Category: Beavers and salmon

SAVE BEAVER: SAVE SALMON

heidi08 Beavers and salmon November 8, 2018

Another horrific American day, let’s sooth our ragged souls with this wonderful letter from Coos Bay in Oregon. Coos bay is on the pacific coast in about the middle of the state, and the author, Nicole Examilotis and her husband has been active in

The Morgan Creek Hatchery on the Coos River will be closed until further notice. Land owners won’t allow STEP volunteers to access the property because of a dispute — curtailing salmon releases for the year.
World Photos by Madeline Steege

watershed issues. For a while they allowed part of their property at Morgan Creek to be used as a salmon hatchery, but something tells me the marriage didn’t end well.

ODFW needs to make serious changes

Morgan Creek hatchery news flash: Salmon still haven’t grown legs, much to ODFW’s dismay.

As I write, returning salmon are struggling and dying on abandoned concrete structures in Morgan and Priorli creeks. ODFW stuporviser Mike Gray claims the department does not have the money to remove their old structures from the streams, yet can somehow afford dozens more loads of rock and concrete to their new facility. Meanwhile, salmon die long and hellacious deaths every year on the concrete. This continues 24/7 until it rains enough for them to pass.

Oooh she’s mad about the salmon. Guess what happens next? Shhh, this is my favorite part.

Worse, they have killed nearly the entire population of beavers on Morgan Creek. Beaver dams hold water, crucial to salmon habitat. “Disgusting” doesn’t begin to describe their continued unconscionable acts, “disturbing” does. The Konibear death trap illegally placed on our property, which nearly claimed my arm, was apparently targeting an otter that killed ‘excess fish’ they were supposed to kill anyway but “didn’t have the heart to.” What a consolation… So they don’t want to kill excess (illegal) smolt, yet they’re willing to kill anything else passing through their death trap, including me? They have no concept of their actions and are oblivious to the fact they consistently kill wildlife and destroy salmon habitat. They choose to remain ignorant of the laws they violate and basic stream ecology. It’s not rocket science, salmon need water.

Dam girl, we like your style! Feisty salmon woman who stands up for beavers.

ODFW needs to follow their own laws and make serious changes in their department. Their facility was built on emotions and false grounds, not reality and sound science. How much longer must this gross negligence continue? End it now. We owe it to future generations to leave them something we can all be proud of.

Nicole Examilotis

Nicely done Nicole! Hey when you’re done with ODFW do you think you could maybe write our folks at CDFW? They have a heck of a lot of learning to do, and I know you could help. Then maybe drop a note to our friends in Port Moody B.C. who are still trying to convince their politicians not to rip out beaver dams to save chum.

Yesterday the new guard held the first city meeting. It’s Canada so their were bag pipes, civility and a children’s chorus. Judy asked me to tape this little part and I thought you would appreciate it too.

Nice! I hope that getting some laughter and applause for that line reminds you how much beavers matter to public opinion. Although it still triggers my PTSD to watch even Canadian city council members talk about beavers. I realized watching this I shouldn’t complain so much. At least I never had to refer to the mayor as “his excellency.”

Oh and happy 33rd to the beaver-saving babies in this photo. You know who you are.

COHO COMPANIONS

heidi08 Beavers and salmon October 1, 2018

Time for some Oregon-Coho good beaver news, don’t you think?

Native beavers join Oregon wild coho recovery work

This summer marked a flurry of coho salmon habitat restoration work in the headwaters of the Upper Nehalem, with beavers at the heart of the work. Over the past several weeks, twenty-seven beaver dam analogs were constructed in four high priority reaches for coho, steelhead and cutthroat trout. Beaver have already found their way to the newly built analogs, which are like footholds for the beaver to build out into full-fledged dams using their advanced engineering skills.

Beavers and coho restoration go hand and hand. According to Mark Trenholm with the Wild Salmon Center, “Bringing beaver back to selected locations in the upper Nehalem will help restore some key tributaries to better reflect historic conditions that once made the Nehalem a coho stronghold.” By damming up small tributaries, beavers provide shallow, cold water pools where coho can find food and cover from predators. These types of off-channel habitats are essential for juvenile coho to survive and grow during the year they spend in freshwater before migrating downstream to the ocean.

Well that seems pretty clear, Although you might have to say a little more about how beavers provide “shallow cool pools” for salmon rearing. Of course I know the answer, but not everyone will.

Why Coho Are Important: The health of Oregon’s coast coho populations is a vital indicator of the health of our coastal watersheds. These fish are threatened after 150 years of land use on the coast that has altered watersheds and degraded critical coho habitats. Loss of watershed health has impacted local communities through increased flooding, impaired water quality, and less economic activity from commercial and recreational fishing. But restoring coastal river systems is within reach on Oregon’s North Coast, and it is a key step for coho recovery.

See that made the case powerfully. I guess you are more used to explaining why salmon matter than why beavers matter, which is almost always the case. It’s a far easier sell, honestly. But laying out why beavers matter to salmon is an essential building block that we all need to get better at.

I know California will get there eventually. I just hope our understanding about beavers arrives soon enough to make a real difference.

BEAVER GENEALOGY

heidi08 Beavers and salmon, History August 16, 2018

Don’t miss Ben’s interview this morning at nine on Jefferson Public Radio in Oregon.

Click photo to watch an amazing civic beaver meeting

With the news of the horrific Grand Jury report in Pennsylvania, I’ve been remembering a major player in the early story of the Martinez beavers who happened at the time to be a leader at S.N.A.P. (Survivor Network for those Abused by Priests). Joey Piscitelli is a general contractor who lived downtown in a small victorian that happened to be on the same street the beavers moved into. So he was an early observer of their arrival. When the city decided the beavers would be killed Joey used his not inconsiderable connections to the media that he had developed through S.N.A.P. and guided them to the story. I believe it was Joey who instigated the candle light vigil, but I’m not sure. I couldn’t even attend it because I had to work that evening. The city notes from the November 7, 2007 meeting read:

Joey Piscitelli thanked Council for removing the “death threat”. He asked them to listen to the people and keep the beavers. He agreed a committee should be formed to study the matter.

Unlike me, he was not afraid to issue a challenge. I remember one morning after that big meeting he and his wife stopped by to talk about their plans to pressure the state senator. In those early days I was so full of the positive energy of that meeting I completely trusted the process and didn’t want to look ungrateful. I must not have seemed enthusiastic because I don’t think we ever spoke again, I can’t remember him being involved at the april meeting or the sheetpile (by which time my outlook had entirely changed). I’m not sure I heard from him after that.

When I think back to those days I can imagine that he felt he had done a great deal of work to push the heavy rock up the hill, and I swept in a pushed it down the hill getting all the attention.

Of course neither of us could know how many, many more hills there were to come. I never forgot what a crucial role he played, or how much he contributed to keeping the beavers alive. People often misunderstand that November meeting and think it was something I made happen. But I always correct them.

I didn’t make that meeting happen. That meeting made me happen.

In other news the Salmon Coho Confab is just around the corner. With plenty of local and not so local watershed heroes. Of course we all know who will be the furry flat-tailed wonder of that meeting.

Three-day symposium focuses on coho salmon

Fisheries scientists will visit the South Fork of the Smith River next week for a symposium focusing on the endangered coho salmon.

Held Aug. 24–26, the Salmonid Restoration Federation’s 21st-Annual Coho Confab will focus on watershed restoration, techniques and efforts to help coho salmon recover. The symposium will be held at Rock Creek Ranch and will include tours of stream and valley floor restoration efforts in the Lower Klamath tributaries as well as a tour of large woody debris projects led by Dan Burgess, of California State Parks.

The people who will be presenting at the symposium include Michael Pollock, who promotes the use of beavers, which had been native to a lot of coastal streams in California and create deep pools, helping to rehabilitate lower parts of the Smith River, according to Stolzman.

You can tell not even the reporter quite believes that beavers matter to this story, but that’s why we bring out the big guns. Hurray for Michael Pollock and our friends at OAEC and we hope this can change some hearts and minds!

ANOTHER BLOCKBUSTER FROM PSMFC

heidi08 Beavers and salmon June 21, 2018

This year’s festival was the first time I was ever contacted by Dan Logan, fisheries biologist of NOAA marine fisheries in Santa Rosa. (To be honest I actually didn’t even know there was a marine fisheries arm in Santa Rosa) . Dan made me very happy by asking for NOAA to have space at the beaver festival. Yesterday he passed along this wonderful new film from the good folk at PMSFC. Go get your coffee and your relatives and come back and watch. Then watch it again and send it to everyone you know. It’s that good.

Isn’t that wonderful? Give it up for the brilliant folks at PSMFC. It’s truly amazing what the right education, some good intentions and a handful of federal dollars can do. The videos can be shared or use in educational trainings everywhere. Their website politely calls the beaver myths “misunderstandings” which is more gracious than I have it in me to be. But I admire the way they say it anyway.

Beaver Benefits and Controlling Impacts

But there is a lot of misunderstanding of beavers. Beaver do not eat salmon or other fish (they are herbivores, eating plants) and dams generally do not impede salmon passage. Salmon and beavers evolved together and are mutually beneficial.

Despite their value, beaver activities can also create problems for landowners, leading to their killing or the destruction of their dams. But there are ways to live with beaver! Join us as we begin a series featuring the benefits of beavers and the ways that landowners and beavers can co-exist.

Honestly sometimes it just feels like promotion of beaver benefits has is reaching a tipping point this summer. Yesterday I also received my official copy of Ben’s book – Eager: The surprising Secret Lives of Beavers and Why They Matter and of course like any truly self interested and shallow party, I first flipped to the back and checked the index.

Nice, Notice if you add all those pages up it makes eleven. That’s 1 page for every year I’ve been involved with beavers. Kinda makes sense really, don’t you think?

And it should be, it should be, it should be like that!

Because Horton was faithful! He sat and he sat!

He meant what he said

And he said what he meant…”

And they sent him home Happy,

One hundred per cent

THROWING MONEY AT THE PROBLEM WHEN YOU SHOULD BE THROWING BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers and salmon March 10, 2018

Let’s talk about fish for today. And those high-powered lawsuits that get folk willing to spend millions of dollars to save them but not spare the lives of the beavers who would do it for free, Yesterday our favorite news agency who writes about beavers all the time without actually realizing it wrote this:

California salmon will have places to chill with dam removal

A $100 million project removing dams and helping fish route around others is returning a badly endangered salmon to spring-fed waters in northernmost California, giving cold-loving native fish a life-saving place to chill as scientists say climate change, drought and human diversions warm the waters.</em >

State and federal officials, in a years-long project with dam-owner Pacific Gas & Electric Co., plan to release 200,000 young, endangered winter-run Chinook salmon over the next two months into the north fork of Battle Creek, where melted snow percolating through volcanic rock provides ideal habitat for native salmon and steelhead that thrive in cold mountain water.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ranks winter-run Chinook as one of eight marine species most at risk of extinction.

Because of Battle Creek’s spring-fed cold water, and the difficulty of keeping the Sacramento River cool enough for the winter-run Chinook, state and federal agencies made a priority of making Battle Creek accessible to winter-run Chinook again.

“Battle Creek has long been recognized as an ideal resource for cold water from snow melt,” said Doug Killam, a senior environmental scientist with the state wildlife agency. “It’s kind of a jewel of the system

That’s right. Just shoot the chinook in at top dollar and hope for the best. I’m sure you’re doing everything you can. It’s not like there was this resource that made cooler waters in CA that was just getting ignored and thrown away. Right?

Oooh, I’m sure that part of California doesn’t even have any of those fish saving beavers. They probably never got that far north. I’m sure if they had we’d be in having a different conversation now.

Well sure, some of those beavers were killed in Tehama and Shasta Counties, but look, In 2015 fewer beavers were killed in Shasta county and no beavers at all were killed in Tehama were. That’s good news right?