Category: Beavers and Frogs

Beaver Memorial Day

heidi08 Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, What's killing beavers now?, Who's saving beavers now? May 30, 2016

Home again, home again, and not a moment too soon! We found Mario putting finishing touches on the mural, my attempts at posting on location upside down and the fantastic news that Hopkinton is FINALLY hiring Mike Callahan! Here let me catch you up to date on everything! I’ll sit on my Portland stories a while to let them percolate.

Apparently Dave Scola and some city folks are stopping by on Wednesday to see the final product. Then it’s just sealing the work for posterity. Love the frog and the dragonfly and the way a beaver dam is forever on Alhambra Creek. I couldn’t be more pleased, but I’m still going to try to push for one little beaver kit. Wish me luck.

I think every city should have a beaver mural, don’t you? I love that this mural is literally “OVER THE TOP”.

Now you might remember the city of Hopkinton in Massachusetts, which I was forced to learn how to spell when I wrote about them in winter of this year, or in winter of last year, or in spring the year before that. I wrote the council and one brave responder actually talked with Mike for a half an hour in 2015 before a trapper killed 42 beavers this year. Just go to the search bar and type “Hopkinton” to see how many articles come up on the first page alone. They have been such voracious whiners they provoked me into this graphic in December.

Well, change IS possible, get out your nano tools so we can all measure the progress.

Hopkinton looks to trap beavers, install devices

HOPKINTON — In an effort to reduce flooding on properties on Fruit Street and Huckleberry Road, the town is looking to get approvals to trap beavers and install other measures in Whitehall Brook. The Department has filed a notice of intent with the Conservation Commission to approve a beaver management plan developed by a private contractor, Beaver Solutions LLC.

The plans call for trappings, breaching three small beavers dams and installation of two flow devices.

“The town’s goal is not to eradicate the beaver population but to manage it enough so that we can all enjoy our properties safely,” Burke wrote. Mike Callahan, owner of Beaver Solutions in Southampton, surveyed the area by kayak and foot in March.

“Whitehall Brook is a large stream that drains an extensive area including Whitehall Reservoir,” he wrote in his report. “It can have very high flows and if impounded by beaver dams can flood extensive areas since there is a broad floodplain here.” He said beavers have likely lived in the area for a long time. His report details six dams.

“Three active dams raise the water by six inches to a foot each,” he said. “These several small dams all combine to maintain a higher water level abutting the homes on Huckleberry Road. There are also two very large active beaver lodges in this area.”

He said because there is a good food supply, some trappings will likely be needed. He said beaver trapping season is Nov. 1 through April 15, but a permit can be granted from the Board of Health in the off-season.”There are two large beaver dams and multiple smaller ones,” he wrote. “Ironically it is the smaller dams in the vicinity of Huckleberry Road that have generated the most concerns.”

He said for one dam that is flooding an acre of farmland, he recommends the town spend $3,000 for two pipes to lower the water.

Hurray for Mike Callahan and beaver solutions! And hurray for the working mind(s) that made this happen! Of course they are clinging to the trapping idea, because 42 beavers just ISN’T enough for a city of 15,000 and 1.5 square miles of water. (On the day the terms “Slow learner” were redefined, we can simply stand in awe and watch.) Still, progress is incremental. Maybe when they see how these two pipes work for the long term they will stop wasting everyones times with trapping.

Looks like this memorial day is full of losses and opportunities. We need this I think.

Beaver splashes

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, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? May 13, 2016

Here’s the excellent documentary I was talking about yesterday. Don’t ask how it became possible to share it – just enjoy the ride! The Martinez story starts around 15:30 after a trapper segment – but you’ll be smarter if you watch the whole thing.

Untitled from Heidi Perryman on Vimeo.

Yesterday I spoke to a VERY packed house at Martinez Kiwanis, who were eager to know what was up with the beavers. I gave them the full update and talked about the mural and our very odd summer with Suzi and the unexplained beaver deaths. Lara Delaney from city council was happy to have the update. People said afterwards it was one of the best talks they ever had, so I going to assume I did okay. There was a lot of interest in the little Napa segment I added, and people were very surprised to learn how little controversy their arrival had caused in Napatopia as opposed to Martinez.

Unfortunately they mentioned during the meeting they had already voted last week to decide funding allotments for scholarships. So I hope they remembered how much they loved beavers then! The greedy marketer in me would rather Worth A Dam was fresh on their mind when they considered our grant application!

Now my desk is officially cleared and I have no other commitments before Portland. That will give me time to focus on that speech and the mural progress. Mario didn’t work yesterday because he had business in the city, but hopefully well march onward today and tomorrow? I would sure like to have a full bridge before we leave town.

The lying month of May

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, What's killing beavers now?, Who's blaming beavers now? May 9, 2016

We are just two weeks from the purifying ritual that occurs every year apparently at SARSAS in Auburn. Before they invite me to come tell the truth about beavers, they conjure the opposite so as to soothe the evil bureaucratic spirits. I guess them helps sneak me in the gates, so to speak, since the powers that be are thus duly convinced they hate beavers. By the time my booming beaver beatitudes arrive no one of consequence suspects anything.

By evil spirits, I’m referring, of course, to Mary Tappel, who still takes time out of her busy life on the water board to spread vile lies about beavers. I once called her the ‘human beaver deceiver‘. Her bio in the SARSAS newsletter has some rich allegations of her merry volunteer brigade and their wondrous application of various nonlethal techniques. But this is my favorite one.

Mary also dealt with beaver management questions and in foothill areas such as Granite Bay, Loomis, & Roseville; and towards the Bay/Delta area in Fairfield & Martinez, and to the south in Elk Grove, all in creeks and small retention basins.

So not only does Mary have the outright gall to take credit for the unrivaled beaver slaughter in Elk Grove and Granite Bay (The biggest beaver genocide in 2007 and the site of the most depredation permits in 2013-14.) She also PROUDLY proclaims her work in MARTINEZ.

We’re actually on her resume.

What was her service to the home town of John Muir you ask? Fortunately nothing at all that was useful or true. She told the Gazette that beavers breed for 50 years. She told our mayor that flow devices never work. She advised city staff to kill the father beaver so that the mother would be forced to mate with her offspring. And, at a public meeting of 200 people nearly a decade ago said that the beavers were leaving Martinez, and wouldn’t be a problem anymore.

I have to say I remain very grateful for her unique level of competence.

Maybe I’ll thank her publicly when I come present in June and talk about the many transformations that beavers made to our creek in Martinez. I’m constantly reminded of how many individuals’ incompetence was instrumental in saving our beavers. The lawyer on the subcommittee who wanted them trapped, for instance, was lackadaisical at best in his half-hearted efforts to convince the city they would ruin the creek. He brought a large stuffed beaver once to the meeting with a sign that said ‘send me to Plumas county’. I thought maybe he was just ineffective generally until I saw him speak on another issue in opposition at a meeting. In that instance, he was forceful, competent and had done all his homework, which is what my lawyer friends told me he was like in court.

If THAT attorney had shown his face on the subcommittee we might have had a very different outcome.

As it was, folks just didn’t really care that much. Maybe enough to toss some money to hire a lawyer, but not enough to do research and really examine the allegations in the case. Like say, um, me for instance. If I had been my opposition, there would have been trouble.

Thanks, Mary.

Bonafide Beaver Bounty

heidi08 Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Who's saving beavers now? May 6, 2016

It’s been a surreal pair of days. Yesterday I saw beavers in Alhambra Creek for the first time in 8 months. I spoke with Suzi Eszterhas who said the Ranger Rick wants to go ahead with the beaver story and might want to include my paper bag puppet design as an activity. Today I opened my email to find an invitation to speak at the Placer Fish and Game Commission. (Yes, PLACER) And now this from Michigan. I can’t embed the news clip here. But you MUST go watch it, it’s that good.

Beavers blamed for local flooding in back yards

“The beavers are doing really good habitat work,” said DNR Wildlife Biologist Mark Mills. “It just happens that they’re flooding a neighbor’s yard.”

Instead of trapping the beavers and endangering the unique wetland in which they share with many other species, Kalamazoo Christian High School students volunteered to help the DNR install a beaver pond leveler. The structure, made with pipe and fence, allows humans to control the level of water even after the beavers rebuild the dam.

DNR says a lot of rare species depend on the higher water. If they removed the beavers, the water level would drop too much, and important wildlife would be lost.

“It’s about finding an equilibrium,” said Mills.

The supplies for the beaver pond leveler cost about 100 bucks. That’s less than the cost of pest control, and only a small price to pay for protecting a popular environment.

Michigan is having a kind of beaver revival. Once regarded merely for their self-destructive habit of ripping out beaver dams to help fish, in the past year we’ve seen their beaver IQ take a hearty surge. I’m particularly impressed that DNR (which is like their fish and game) would encourage this. It makes me very curious how, for example, they adopted Mike Callahan’s design name (Pond Leveler) but not his exact design. He wrote on the beaver management forum that he was a little nervous about the look of what they built, so I doubt they used his DVD. But I’d love to track down the trickle of influence and see how it made its way to Michigan DNR. At least, they have a helpful group of curious and interested students. So if anything goes wrong, they can make the necessary adjustments.

Jon is helping Mario this morning set up to get started on the mural, and we turned in our application for the festival yesterday. It turns out the invitation for Placer is for exact hour I’m presenting in Portland, so hopefully we get find another time. This morning Moses’ beaver discovery is (sort of) in the Martinez Tribune. And I was grateful that Amelia made a few changes to our final festival poster. I figure, if we have to pay for the Bay Nature ad, why not use it to educate as well as promote?

I wish we may I wish we might…

heidi08 Beaver Chewing, Beaver News, Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Who's saving beavers now? May 3, 2016

I’ll give you a hint. It starts with a “b”. Three guesses, go ahead, I can wait. He reportedly went for his camera but when he came back the beaver had slipped away. I’m guessing they’ll both be back this morning at low tide. I’m too emotionally beaver-scarred to be excited by this, but against my better judgement, I’m very hopeful.

For mural updates, let me say that the final contract has been signed by everyone, and now we are just waiting for the updated language on the insurance that the city needs and then we can mural! I won’t even start talking about how enormously frustrating this has been, because what would be the point? I’ll believe the waiting is over when it actually happens and not a moment before. Fortunately there is a very kind soul at the city in the middle of all this and she has been cheering me through it. Last week we had a good laugh at my wicked idea to finally just spray paint “F*@# the beavers” on the bridge, because in addition to expressing my frustration:

the city would suddenly want it painted over immediately and
they’d never, ever suspect me.

(Insert story from Heidi’s childhood here, where older sister vandalizes family furniture by cleverly writing the initials of younger sister. Younger sister had nothing to do with it but gets punished anyway and older sister gets away with it.)

On to the impressively named “Clatskanie” at the very northern tip of Oregon, who received an award from the governor for working with beavers to restore their watershed.

Wetland Awards honor voluntary restoration in Clatskanie

Governor Kate Brown, chair of the Land Board, presented the award and praised the collaborative effort as a “wonderful example of how non-profit organizations worked with a private landowner to voluntarily preserve wetlands” for fish and wildlife habitat. She also commended the property owner for including people in the equation: Hunt allows camping on the property, which has 14 tent sites and kayaks available for campers.

Olsen-Hollander said the project planners used innovative restoration strategies from “The Beaver Restoration Guide Book” which touts modeling beaver behavior for restoring habitat for fish, waterfowl, amphibians and reptiles. Olsen-Hollander said that if the techniques prove to be successful over time, there could be significant cost savings in using them in designing future conservation projects.

Congratulations Clatskanie! You let the beavers do the restoration and collected an award for it. That’s harder than it sounds, because it means hours of meetings and hand-holding with anxious stakeholders who are worried that beaver will flood their driveways or eat their petunias. The beavers, frogs and fish are lucky to have you.

A final note on what a very bad influence I am on Mr. Cohn of Napa. He sent me this photo yesterday of a beaver suspended animation feat and I was most appreciative. I told him he needed to go back and cut off the branch to use for display. He replied that it was in a seedy area with a lot of transient activity and he was worried it might be unsafe. I understood. Don’t think I pressured him. I very distinctly remember how we had to get our current chew on Easter Sunday because it was the only time everyone was in church and the creek was neglected.