Just when you think you’ve seen  it all you get a sudden boost of good news from Georgia of all places! I mean the salmon treatise in Oregon we’ve all come to expect – but GEORGIA?

Once absent in Georgia, beavers have made a big comeback

November’s full moon, which will rise Tuesday night, is known as the beaver moon, according to the Old Farmer‘s Almanac. It’s supposedly called beaver moon because this is the time of year when industrious beavers are laying in a supply of food and making their dens, or lodges, snug for the winter.

Whatever the name’s origin, this seems an appropriate time to note the 75th anniversary of the beaver’s return to Georgia. Prior to the 1940s, the beaver had been virtually eliminated from Georgia as well as from most of its range throughout the United States, primarily because of unregulated trapping and loss of wetlands due to logging, agriculture and development.

It’s so interesting to think of this restocking happening all across the united states. Do you think that means it was a Roosevelt policy that pushed state offices to do the right thing? It makes sense if we can than him for both beavers and social security. Shhh we’re almost getting to the good part.

Ecologically, the beaver’s return has been an enormous success. Numerous studies show that beavers and the dams — often more than 240 feet long — and ponds they build play critical roles in helping wildlife thrive. For one thing, the presence of beavers in a stream significantly increases the diversity of native birds, fish and plants.

Beaver dams also help filter pollutants from water and help mitigate flooding.

For these reasons, wildlife mangers now consider the beaver a “keystone species,” meaning that the animal’s presence in an area is a key to helping others species thrive and flourish.

I’m so old I remember when the director of the Atlanta based Blue Heron Preserve came all the way to Martinez to learn about our beavers and how we lived with them. I can even remember when Bob and Jane Kobres of Georgia came out for the beaver festival. Clearly they have all been busy spreading the word,  because this article is everything we’d hope for from the peach state! Great work! And Happy Beaver Moon on tuesday, everyone.

Now onto salmon and Oregon.

Natural salmon restoration solutions

Across North America, rivers have been simplified and degraded by the systematic and widespread removal of beaver and large woody debris. Many streams are now no more than deep channels that don’t spread out floodwaters or create good salmon habitat.

Consequently, one of the major goals of the MidCoast Watersheds Council’s work and that of other similar groups and agencies is to restore the natural processes that large wood and beavers used to create. To effect meaningful salmon restoration, it is important to learn how to do this work over a large scale and lower cost. NOAA’s Research Fisheries Biologist, Dr. Chris Jordan, will discuss low-tech, “process-based” restoration methods at the Nov. 7 MidCoast Watersheds Council Community Meeting in Newport.

Ahhh MidCoast Watershed. We love you and your beaver vision!

Historically, beaver dams and large woody debris were ubiquitous throughout North American rivers. Beavers often built their dams on large logs that would be stable even through winter storms. Their dams exerted a major influence on streams by elevating water tables, capturing sediments and slowing waters so the stream channels could overflow the banks into wetlands and floodplains to reduce downstream flooding, and conversely increasing flows during periods of drought. Large woody debris has been shown to similarly influence water flow and sediment and erosional processes. Salmon evolved under these conditions, with both the wood and beaver dams creating ideal fish spawning and rearing habitat.

Jordan will emphasize two types of efficient low-tech structures that are being installed in streams to achieve restoration goals. Placing multiple structures in complexes within a stream system in ways designed to mimic natural processes begins the process of rebuilding and sustaining good habitat. These simple structures are called beaver dam analogues (BDAs) and post-assisted log structures (PALS). BDAs are channel-spanning, permeable structures, constructed using woody debris and willow or tree branches, to form ponds that mimic natural beaver dams and to attract beavers to maintain them. PALS are woody material of various sizes pinned together with wooden posts driven into the substrate to simulate natural wood accumulations and that capture additional wood over time. The goal of both structure placements is to achieve dynamic, self-sustaining and resilient habitat conditions.

Did you know about PALs? Neither did I.  That sounds interesting and I wonder what use beavers make of them. They are famous for using anchor points in streams as part of their dams to make their work easier – rocks, tree stumps, old car engines,  you name it.

Jordan is a research fisheries biologist with NOAA/NMFS’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center and Program Manager for the Mathematical Biology and Systems Monitoring Program.  Trained as a mathematical biologist, he has worked on a wide range of biological topics. Recent work has focused on the design and implementation of large-scale monitoring programs to assess anadromous salmonid freshwater habitat and population status.

Chris is the NOAA face I never seem to meet. When ever I’m at a conference he doesn’t show or when he’s at the conference highway 5 gets flooded and I don’t show. We are beaver ships that pass. But I’m sure glad he’s on the front lines working the crowd.

A final shout out to my partner in crime these 34 (count them!) years of crazy young wedded courage. In this auspicious year alone he became a citizen, started collecting social security and had his car prius a total loss! Never a dull moment. Happy Anniversary, Jon. None of this would ever have worked without you!