Category: Beavers and Frogs

STILL LIFE WITH BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers and Frogs March 31, 2020

Discovery is one of the finest parts of watching a beaver pond. Whether it’s coming across a new bird species that you never saw before or watching a river otter for the first time hunting for a tasty fish, to truly observe a beaver pond is to discover, like an expedition to the north pole, things that you never saw before.

I was never bored at the pond. Looks like I wasn’t the only one.

Illuminating the Hidden Forest, Chapter 39: Springtime for beavers and frogs

We are living in a moment where some lives feel as though time has slowed to a crawl, while others must feel that time is careening at warp speed. For those of us sequestered in our homes, time passes slowly. For those separated from critically ill loved ones struggling for air in hospital beds, time must pass more slowly still. Those on the front lines in those overburdened hospitals must feel as though time is speeding by as they race to take care of their patients or to get their urgently needed supplies.

In nature, though, time unfolds at its own pace (though global warming is affecting that as well). Walking in the forest during this crisis can provide a kind of correction for our situation-driven extensions and compressions of time.

Take beavers and frogs, for example.

What a lovely way to start an article. I’m all ears. Go on…

Last week, a sleek, lively, young beaver found a nice niche under a bush at the side of our small lake. As soon as Lily came barking and we stood up to look, he bounded into the water with a slap of his tail, circled inquisitively and finally returned unperturbed. To our relief, it seemed that he had left to search for a better place to make his new home.

Then, two days ago, alerted again by Lily, I saw a large, furry body in the same recess under the bush, bigger than before. This furry body didn’t leap into the water at Lily’s barking like the earlier beaver, but curled into a tighter ball, pressing its face into the cavity of earth. At first, I didn’t know that it was a beaver until it showed its blunt and solid face.

My grandson and husband came down to check. The beaver seemed to be aware of us, but lethargic. It would open its eyes a bit, maybe press its head further into the niche, then roll on its side, head clearly visible, eyes closed. We worried: Is this beaver sick?

Hmm I have run into stories of a couple beaver sleeping outside. Sometimes when their lodge is destroyed. Sometimes when they’re in transition. Sometimes when they’re someplace without any other option. Looks like she did her homework.

A few minutes later, as I circled on the bank close above the beaver, it dropped into the water and swam rather lazily across to the other bank where it found another hollow to curl up in and, it was now evident, to snooze.

A little research in our beaver books gave us an explanation. Young beavers leave the lodge at two years to find a mate and create a new home where they will have kits the following spring. That was our first beaver. A year later, when the female is due to give birth, the male usually leaves the lodge for a few days and returns after the kits are born. Our guess is that our second guest is a mature beaver taking a reverse paternity leave and will be gone in a few days. We shall see. Another possibility is that we are the guests and that our beaver has plans to stay.

You should be so lucky! I like that possibility the best. And so would the rest of your pond inhabitants.

The frogs also have their spring timetable, and to our joy and amazement, that time is now. Descending from Balance Rock to the beaver pond in Kennedy Park this morning, we heard a din of honking as we approached the pond. We thought it might be a flock of Canada geese flying overhead. We stood by the pond, gazing into the blue sky, but could see no geese. Then we realized that the sound came from below, from the pond, and there they were: hundreds of frogs floating and darting on the surface of the water, croaking their hearts out. And they were LOUD! They have just emerged from hibernation, and the males are serenading the females, full of spawn just waiting for fertilization. Here is a YouTube link to a video that I took at the pond.

This was so magical, so marvelous, that we had to tear ourselves away. A chorus of frogs emerging from the mud in spring reminded us to pay attention to what we have, to be grateful for the beauty frogs and beavers bring into our lives, and to cherish the moments when we, too, can emerge from the mud and sing.

Nicely done Carolyn Newberger. I love reading beaver observations that tie themselves closely to our own lives. We are nature. And spending time in nature is spending time with ourselves, after all.

MR. TOADS BEAVER RIDE

Beavers to the rescue in Colorado! And after all Sherri Tippie has done for them. it’s about time!

CPW hopes enhanced wetlands will help boreal toad survival

Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) biologists are working statewide to revive populations of these high-altitude amphibians that live from 8,000 to 13,000 feet. But as is the nature of wildlife research, biologists will not know for at least three years if the work will help toads survive.

To start the process, Cammack and his crew collected eggs from two wetlands in the Triangle Pass area near Crested Butte. The fertilized eggs, collected in early summer, were then taken to CPW’s Native Aquatic Species Hatchery in Alamosa, where they were hatched in captivity. By late summer, they grew into tadpoles and were ready for stocking in the San Juans.
In the high country above the San Luis Valley, the West Fork Fire in 2013 burned through 100,000 acres of forest.

Paul Jones, a now retired CPW biologist, had seen research that suggested burned areas might prevent development of the chytrid fungus. He also knew, based on historic records, that toads had once inhabited the area. So, he worked with the Rio Grande National Forest, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Rio Grande Headwaters Restoration Project and the San Luis Valley Water Conservation District to build small levies in a wetland area to enhance and enlarge optimal reproductive boreal toad habit. The area mimics wetlands created by beaver ponds — favorite breeding areas for toads.

When nothing else works, imitate beavers. That’s my mottow. Or encourage actual beavers to be themselves. That works too.

“We’re working on creative ideas to help bring these toads back. Building these ponds in this burn area is one idea. Hopefully, one of them will work, but it will take time,” Cammack said. And he’s hopeful: “With wildlife we have to manage with optimism.”

I’m sure you meant to say “We have to manage wildlife with beavers.” That’s the secret cure you know. Off to impeach, Gosh it’s hard work being a citizen.

GETTING THE STORY WRONG

heidi08 Beavers and Frogs August 26, 2018

This morning I noticed a children’s book review about Frog and Beaver, and I thought “Oh good, there’s a children’s book about how important beaver are to frogs!”

What was I thinking? Silly silly heidi.

A charming ecological fable of community and friendship from award-winning author-illustrator Simon James.

An ecological fable! I rubbed my palms together excitedly and settled in. Sure, beavers never swim on their backs, but hey, frogs don’t talk to them either so I can suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy a good story. What’s this one about?

Frog and his friends all live happily together on the river. At least they do until Beaver comes along.

Uh-oh.

Beaver is determined to build the biggest and best dam that anyone has ever seen, but it’s so big that it stops all the water and Frog and his friends are forced to move.

Isn’t that JUST like the selfish ecosystem engineer, Ruining the pond for everyone else with his me-first damming behavior. I mean the what’s the poor frog to do?

Frog tries to tell Beaver that his dam is getting too big, but Beaver just won’t listen. Before long, Beaver’s dam is so huge that it stops all the water in the river, and Frog and his friends must move upstream.

But diverted water also needs somewhere to go, and soon Beaver will learn that only one force is stronger than a mighty river — friendship.

Are you fricken kidding me? The beaver’s selfish plan ruins the pond for everyone else until a loyal and civic minded amphibian shows him the truth?

Was this written by the frog-legs lobby?

Now from a young age children can be taught how DANGEROUS beaver dams are and how important it is to stop them. This will sell a million copies in Massachusetts. All the animals in the ponds lives and homes are threatened by that egocentric beaver, who’s like an oil company just ruining the landscape for his own benefit.

(Never mind all the research about how essential beaver ponds are to amphibian survival or the volumes of work written about the ecosystem services a beaver provides.)

Is there a sequel about Jack Trapper the super-hero?

Simon gets a letter.

Reverence, Irreverence and Beavers

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Fire Prevention, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? November 8, 2017

Well yesterday was fun, with little messages of encouragement for our 10th year from folks around the globe. Now it’s time to get back to work. You know what they say, before anniversaries “Chop wood, carry water“, and after anniversaries”Chop wood carry water“. Or something like that.

Here are two articles that deserve our attention. I’ll start with the grating one first. Why is it every article written about Peter Busher annoys me more than it interests me? Over the years I have come to think he basically knows his beavers, but he honestly doesn’t seem to like them very much.

The Secret Sex Lives of Beavers

The population boom can raise alarms in communities. Beavers are often viewed as a nuisance, causing millions of dollars in damage each year by chewing fences, trees, and decks. They build dams, which leads to flooding of homes, crops, and railroads.

But some behaviors can be beneficial, says Peter Busher, a College of General Studies professor of natural sciences and mathematics and chair of the division. Beaver dam building expands wetlands, whose functions include filtering toxins from water, supporting biodiversity, and mitigating floods.

Busher has been studying beavers for four decades and was the first person to track the animals by tagging them with radio transmitters. He does his research in the Quabbin Reservation in Central Massachusetts, where 150 to 300 beavers constitute the nation’s longest-studied population, says Busher. Hoping to learn how humans can better coexist with beaver populations, he examines mating habits, birthrates, group structure, and how the animals migrate from one area to another. His findings could inform decisions about how communities respond to beaver activity and manage the animal’s population, both in Massachusetts and across the country.

Although beavers are among only 3 percent of mammals that are socially monogamous, raising their young exclusively with one partner, researchers do not know much about their pairing behavior. Do the parents also mate with other beavers and raise a mixed brood, or are they sexually exclusive? Busher wants to find out. He suspects that genetically monogamous beaver populations—those that tend to mate with one partner—increase more slowly and may stay in an area longer. If one of these populations were removed because of nuisance activity, he says, the area would likely be free of beavers for a while. But if the population were more promiscuous, new beavers could move into the area at any time; communities would then need to develop a long-term animal removal plan.

Promiscuous beavers? Honestly? Is that honestly what you think? Who thinks like that? Have you looked at every OTHER variable in their habitat that might differ between various beavers to rule out that food availability, or population, or stream gradient and prove that these it doesn’t influence which beaver are promiscuous and which aren’t? I’m sure, as a scientist, you would do ALL THAT before LEAPING to the assumption that DNA is responsible. I mean this is almost like race research.

How much trouble would you be in if you were posing that certain ethnicitys were more promiscuous?

The best research I have read on the topic described beavers as “opportunistic monogomists” – meaning if the right conditions happened to arise they would take advantage of them and mate outside the pair bond, and if they never arose it would be mostly okay with it and get on with the business of taking care of the family. I remember being amused when Rickipedia commented that this was pretty much the same for most male humans.

But Dr. Busher is trying to prove that it’s a beavers genes that make him roam. So that those prolific beavers we can kill more, and the faithful homebodies we can work with.

Are you sure you teach in Massachusetts? Because this theory is starting to sound positively republican to me!

The article that really interested me today comes from the irreplaceable George Monbiot and discusses the use of better language about ecology to capture public interest. Rusty of Napa sent it my way and I’m glad he did.

Forget ‘the environment’: we need new words to convey life’s wonders

If Moses had promised the Israelites a land flowing with mammary secretions and insect vomit, would they have followed him into Canaan? Though this means milk and honey, I doubt it would have inspired them.

So why do we use such language to describe the natural wonders of the world? There are examples everywhere, but I will illustrate the problem with a few from the UK. On land, places in which nature is protected are called “sites of special scientific interest”. At sea, they are labelled “no-take zones” or “reference areas”. Had you set out to estrange people from the living world, you could scarcely have done better.

The catastrophic failure by ecologists to listen to what cognitive linguists and social psychologists have been telling them has led to the worst framing of all: “natural capital”. This term informs us that nature is subordinate to the human economy, and loses its value when it cannot be measured by money. It leads almost inexorably to the claim made by the government agency Natural England: “The critical role of a properly functioning natural environment is delivering economic prosperity.”

I’m fully on board with the need to use language that enlivens and engages us rather than regulates our attention. But sometimes we are talking to politicians or biologists and need to convince them, and we think that kind of language carries more sway? Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe the only thing that matters to decision makers is what we celebrated yesterday: public pressure and votes. So engaging the public is more important than sounding objective.

This is my FAVORITE part.

On Sunday evening, I went to see the beavers that have begun to repopulate the river Otter in Devon. I joined the people quietly processing up the bank to their lodge. The friend I walked with commented: “It’s like a pilgrimage, isn’t it?” When we arrived at the beaver lodge, we found a crowd standing in total silence under the trees. When first a kingfisher appeared, then a beaver, you could read the enchantment and delight in every face.

Our awe of nature, and the silence we must observe when we watch wild animals, hints, I believe, at the origins of religion.

Something about that sentence feels very, very true for this woman who spent so many years in the company of beavers. (Not that we were silent the whole time.) Our beavers had train whistles and garbage trucks to get used to, and could handle a little talking. But there was definitely awed silence at times. Like when kits emerged or when an uncommon behavior was scene.

And it sure felt like the very best parts of church to me.

if we called protected areas “places of natural wonder”, we would not only speak to people’s love of nature, but also establish an aspiration that conveys what they ought to be. Let’s stop using the word environment, and use terms such as “living planet” and “natural world” instead, as they allow us to form a picture of what we are describing. Let’s abandon the term climate change and start saying “climate breakdown”. Instead of extinction, let’s adopt the word promoted by the lawyer Polly Higgins: ecocide.

We are blessed with a wealth of nature and a wealth of language. Let us bring them together and use one to defend the other.

Thank you, George for another beautiful column. I’m envious of the people who got to walk alongside you on the way to see those special Devon beavers. We very rarely feel reverence for what we consume or eliminate as inconvenient. But I have seen it time again on children’s faces watching our beavers.

Maybe its reverence, more than science, that protects nature.

Ohio Offerings

heidi08 Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, featured, Who's saving beavers now? November 6, 2017

This has been a busy month. I knew another pin was going to drop, but Ohio? Who would have guessed?

John Switzer: Beaver moon highlights species’ revival in Ohio

This month’s moon is called the beaver moon, and it was full Saturday.

It is called the beaver moon because now is when beaver dens are snug and stocked with food in preparation for the winter. All fall, beavers have been cutting branches and taking them to their dens so that they can dine on the bark and wood. Sounds like a tasty winter meal.

There’s another reason the November moon is called the beaver moon. Hal Borland wrote in the book “Twelve Moons of the Year” that by November the beaver’s pelts are in prime condition. Back during this nation’s settlement, beaver hats were all the rage here and in Europe, and pelts were considered the same as currency. Their pelts were so desired that by the 1830s, beavers had been extirpated from Ohio, said Jim McCormac, a wildlife biologist.

But beavers are again relevant because they have returned to all 88 Ohio counties, entering the state from the north and east, McCormac said. McCormac said Ohio is home to an estimated 30,000 beavers. He also said that if beavers live in your area, its biodiversity and natural heath are profiting “big-time.”

Many plants and animals benefit from beaver dams and the ponds they create. He gave the example of the beautiful wood duck, whose population is increasing partly because of beaver dams.

“There are no better ecological engineers,” McCormac said of beavers.

Capture

But having beavers in the area is not without its negative consequences. When they dam up creeks and streams, they sometime cause the flooding of farmland and other places that humans rely on.

I’ll give you an example. Early last spring I went out to Glacier Ridge Metro Park near Dublin and the park’s wetlands and a few of the nearby bike trails and hiking paths were covered by water. Beavers had dammed up the small stream that flows through the area and, by the end of the winter, caused a small flood.

But all was not lost. The Columbus and Franklin County Metro Parks placed pipes through the dam so the water level could be easily lowered mechanically. “That allows us to drop the water down and not interfere with the beavers’ activities,” said Peg Hanley, spokeswoman for the parks system.

WOW! Jim McCormac is a wildlife biologist who knows his beavers! My goodness that’s exciting to read from the state. You can tell the columnist, John Switzer of the Columbus Dispatch, is not exactly sold on the flat tailed animals yet – but this article is a formidable start. I’m terribly pleased!

I was so impressed that I had to go searching for Jim McCormac and found his nature blog, Ohio birds and biodiversity. It is a wonderful collection of photographs and information. Jim is photographer and a self-described naturalist. The website has been around since 2007!

“I am a lifelong Ohioan who has made a study of natural history since the age of eight or so – longer than I can remember! A fascination with birds has grown into an amazement with all of nature, and an insatiable curiosity to learn more. One of my major ambitions is to get more people interested in nature. The more of us who care, the more likely that our natural world will survive.”

Obviously his site has enough respect and readers to get attention, and his opinions about beavers are making a difference. Thanks Jim! You are welcome any year at our beaver festival!