LASSIE INVENTS FIRST BDA

Here we were enjoying our riches and feeling a little smug with the discovery that just like us Lassie tried to save beavers, and then I find THIS episode. An episode where honest to God Lassie invents the very first BDA – and now I’m thinking – goodness what else is out there that we don’t know about?

You have another wonderful 21 minutes to look forward to. This episode is dated 1964 and features a member of the USDA noting that beavers help with flood control and trout habitat. Because why the heck not blow our minds completely? I ask you.

Amazed yet?

Let the record also note that that angry little old lady “Maude” was actually incredibly spry for any age and wants to be a member of Worth A Dam. It’s also worth pointing out that she had her heart changed by actually watching beavers. Something we know all about in Martinez. Seeing them at work and play literally makes all the difference.

And hearing them? Ohh boy.

Along those lines Rusty sent this footage of his catch last night. He was out walking the dog and just had his cell phone on hand, but what true adorableness he managed to capture. I am gnawing my fingertips with envy as I type this, but I’m very, very happy for him. And you, because you get to watch this.

Thank you for that wonderful glimpse of beaver life.

I wanted to show you another passage that leaped out at me from Ellen Wohl’s wonderful new book “Saving the Dammed“. (Not to be confused with the Harry Potter fan fiction of the same name). I wonder if you can spot the obscurity that caught my attention.

IDAHO REINVENTS WHEEL

heidi08 Beavers and Roadways, Who's saving beavers now? July 22, 2019

I honestly don’t no whether to be excited or dismayed by this news. I mean it’s kind of like you’ve been trying to teach your baby brother to use a fork when he eats his macaroni instead of eating with his fingers. And one day he suddenly pics up sand shovel and starts putting them in his mouth. It’s definitely an improvement and you are proud of him in a way. But he still has a long way to go before he can sit at the big kids table.

‘Beaver stops’ help road crews keep rodents at bay

Those pesky beavers seem to be intent on building dams wherever they see flowing water. While their dam-building prowess can be a boon for storing valuable water in the backcountry, it sometimes makes a mess when water backs up around Idaho roads and potentially floods them.

To combat this problem, Idaho Transportation Department maintenance worker Gary Cvecich went into the shop and welded channel iron and rebar into 4-foot by 3-foot panels that bolt together to force space between the culvert and a dam-building beaver. The “beaver stops” were put in place on Idaho 75 south of Stanley and Highway 21 at Banner Summit west of Stanley and Idaho 128 north of Ketchum.

“Every time you have a body of water and it has to narrow down and flow through a culvert, (beavers) can really jam that up quickly,” said Reed Hollinshead, information specialist for the Idaho Transportation Department. “It seems to be attractive to the beavers. It provides a good foundation for them to build a dam.”

Cvecich’s design is made to be removable and easy to clean.

Wow.

Just. Wow.

You welded that in your workshop all by yourself? Good job! Did you think about maybe looking to see what was already invented and has worked for two decades? Of course not, don’t be silly.

Do you think beavers might build against your little starter kit thingy? No of course not. Why would they? I’m sure you know best.

Hollinshead said the rebar fence allows water to continue to flow and creates space should a beaver get busy building dams next to the culvert.

So far, the system seems to be working.

“We’ve only had one incident where a beaver has tried to build after we installed these devices,” Cvecich said.

He said the devices could be adapted and used statewide and save road workers time and money.

Now maybe I’m wrong. But I imagine three beavers just sitting at the willow bar boasting about how fast they can block it. One beaver is like “Man I can plug that thing with two nights work”

And the other beaver bests him and says “I can do it all in ONE!”

Here’s what Skip Lisle, inventor of the thing you’re trying to avoid using has to say about them on Facebook.

Without a good pipe system it will just become a big beaver dam. If that’s the goal, terrific. Like thousands of prior flow devices, however, the danger is that the ultimate conclusion will be that “it” can’t be done and the beavers have to be killed. Then ground, or progress, will actually be lost.

But there is good news this morning anyway. A million years ago back I went to my first state of the beaver conference in 2011 and said, wow that was great! Why is it only every other year? There should be one on the East Coast in even years! So that people all over can learn about beavers.

An East Coast Beaver Conference is soon to be a reality! Co-hosted by the Beaver Institute and Ecotone Inc., we are inspired by and wish to complement the successful SURCP State of the Beaver Conference in OR. It is named BeaverCON 2020 and will be held near Baltimore, MD this March. This conference will be held every other year, alternating years with the west coast SURCP Conference. This means we can now have an international beaver

A Save-The-Date official notice will be released soon. However, readers of this blog can have a sneak preview now! ? Check out our website: www.BeaverCON.org. Enjoy! We already have a lot of great speakers lined up. I hope to see you in Baltimore in March!Beaver On at BeaverCON!

I’m pretty dam excited to be able to share this news, and I want EVERY single person here to think seriously about going. I want it to be so successful they run out of space. I can’t say I’m in love with the graphic but hey. all those smart minds gathered together under one roof is bound to produce some more artistic designs.

It’s been a long time coming, but it’s actually here. As Beaver Institute founder Mike Callahan aptly put it on the website

“Beaver on at the BEAVER CON!”

PIEGAN BEAVER RETURNS FOR TOBACCO

heidi08 Beavers and Roadways November 30, 2018

Maybe they’re right. Maybe the beaver population is recovering.

This was all over the news last night in Massachusetts. Fitchburg Crombys is liks a seven-eleven for the east coast.

No word on why that stunned employee blocked the door so that the mother or older sibling couldn’t escape too. But I’m hoping that they reunited safely on the other side – like we all hope I guess. I do like the idea of the beaver weight triggering the door – and them figuring it out. Sometimes I’ve seen that birds have discovered that if they fly past the censor the doors open and they could get in an out a big home depot to roost, which of course a beaver could never do.

I’m imagining that this store is near the water or on the way to the pond? But its hard to imagine why a beaver would enter. Since the beaver has a younger beaver in tow its obviously not dispersal. Maybe something happened to their home? I doubt the temperatures are cold enough yet for them to be frozen out of the water. Of course everyone is having fun saying he just stopped off for some cigarettes, but we know better.

Beavers would never smoke.

Well, except in the Piegan (Blookfoot) story where the chief of all the beavers is the one that first gives tobacco to the tribe. He kindly teaches the refugee to smoke, perform medicine, sing and dance for the first time and presents him with the most precious beaver bundle.

But other than that, never.

Ahh memories. I was just a slip of a beaver-believing girl when I made that video. Sigh. So long ago. While I was looking for it I found this, which explains so much about our destiny and I just wish it finished telling more of the story.

I guess this has turned out to be video day. So I’m going to share one last glimpse shown to me by our friends at the Beavers in the Netherlands facebook page. Even thought life is full of surprises, beavers are pretty dam mellow.

Our friend Willy De Koning posted this with the following translated message.

You will not believe this; it seems an unlikely story from a children’s book. But it really is! A young fox comes to see what that beaver is all about! Too bad, of the vague quality.

I love that the beaver looks at the stranger and then unflappably gets back to chewing. Beavers are so cool.

TAKING INIATIVE

heidi08 Beavers and Roadways December 7, 2017

The Bush administration owes America an apology and a box of chocolates. Not only did it bamboozle us into a never-ending war and destroy our favorite city, it also ruined the way we view policy “Naming” forevermore. Now when we read a bill coming out of the senate called “Lunches for children” for example, we immediately assume it means the bill will STEAL all lunches for children. If we see an initiative called “Respect your elders” we know for a fact that social security is threatened.

I resent that American can’t ‘mean things’ anymore, don’t you?

I know Mike Callahan does, because with this plan he sincerely wants to improve road safety. It sounds like a wonderful idea that will save taxpayers millions of dollars annually. But the Bush administration has ruined the way I read this title. I’m sorry, but it has.

Our new “Safe Roads Initiative”

If every at-risk road culverts in this country were properly protected from beaver damming, then taxpayers, road crews, beavers, biodiversity, water storage and watersheds would all benefit.

To make this vision a reality the Beaver Institute, Inc. is proud to announce our first nationwide program, called the “Safe Roads Initiative”. This program will provide beaver control expertise to any interested Highway Department in the country. As the testimonials and instructional videos at www.beaverinstitute.org/education/youtube-videos/ show, road crews can save significant time, save money, increase road safety, and improve wildlife passage and stewardship with these proven techniques.

Our Safe Roads Initiative was inspired by the highly successful Nion Robert Thieriot beaver management grant program which jump started nonlethal beaver management in a rural area of Massachusetts where problematic beavers were traditionally trapped and killed. See www.mspca.org/beaverfunding.

Whoo hoo! A trapezoidal fence in every culvert! (Not quite as catchy as a “chicken in every pot’ but it has promise.) Congratulations to Mike and the Beaver Institute Gang for finding new ways to solve problems and dream big. If every road was protected from beaver damming then drivers AND beavers would sure be a lot safer.

While we’re on the subject of good ideas, lets give a shout out to this event posted in the community calendar in the Troy New York Record.

Community calendar:

THACHER NATURE CENTER: Busy Beavers, 3:30 p.m. Late fall is when beavers really get busy! They are building up their lodge and storing food for the long winter ahead. Learn about these industrious animals and their adaptations for life in icy waters. A short indoor presentation will be followed by an easy walk to a small, well-establish ed beaver pond to quietly observe for about 20 minutes in hopes of viewing a beaver in action. This program is appropriate for adults and school-aged children. Space is limited, please call 518-872-0800 to register and for meeting place.

Great idea! Now it’s wonderful that you would gather at a beaver pond and teach children what they do, but you’re crazy if you expect to see beavers at 3:30 in the afternoon in December. All that will happen of course is that those kids will get frustrated and impatient and think beavers are boring.

I have a better idea. Why not be beaver ‘detectives” and teach the kids to find beaver clues at the pond to ‘solve’ the case! There will be plenty of chewed branches and other signs of beaver activity and it won’t be frustrating because you won’t be waiting for something that isn’t coming. Plus you’ll be teaching them that a very large part of watching nature is observing its clues and using what you learn to infer what’s happening.

Nature doesn’t come with subtitles.

In downtown Napa Rusty Cohn was a ‘beaver detective’ yesterday and took this photo of the work that’s been done on that dam recently. He notes “Water level seems to have been raised approx. 2 feet by the dam.“