Category: Beavers and Frogs

Beaver Believers Far and Wide

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Earth Day, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? March 12, 2016

This document is so packed with information it will take a while to upload but I thought it deserved to be browse-able. To download your own go to their website. You won’t regret it!

Beaver-Our-Watershed-Partner-for-WEB

Incredible new achievement from our friends at Cows and Fish in Alberta. They are smart persuaders of beaver benefits for some pretty tough customers. And this really well-designed document covers all the issues and then some. Honestly, these are some of the finest beaver illustrations I’ve seen (besides Amelia’s of course!) I had to show you this one especially. Doesn’t that just say it all?

The whole document deserves a solid read and reread on a rainy day by a window. Click here for the link to it on their website, and please pass it on!

And just in case that news isn’t exciting enough, try this new research from the forest service, to be published next month in the Journal of Fresh Water Biology.

Beaver activity increases aquatic subsidies to terrestrial consumers Summary

Beaver (Castor canadensis) alter freshwater ecosystems and increase aquatic production, but it is unknown how these changes influence the magnitude and lateral dispersal of aquatic nutrients into terrestrial ecosystems.

We examined differences in abundances of dominant aquatic invertebrates, wolf spiders (Lycosidae), and deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus), at beaver and non-beaver sites. We used stable isotopes to track aquatic-derived carbon in terrestrial consumers and linear mixed-effects models to examine the importance of beaver presence and distance from stream channel on the percentage of aquatic-derived carbon in terrestrial consumers.

Sites with beaver activity had >200% higher aquatic invertebrate emergence rates as well as 60% and 75% higher abundances of spiders and deer mice, respectively, relative to non-beaver sites.

More beavers mean more bugs. Haven’t I always told you that? The USFS has been kind enough to count how many. And then look at all the happy spiders and deer mice who get to eat them. Hurray! I can’t wait until the entire article is available but this is a great place to start. Thanks!

Yesterday we worked on the project for this year’s Earth day and made stencil’s for these. Jon was kind enough to model, but just imagine 100 kids walking around with these on the day. We just found out that two of our hearty regulars won’t be able to help out that day! Maybe you are free on April 23rd and want to honor the spirit of John Muir by helping beavers? If you might, email me and I’ll make it sound even better! It’s a beautiful day, lots of ecologically minded folks, and beaver-admiring children. Persuaded yet?

The Path to Inevitability…

heidi08 Beaver News, 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, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? March 4, 2016

Nice article in the Gazette might help nudge the mural forward….

Questions surround beavers as upcoming mural celebrates legacy

Although an alleged recent sighting of a lone beaver in Martinez might bring some hope for their return, it still seems no answers have been forthcoming regarding the sudden disappearance of the Alhambra Creek beaver colony late last year.

According to Heidi Perryman of Worth a Dam, a beaver was spotted near Creek Monkey Taphouse on February 18 by a Martinez resident. The sighting is the first reported since September of last year, around the time when several young beavers suddenly and inexplicably died in the Alhambra Creek. During that time several adult beavers also disappeared, leaving the creek void of beavers for months.

Perryman says the lone beaver is likely what is known as a “disperser,” a young beaver seeking territory to mark as his or her own. She explained that currently there is no evidence that the beaver decided to stay in the creek.

Months ago, the California Department of Fish and Game oversaw the necropsy performed on a young beaver at UC Davis, however tests were inconclusive. Disease, toxins, and some poisons were all ruled out as well.

While it seems no answers or progress have been made on determining the cause of the beaver deaths, Perryman and Worth a Dam are hoping to honor their legacy in Martinez.

Worth a Dam has been working with the city on a wildlife and beaver mural to adorn the cement surface of Marina Vista Bridge Wall. Back in November Perryman pitched the idea to the PRMCC of a mural located on the south facing side of the Marina Vista Bridge at Alhambra Creek.

“The beavers made a real impact on Martinez, and that’s something we want to capture with this mural,” said Perryman. She hopes the mural reminds people of the “living creek” that runs through the center of downtown Martinez.

The artist for the mural is Mario Alfaro, who has also worked on the Joe DiMaggio mural on the Main Street Plaza Bridge. The cost of the mural will be covered by Worth a Dam for a total of $6,000. The organization hopes to cover the cost with grants.

The art committee of the PRMCC approved the mural design, so the next steps come with the city council. Perryman noted that, because the city council meeting agenda is fully booked for the month of March, the project likely won’t be on the council agenda until April.

I’m always happy when accurate and positive information about the beavers and Worth A Dam is printed. Thanks, Joseph Bustos. You made the mural even more inevitable by linking it in the press to the loss of the beavers. Hopefully it will help nudge us a little farther along queue for getting on the Agenda for city council! Fingers crossed.

Imagine how surprised I was to come across this yesterday with the help of a friend. I don’t know how I missed it in the flurry of the holidays and retirement. But imagine how especially surprised I was to read the bold sentence from Dr. Michael Pollock himself;

Manmade Beaver Dams Save Fish

At Wenas Creek, they are putting in manmade beaver-dam analogues by pounding posts into the streambed and then weaving branches among them. A few workers can run a post pounder with biodegradable hydraulic fluid and achieve hydrological results similar to those of an imported-beaver colony. The result, says Tobin, is that, “fish and farms coexist in the same reach.”

The natural solution: beavers. In the past, “problem” beavers have been relocated to streams in need. Their dams back up the water, raising streambeds while still allowing passage for salmonids. The downside is that it costs money to trap beavers and house them prior to relocation, and despite the offer of seemingly ideal habitat, they sometimes leave. Besides, says Tobin, manager of the North Yakima Conservation District, “you can’t control where they’re backing up water.”

Enter Michael Pollock of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who pioneered the idea of reinforcing blown-out beaver dams with posts. “That’s the best strategy, because they’ve already done all the work,” says Pollock. “We’re just reducing the dams’ failure rate.”

Pollock suggested dispensing with beavers altogether.

SACRILEGE! Some one hand me the smelling salts, I’m feeling faint. And tell me, how are repairs going to be made on those dams once injury occurs? Will a team of humans be living on sight just in case? Will they also dig in the mud to encourage invertebrates? And how will the trees coppice with no one to chew them?

Of course a sentence like that could NOT go unchallenged. So I sent him this last night:

With the exception of this aberrant infraction, he’s still mostly a good guy and at his heart a beaver believer. He quickly wrote back:

You are having way too much fun with your new found skills. 🙂

Which I confess, is wholly true. That was the most fun I had all week.

Invoking the past to change the future

heidi08 Beaver-themed merchandise, 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, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? March 1, 2016

Leave it to Louise Ramsay of Scotland to tie it all together. Beautiful, writing that echoes with history and foreshadow.

Beavers and the conflict in the Scottish countryside

Last July, Alyth flooded badly and a young farmer started a rumour that the beavers on our land had exacerbated the flood. He tweeted his theory to the media and the story spread like wildfire, though very few locals believed it: apart from anything else, it was clear that upstream beaver dams had all held firm.

SNH then commissioned a study that showed the beavers were not to blame. But this month things got even better when research that has been done on our land over the last 13 years by Stirling University was published and the beavers were not just exonerated, but shown to actually slow floodwaters and thus reduce the impact of flooding, as well as increasing biodiversity & soil retention and stripping out pollutants.

Of course, for these farmers the presence of beavers is something real in a way that for the majority of people it isn’t. They have to deal with beavers busily trying to re-wild their land, to slow the flow of water in their ditches which are meant to hurry water off the fields as fast as possible. They have to confront the beavers’ desire to create wildlife rich, bee loud, water purifying wetland habitat by backing water up into the edges and hollows of their valuable arable fields, and they are not over the moon about it.

Lets pause a minute just to savor the delicious word choice at work here. The innocuous and unassuming phrase “bee loud” just appears to be an oddly phrased reference to noisy insects, unless you are familiar with arguably the most famous poem describing longing for rural life in the context of the city that was ever written. You may know it as the Lake at Innisfree. Do not think, for one moment, that it was by accident Louise evoked that hymnal of longing for a wild life. She wants the reader to remember their own longing clover and clear water. Here’s Mr. Yeats himself singing his words.

People remember more farmland birds in the past, more butterflies, more flowers, more bees. Now they see farming methods which use artificial fertilisers produced by the use of large amounts of fossil fuels, raided from the earth, set alight and polluting the sky. They see huge tractors with deep ploughs churning the earth, and they see brown water flowing off the land in times of flood and brown dust blowing in the air in dry summers. They worry that the very soil on which our food security depends, is in danger of impoverishment, and of being blown away or washed out to sea. They worry rightly. This kind of farming which has been the prevalent kind for the last 50 years, is extractive not regenerative. According to a Sheffield University study published in the Farmers Weekly it has left us with soils that in many cases just have 100 harvests left.

Meanwhile uphill, on the sheep farms, we landowners are also under scrutiny from the progressively larger sector of the public that is getting its head round the thorny questions of flood prevention and biodiversity loss in the uplands. Sheep farming has been carried out in some of our hills for hundreds of years, often responsibly and with great dedication, and some sheep farmers are not surprisingly upset to be told they are ‘sheepwrecking’ the countryside. But as globalization hits the price the farmer gets for lamb it becomes difficult to justify economically such a highly subsidized traditional activity, and as climate change progresses it becomes harder to defend environmentally, especially in our highest and most vulnerable landscapes.

As organisations like Nourish Scotland know all too well, we need to take a long hard look at agriculture and try and be more rational and less traditional in our approach. We need to look back, but also forward to new kinds of farming being tried around the world. We need to consider the true costs of various kinds of farming and see whether they can really justify the impacts they have by the food security they offer us. Ask again whether its true that higher productivity of industrial farming really gives it the edge over organic farming. Look at the possibilities for influencing what people eat and steer them towards food grown in the least extractive, most regenerative ways.

With climate change, its causes and its effects, fossil fuels and flooding, or drought or storms, everything has to change. We can’t go on as we are just watching it get worse and we farmers and landowners, who after all have a far bigger impact than most people, a far greater chance to make a difference for good or bad, really need to start listening to what the rest of the population are saying and change our ways before things get any worse. Just for a small but symbolic start let’s hope by the time you are reading this beavers will be legally protected in Scotland and the farmers will be applying their pragmatic minds to the question of mitigation rather than getting their guns out of the locked cupboard and heading for the waters edge at dusk.

Beautiful summing up Louise! You have embroidered the separate threads of beavers, food politics, climate change and biodiversity into a delicate and powerful coat of arms for supporters to brandish in united sensibility. This was a well done piece of inspiration and perspiration and we here in Martinez could not be more impressed! I hope this finely crafted article gets all the audience it deserves!

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Yesterday was cheerfully blessed with a couple more donations. The first this charming print by Shirley Harvey of Montreal Canada. I know several bass players who will start a bidding war for this.

And some striking prints from Amy Calderwood’s Vavooxi of Kansas. Isn’t this beautiful?

Make New Friends, but Keep the Old

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver Chewing, Beavers, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Tail slap, Who's saving beavers now? February 27, 2016

I noticed this winter that we had a new dove sound in the garden. The call has the quality of a regular mourning dove with a marching cadence. It was quite unmistakable.

Like all good mysteries the internet helped me solve it. I was hearing a “Eurasian Collared Dove”, which happened to be news worthy because the bird was introduced in Barbados in the late 1800’s and creeped to Florida and then across the United states. Apparently it got to the Bay Area around 2008, but I was busy with beavers so I didn’t notice then. Have you seen or heard this newcomer? He’s apparently well adapted to city life and folks are unsure whether he’s a competition to our other doves. It’s fun hear that new call though, like having a new kid move in across the street and wondering if they’ll be fun to play with.

Speaking of fun, Minnesota is about to have a tail-slapper.

‘Leave it To Beavers’ March 8 at Headwaters Center for Lifelong Learning

This 60-minute 2014 video from PBS will be shown on Armory Square’s 25-foot wide screen, with sound enhanced by a new wireless microphone. The stunning photography and important subject matter present an opportunity for the audiences to get a close up look at this once nearly extinct rodent at work.

“The beaver is nature’s original water conservationist and land and wildlife manager,” the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources explains. “Many biologists believe that the beaver pond supports a greater variety and abundance of wildlife than any other ecosystem in the forest. The ponds also control spring runoff, thus lessening the possibility of downstream flooding.”

While climate change, pollution and other negative impacts on ecosystems are much in the news these days, positive developments such as the useful work of the resurgent beaver population tend to receive less notice.

Ahh wonderful to hear such good praise out of MDNR And wonderful to see Jari Osborne’s well-crafted documentary continuing to do its job. You know, she just wrote the other day to congratulate us on our Conservation Education Award. Obviously she’s busy doing other things now that are not beaver related. But she’d be thrilled to know her work continues to entertain and educate.

Sigh. This remains one of my favorite parts of the documentary, I admit.

What John Muir thinks about beavers…

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, 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, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Earth Day, Educational, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? February 25, 2016

I’m officially allowed to announce our good news today, so of course I’m thinking of John Muir’s friend Enos Mills, who was invited to his house and came to Martinez in 1908. One of the many books he wrote was the very famous “In Beaver World“, all about our favorite subject matter, and whose very last chapter is titled thusly.

I’m very very proud to imagine that Worth A Dam has possibly been considered as good a educational conservationist as the beaver is. Congratulations to everyone and all of Martinez who made Worth A Dam happen in the first place.

Speaking of the many species beavers assist in their award-winning Keystone capacity, here’s an awesome photo from the Tulocay Napa beaver pond taken yesterday by Rusty Cohn.

rusty turtle — *Turtles at Tulocay Beaver Pond: Rusty Cohn*

Now I think we should all write than you notes to the Scottish Goverment for being so enormously stubborn the world keeps getting headlines like this over and over again.

Give beavers permanent residence – we’d be dam stupid not to

Beaver benefits

None of this is about nostalgia. Beavers are often referred to as “ecosystem engineers” and herein lies much of the reasoning and controversy behind their reintroduction. There is extensive evidence from Europe and North America that wetlands created by beaver dams benefit everything from water plants, dragonflies and amphibians to fish and ducks to song birds and bats. In Knapdale, damming by beavers transformed a small pond into a wetland of a type and complexity probably unseen in Britain for centuries.

Beavers can also restore habitats without the need for a bulldozer or planning permission. On the Bamff estate on Tayside, we found that grazing by beavers trebled the number of wetland plants over a nine-year period. Where raised water levels saturated a meadow thanks to damming of ditches, the number of plant species increased by 49% and the multitude of habitats created increased the total diversity of aquatic invertebrates by almost 30%. Indeed the benefits were even further reaching. We found that the beaver dams also acted as a sink for agricultural pollutants, and may also help to reduce the risk of flooding. Individually these findings are not that surprising, though it is unusual to demonstrate them all in parallel.

Go read the whole thing. And thank the famously stubborn scots for needing a lot of convincing on the subject!