take notice and offer training on how to use beavers for wildfire mitigation, and indicated that universities and nonprofit programmes were also interested.

This stealing must happen ALL the time. Lazy reporters who just rewrite stuff as their own because honestly who is going to know? If I weren’t such a weirdo reading every single article published about beavers I wouldn’t.

This is personal though.

How about a letter to the editor in the register guard which is published in Eugene Oregon.

Fighting fires with beavers

Susan Libby, Eugene

Last summer, Oregon endured the single most flammable year in modern history. Record-setting fire after record-setting fire burned through the state, yet once again we ignore or even kill the water-saving firefighter who would work for free to protect us: the beaver.

Hey, wait a minute, you’re thinking. I read this before, But I don’t think it was about Oregon.

Beavers save water and reduce the risk and severity of wildfire. They do it all day, at zero taxpayer expense. Their ponds have been consistently shown to increase biodiversity from stoneflies to steelhead. Beaver ponds help fish survive at a time when the Pacific Coast is hemorrhaging salmon.

Our own self-interest dictates our attention. Yet Oregon isn’t learning. 

GOD DAMMIT. I know its for the good of beavers and we need to share credit but hemorrhaging salmon is MY line. I had to look up how to spell it THREE times.  Stoneflies to steelhead is MY line. I worked hard on the alliteration. Our own self-interest dictates is MY line. Like anyone else ever talks like that,  SHEEEESH.

Okay, I just heard from Suzanne Fouty that she shared my op-Ed with Susan and others that are working on the beaver bills. Um okay. But its still stealing if you lift entire phrases off the page. GRRR Someday  you can bet we’ll have a conversation about copying someone else’s paper and passing it off as your own. HRMPH

 

 

 


Well it arrived as promised! Let the conversations begin!

This was first published in the San Francisco Chronicle.

A beaver strips the leaves off of a freshly cut branch in Grand Teton National Park, Wyo. Heidi Perryman says that California is killing off one of nature’s best firefighters: beavers. Tom Gable/Associated Press

Reservoirs are shriveling around California. Ranchers are cutting losses by selling stock they can’t afford to give water. Municipalities are getting ready to restrict household water usage.

California has barely reopened from COVID restrictions and the crushing combination of climate change and drought has already made life feel dire again.

And it’s only a matter of time before the fires start.

Last summer California endured the single most flammable year in modern history. Record-setting fire after record-setting fire churned through the state, including the August Complex fire, the first “gigafire” ever recorded in state, which burned more than 1 million acres.

This summer, more than $2 billion in state funds will go towards fighting fires. And even with those record expenditures, we’re likely to endure a heavy loss. Once again there is too little water and too much dry fuel. And once again we continue to ignore or even kill the water-saving firefighter who would work for free to protect us: the beaver.

In 2018, Dr. Joe Wheaton, watershed sciences professor at Utah State, posted a tweet showing a green watery ribbon snaking through charred desolation after the Sharp’s fire, with the caption: “Turns out water doesn’t burn. Thank you beaver!”

The striking image caught the attention of a Colorado University Boulder doctoral student named Emily Fairfax, who happened to be studying the role of beaver habitat in large-scale fire events across five states.

Her subsequent research, published under the title “Smokey the beaver,” used satellite imagery to look at vegetation in riparian areas with and without beaver dams. She found beaver complexes were three times more resistant to wildfire than similar areas without beaver.

Beaver habitat, with its dams, ponds and canals showed less wildfire damage than un-beavered streams. In keeping water on the landscape beaver reduce fire, mitigate drought and recharge groundwater — all things we need in California.

In April of this year, Sonoma State University held the first ever “California Beaver Summit” to discuss how beaver could help mitigate the effects of climate change in a drying state, assist salmon and reduce risk of fire. Nearly 1,000 people enrolled, including California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials.

There is growing interest in the value these engineers can deliver. But this has not translated into policy, even in the face of climate change. Instead, California continues to depredate beaver at an alarming rate, issuing more than 170 permits for beaver killing in 29 counties around the state. This year alone, the state sanctioned the take of more than 2,500 beaver.

Meanwhile, Dr. Fairfax’s research made a handful of headlines in a few strategic places, but went largely unmentioned in broader discussions of potential fire mitigation strategies in the wake of last year’s blazes. No one discussed the beaver population in fire-stricken Butte or San Joaquin counties. Ranchers who kept beaver dams in their waterways weren’t given state funds for “reducing fire risk.” Farmers who maintained beaver dams in their streams received no environmental tax credit for helping the state save water.

Next year’s proposed budget for California increases funding to CDFW by 17%. Unfortunately, zero of these dollars will go towards beaver solutions or educating landowners about the animal’s many benefits. Likewise, none of the proposed Cal fire budget will be directed towards keeping beavers on the landscape and letting their otherwise free ecosystem services lower fire risk for everyone.

Beaver save water and reduce the risk and severity of wildfire. They do it all day, every day, at zero tax-payer expense. Their ponds have been consistently shown to increase biodiversity from stoneflies to steelhead. Beaver ponds help fish survive at a time when the Pacific coast is hemorrhaging salmon.

Our own self-interest dictates our attention. Yet California isn’t learning. We’re locked in a beaver blind-spot.

As we face another flammable summer, California is alone among the 11 contiguous western states in refusing to allow beaver relocation to restore riparian function or increase water storage. Other states with better beaver management and more sensible policies — Washington, Colorado, even New Mexico — must be asking what we are thinking.

California is literally burning for answers.

Heidi Perryman is a child psychologist and “beaver advocate.” She founded the group “Worth A Dam” to educate cities about how and why to coexist with beaver.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd scene! It has been a long and disappointment filled 15 years. I no longer am naive enough to think that this will change everything, but I’m fairly certain it has to help change something.firefighter


Medium is a two year old platform that introduces thoughtful blog posts on various topics from various authors. It is the brain child of the inventor of twitter and is getting some good attention. Look what it featured yesterday from Megan Michel,

The Beaver, the Salmon, the River, and the Forest: Protecting California’s Intricate Ecosystems

By building dams, beavers create flooded wetlands with deep water reserves. As the California nonprofit Beavers & Brush points out, these creatures keep nine times as much water running through the ecosystem just by making their homes. Not only do beavers keep streams flowing throughout the year, but they also mitigate erosion, improve water quality, and support abundant biodiversity. Dams and the water channels carved by beavers purify the water and leave more stable stream banks. These natural engineers create a wetter, more stable environment that allows plants and animals to thrive — including humans.

The beaver’s activity in rivers and forests creates the right conditions for the salmon to thrive. Beaver ponds are deep enough to stay cool in the sun, and (according to this great article published recently in Smithsonian Magazine) they increase the amount of water available in summer months by 20%. Salmon need cool, clean water to breed — so beaver-engineered habitats are perfect for a juvenile salmon nursery, and can help support the population numbers that salmon need in order to face their treacherous journey from mountain to sea and back again.

So beaver make it possible for salmon and then the salmon make it possible for forests, Isn’t that a excellently organized? I mean until humans come along and start eating all the salmon and killing the beavers.

In California, we’re trying to save our forests by stopping the practice of clearcutting, a destructive logging method that replaces healthy, natural forests with man-made timber plantations. This unsustainable practice is putting our wildlife and our watersheds in danger — and it’s happening every day.

Based on data obtained from CAL FIRE, more than 50,000 acres of California forest are being clearcut every year. We must choose more sustainable logging methods. We must reject the destructive practice of clearcutting in order to defend our complex forest ecosystems — ecosystems that support terraced beaver marsh habitats, the wriggling bundle of vital nutrient cycling that is the salmon, and the clean, connective water that our river veins provide..

I guess the silver lining is that when the beavers are gone and all the salmon are gone AND the forests are gone they’ll be nothing left to burn right?

Just the houses..


I had such an interesting meeting yesterday. I was told by Joe Wheaton’s sister Anne that the mayor of St Helena wanted to know more about beavers and their impact on fire prevention. The meeting happened on Zoom and Brock Dolman and Kate Lundquist from OAEC were there too.  He talked about identifying places for beaver in the Napa River and I pointed out that there already were plenty on the Napa River including some that are depredated for eating grape vines. Then we talked about how  to involve and educate the public and how to get the wineries on board by stressing the impact they could have on fire. He was especially interested in coordinating with the Suscol intertribal council who had grown interested in beavers and thought maybe the local college would be willing to participate.

It was a heck of an interesting meeting.

Two facts stood out in my mind. Did you know our governor owns a vineyard in St Helena? And that the past president of the California Fish and Wildlife commission lives in St. Helena? I did not. That sure makes St Helena an idea location for a high profile Emily Fairfax-Joe Wheaton collaborative study about the impact of beavers on California wine country Wildfires don’t you think?

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