We are FINALLY paintbrush-ready on the mural project. Mario will come today to start priming, but tomorrow there are supposed to be thunderstorms so more delays are imminent. I’m just happy the city was able to finish all the contracts, waivers and ryders necessary to undertake the dangerous painting of a two foot wall of concrete. Hurray for beavers not giving up!
The timing works out well enough because on Wednesday I’m back to the SF Waterboard to talk more about urban beavers! New folks heard my talk was so good they wanted it too so I’ll be with strangers on a different floor than last time. I think I’m ready, but it’s a little harrowing going to that tall building and through security on yet another rainy day!
And it never rains but it pours, because I just got the event flyer for Portland, which looks amazing. The final PDF will have working links and go out soon. But I thought you deserved a preview. In between events I’ll be talking to Kiwanis and watching our Mural unfold. And then it’s time to start getting ready for the festival! Isn’t that exciting?
Alexandria Costello is a masters student st Portland University studying the geomorphic influences of beavers in urban streams. She just came to the geology conference in San Francisco to present a poster session. Then went to Napa to meet Robin and Rusty and walk the beaver habitat. She posted this on Facebook and I asked for a closer look to share. Can I just say how much I love the idea that folks are talking about “urban beavers” at a conference?
Oh my goodness. I’m intrigued already. Aren’t you? It’s a funny thing to think about the educated, generous, ecologically-minded city of Portland learning anything at all from a stubborn ol’ refinery town like Martinez, isn’t it?
Recognize those puppets? I am so proud of us sometimes. I especially like the part where she says cities in Oregon should invest in similar programs around the state to help people learn about the benefits of beaver. You know like the city of Martinez invested in us with all the funding and sponsoring they did of our message and effort. Haaaaaaaaaa Ha Ha Ha.
Sorry, I just suddenly thought of this comic for some reason and needed to post. I’ll allow Alex to continue.
I’m so impressed with this presentation, and with Alex for putting it together. Everyone had a grand time in Napa, and I am so pleased they connected. Apparently even WS is the best behaved it will EVER be in Oregon, under the steadying hand of Jimmy Taylor. I’m so grateful to have contributed to the story with our playful puppets.
While we’re on the topic of the successes of friends, I heard the other day that Wyoming beaver believer Amy Cummings, and Washington advocate Joe Cannon of the Lands Council are headed for an Idaho event sponsored by our beaver friends at Watershed Guardians. The event is cleverly called A Reverse Rendezvous, and is held on the day the trapping season ends. (History lesson: The original rendezvous were gatherings of trappers where massive furs and goods changed hands, and where you could connect with a new company or glean some insights of areas that were trapped out. There was lots of bragging, drinking and whoring too, I’ll wager. Probably more than a few fights or fatalities, as minimally socialized loners found themselves in a sudden crowd where impulse control was required.)
Anyway, this reverse one is going to be way better.
In the summer of 1826, the American Fur Company set up a small camp in the Powder River basin in western Wyoming to buy furs from various trapping companies and free trappers. There were gifts, story telling, contests and music. All to celebrate beaver that had been killed. We’re going to do something similar but opposite at the Reverse Rendezvous. On April 15th, 2016, we’ll be doing something similar, but with a twist. We’ll be celebrating the beaver that WEREN’T killed. Come join us!
Our story tellers are Amy Chadwick and Joe Cannon. Amy is an environmental consultant specializing in rehabilitating damaged ecosystems. Joe Cannon is part of the most successful beaver re-introduction program in history. We are excited and pleased to have them both.
I’m so jealous I won’t be on hand to hear all the stories. Maybe someone will be taping? Worth A Dam wishes you the hardiest of successes.
Meanwhile, I’m hard at work with an idea for this years festival. Over the years I’ve probably gathered every wonderful graphic, historical image or photo of beavers, now I just need to find some old scrabble games!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The timing works out well enough because on Wednesday I’m back to the SF Waterboard to talk more about urban beavers! New folks heard my talk was so good they wanted it too so I’ll be with strangers on a different floor than last time. I think I’m ready, but it’s a little harrowing going to that tall building and through security on yet another rainy day!
And it never rains but it pours, because I just got the event flyer for Portland, which looks amazing. The final PDF will have working links and go out soon. But I thought you deserved a preview. In between events I’ll be talking to Kiwanis and watching our Mural unfold. And then it’s time to start getting ready for the festival! Isn’t that exciting?
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