Category: Beavers and salmon

Praise beavers from sea to shining sea

heidi08 Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Who's saving beavers now? October 20, 2016

Nice description from Ruth Grierson of the Mount Desert Island in Maine. Even though they’re east coast and not very far from solutions they aren’t exactly floating in beaver wisdom and coexistence up there, so this is nice to read.

Eager beavers help selves, others

Many have noticed lately that the water level in island beaver ponds is way down. Someone asked me what the beavers will do this winter if we don’t get more rain before winter starts. This could be a problem for them. I know my pond is quite low at the moment. The beaver ponds are interesting to see now, for you really can check out their lodges and dams and realize what wonderful structures they have made. They are excellent engineers. The term “busy as a beaver” has real meaning.

Beavers are the largest living rodents in North America and among the mammals living on this island that are easy to see and observe as they live their lives. Other wildlife benefit considerably by their presence, for they create an excellent habit supplying food, shelter and water, the requirements for life. Plants also benefit from their presence. Migrants find the many beaver ponds excellent places to stop, rest and eat on their long journeys. You sometimes even come across geese or ducks nesting on the top of a beaver lodge, for it makes a safe place for a home. The trees that have died because of the flooding of an area provide great nesting places for many birds and mammals.

Well said, Ruth. It’s a good point that is never made often enough. In fact I think it deserves a poster. What do you think?

Jeanette Carroll from Redding has some similar thoughts. Here’s a recent letter she published in the Record Searchlight which is part of USA today. Redding is famously beaver danger zone, so we are thrilled about this.

Please help the salmon.

Thousands of dollars are spent restoring salmon habitat and pouring suitable sized gravel into the Sacramento River for the salmon to use as they migrate upriver to spawn. All efforts to increase the salmon species are very worthwhile.

I sincerely hope the Department of Fish and Wildlife will provide some guidance to the Department of the Interior so the waters from Shasta and Keswick dams are not abruptly curtailed as was the case in 2014 and 2015. The salmon no sooner completed their spawning efforts and their depleted and decaying bodies began to wash downstream in the Sacramento River when the water flow stopped so abruptly that not enough water was left to allow their eggs to hatch.

Their nicely cleaned gravel spawn beds were exposed to the elements and their eggs would have never hatched into tiny fry had not our local pair of beavers quickly rebuilt their dam just in time to inundate the salmon eggs in their redd. So, the 2014 and 2015 eggs did hatch but there are not enough beaver and suitable sloughs in the Sacramento River to save other vulnerable spawning grounds. If the same thing occurs this year, will the beaver come to the rescue again and save the 2016 salmon eggs?

This is a fine reminder of what NOAA fisheries research has been pointing out for 20 years. Beaver ponds are salmon nurseries. And ripping out beaver ponds is salmon genocide. If you’re going to save one, you have to cooperate with the other. Shorter column: When Jeanette writes “Please help save the salmon’ what she is really asking is “Please help save the beavers”.

Beavers discussed in New Zealand, Russia and Chicago

heidi08 Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? October 9, 2016

William Hughes-Games is a scholar and organic farmer in New Zealand who happens to be very interested in beavers. Years ago he read about Worth A Dam in the Beavers: Wetlands and Wildlife newsletter, and we became buddies online. He also maintains a smart blog about climate change and other things, most recently about beavers and their value on the watershed. He’s far more thorough than I am so I’ll just post highlights and encourage you to go read the entire thing. You’ll be much smarter because of it.

The Otter river Beavers of England

A couple of beavers ‘appeared’ in the Otter River, on the South Coast of England in Devon. This has resulted in three breeding pairs at present (Sept 2016). In a great move, the Powers-that-be have allowed the introduction of a second pair further up in the catchment so that when the two populations meet, there will be greater genetic diversity in the united populations.

Beavers do so much good for the environment and for an individual farm that you may desire to encourage them to create a pond on your farm or in the head waters of your catchment. The only way you can increase the beaver population is by making new areas attractive to them. The best way is to truncheoning in a new forest of deciduous trees on the banks of a stream). Tiny seeps that hardly deserve the name of a stream can be occupied by beavers if the habitat is provided for them. Let’s catalog the benefits from beavers.

Water flow regulation
Beavers store water on the land in a number of ways. This is particularly important in the catchment of the Otter. The underlying strata is mainly sandstone and water doesn’t infiltrate the aquifer quickly, unlike outwash plains such as the ones found East of the Rockie Mountains in the USA or to the East of the Alps in the south island of New Zealand. In the Otterton, most of the water from high rainfall events shoots down to the sea in a day or two. Of course, if these are unusually high rainfall events, they cause flooding. So how do beavers store water.

First, of course, are the ponds they create with their dams. Depending on the topography of the particular area where they build their dams, they can store considerable water. Beaver dams are somewhat leaky so some water is leaked downstream and water also seeps downward into the underlying strata. holding the water on the land allows time for the water to infiltrate the ‘reluctant’ aquifer.

Secondly, the ponds raise the water table in the surrounding land. Water tables intersect streams at the surface of the water in the stream. As the water rises in a beaver dam, the surrounding water table rises as well. In particularly propitious cases, a field which had to be irrigated, now doesn’t need it since the field crops can access the underlying water table. Water then leaks back into the stream, down steam from the beaver dam.

He has lots more to say about sediment load and fish populations of course, and has wished more than once over the years that NZ had beavers. William traveled to Canada to meet Eric Collier’s son and to the UK to meet Louise and Paul Ramsay and Derek Gow. He’s a very interesting fellow who studied marinology in Israel and takes “WOOFERS” to maintain is farm (Willing Workers On Organic Farms). Go read his entire article and say hi. You won’t regret it.

As I mentioned, in all of this, the rest of England is going to be playing catch up. Hopefully, a really intense research program will document the effects of beaver dams as they become established throughout the Otter catchment. This will be the body of work that other catchments can point to to convince the uninformed of the benefit of the return of the beaver.

In the end it depends on the people in the Otter catchment. If they establish favorable habitats for the Beavers, the beavers will return the favor with interest. If they avoid harming the beavers, the beavers will repay the favor with interest.

And ain’t that the truth! Thanks William.

I laughed to hear the Russian Charity beaver story on “Wait Wait don’t tell me” yesterday. Enjoy this short clip from the lightening round.

And a final comment on our current complex political system:

Move over HCN, this might be the best beaver article EVER.

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Who's saving beavers now? October 7, 2016

Shhh.

Come in and close the door. Are we alone?

I’m going to share something fine and rare, like a glass of the extraordinary 1811 Château d’Yquem. And your job is to snif the boquet, hold it up to the light, and slowly savor every amber moment. Do not guzzle this down and look for the next article or the one after that. This is the best article.

The. Very. Best.

Beavers are back in the UK and they will reshape the land.

Alex Riley: BBC Earth

On a June morning with a thin cover of cloud above, I was here [in Devon] to meet Richard Brazier, an environmental scientist from University of Exeter, and his post-doctoral colleague Alan Puttock. They are running a one-of-a-kind outdoor experiment.

Today, things have changed. The undergrowth is overgrown. Lopsided willow trees dominate, sending hundreds of shoots and stems into the air, each pining for the light above. A thick blanket of green foliage erupts from the peaty soil. Flora is blossoming, fauna flourishing. With their long cascade of pink bells, foxgloves rise high from the purple moor grass below. Butterflies and bees flutter from flower to flower.

“The biodiversity is booming,” Brazier tells me as we approach the wire fence through a field of coarse grass and rushes. “It’s alive.”

Behind this fence, every species – plant and animal– depends on the behaviour of just one: the Eurasian beaver. Since their introduction in March 2011, a breeding pair of these large rodents has been as busy as, well, beavers.

They have raised a family. They have built a lodge to live in and gouged deep canals through the land for getting out and about. And, of course, they have chopped down trees and built a series of 13 dams from sticks and mud. The woodland stream has been, and is being, transmogrified into wetland.

It is easy to see why beaver are known as “ecosystem engineers”. But it is Brazier and Puttock’s task to find out what these large rodents are engineering exactly.

“When this animal existed in the tens of millions in Western Europe and Eurasia, it was a dominant landscape force, in the way that wind and water and fire are,” says Derek Gow, a beaver and water vole consultant from Devon.”

Honestly, this was such flowing beatitudes and well-written prose that I honestly paused and thanked the lucky stars that England has been unreasonable as long as it has. Where else would we possibly get such persuasive and well crafted descriptions if it wasn’t for the stubborn bureaucrats who required endless persuasion? Take this section about coppicing for instance.

The homebody beavers are instead content to gnaw on willow trees from dusk until dawn, within the confines they have been allocated. By coppicing these trees, beavers promote new shoots to form on old trees.

It is an old relationship. Humans have been coppicing willow for 8,000 years in the UK, but beavers have been doing it for around 10 million years.

Not only does the willow get a new lease of life, but beavers benefit too. When placed within their dams, willow shoots continue to grow, creating a natural and self-reinforcing building material.

Ahh. Just imagine what the scarred earth would look like if beavers were allowed to work their magic in peace?

“Where water would travel 180m in tens of seconds at maximum velocities, now you’ve got a situation where that water’s taking hours if not days to move through this site,” says Brazier. “And it can only be attributed to these dams.”

Beavers dampen any hydrological extremes, reducing the peak flow of water and making it stay longer in the

area. In contrast, the drainage ditches that line the surrounding fields sweep rainfall downstream in a flash.

Flooding occurs. Water from headwaters accumulates quickly when the land levels off, not only breaking the banks of rivers but also the bank accounts of many homeowners. The infamous UK floods of 2007, for instance, caused an estimated £6 billion of damage.

Beaver can help, Brazier says. By slowing the flow – while storing 650,000 litres of water behind each dam – these mammals are a natural method of flood prevention, before the flood has even started. They can protect our homes, by building their own.

And by mastering the art of imperfect engineering, beavers also stem downstream droughts. The dams are not watertight. Water is slowed and stored, yes, but it is not stationary and made stagnant. “It’s so slow,” says Brazier, as he points out how each pond is a metre lower than the one before. “It’s like a big escalator staircase with water gently moving through.”

Are you imagining? I sure am. What if our dry California creeks were moistened by beavers and the flashy overflowing paths of the east coast storms were slowed by beaver dams. The country would be a different place entirely, and the wrath of climate change would be less drastic.

“The more you look at beavers, the more you understand the other species that exist in the habitats they create,” adds Gow. “Beavers are basically the generators of life.”

A beaver is not just an animal. It is an ecosystem.

Aaand SCENE!

In ten years of writing about beaver writing that is the single finest sentence I have ever read. Thank you, Mr. Riley for defining a movement with your pen. My clipping an snipping doesn’t come close to doing the piece justice so make sure you head over to read the original right now and send it to everyone you know because its THAT good.

And when its all finished go read it again because there are lovely uppercuts to the fishermen and references to the new Bridge Creek study as well. Mr. Riley did his homework, and we all get the benefit.

Avoiding a beaverless state

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? September 27, 2016

There are a few things to catch up on before they get away from me. First is that I was contacted by Enviormental writer Ben Goldfarb a few weeks ago who said he was writing a book about beavers for Chelsea Green Publishing and wanted to talk about the Martinez beaver story. If his name seems vaguely familiar it’s because he was the author of several important beaver articles in High Country News recently – the major one being “The Beaver Whisperer” about Kent Woodruff and the Methow project. Kent told him he should talk to me next, and we had a great chat about our story and the response we saw in the creek when the beavers moved in. He’s in the early stages of the book so we won’t get to enjoy it for ages, but I left him with a long list of people to talk to next and he was happy.

Meanwhile our eager Ranger Rick readers, waiting for their beaver story, saw an interesting clue at the end of their September issue. It started with a riddle about a beaver dam that they said would be answered next month and ended with this:

So does that mean we’ll see our beavers in the next issue? I don’t know. The last thing I heard from Suzi is that the issue would come next summer. But who knows? Maybe we’ll get a surprise or maybe we’ll get beavers TWICE in Ranger Rick!

And speaking of beavers fixing drought in California, here’s a result of not letting them that’s been on my mind lately. My parents lost 18 trees to the bark beetle but looking at this film I realize they are getting off lucky so far. The words Forest Succession echoing. I knew it was bad but I didn’t know it was this bad.

Here’s some of our damage:

Dear Mr. Fellman

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Who's blaming beavers now? September 25, 2016

I’m trying something different today. Rather than post my review of this misguided article in my usual quippy way, I’m going to address the author directly, like an old friend sharing a beer. I’ve written him through his blog already so I’m sure he’ll check to see mine when he opens his mail. Here’s the article that got my attention:

The potato rake and the battle with the beavers

By BRUCE FELLMAN Sep 22, 2016

OK last weekend I was spending way too much time at the millpond dam near my house. I was down there carrying a potato rake, a pitchfork, various shovels, and a collection of hearty oaths.

I was frequently covered with mud, and I was always covered with sweat. I was, as I explained in an earlier edition of the Journal, doing battle with beavers, or, to use a somewhat earthier catch-phrase gleaned from a character that represented the Ipana toothpaste franchise in the 1950s, Bucky ”bleepin’” or “F-ing” Beaver. “You’re going to lose,” I was told cheerily when I revealed the fight I had undertaken against this apparently implacable foe.

The folks gathered around the table at a monthly meeting of an environmental group I work with nodded their heads in agreement at this grim assessment. “Beavers always win… especially when all you have is a potato fork.” If I would put aside my liberal queasiness against the equally liberal use of nuclear weaponry, I might, was the consensus, have a fighting chance, but without the highest of high-powered arsenals, well, “You’ve read Don Quixote, right?”

Ahh Bruce. You need better environmental friends! Come sit at our table. Yes, the beavers are determined not to freeze solid during the coming winter months, and they’d like to be able to reach all that food they’re busy storing so they don’t starve either. They’re quirky that way. But if you want that dam lower we can tell you how to keep it there successfully. And it won’t involve TNT or clam rakes.

I couldn’t see any windmills on the horizon, and, in fact, I couldn’t see any beavers. That my foe was invisible was hardly surprising: Castor canadensis is, at the very least, crepuscular—active, that is, beginning at dusk—and the beavers I was confronting appeared to be downright nocturnal. I’ve found no signs of a permanent lodge. I can’t spot any suggestions of gnawed-down trees and shrubs. Ghost critters or not, they’ve certainly made their presence unmistakable.

In front of the dam is a wall of mud, perhaps six inches high and foot wide. It’s reinforced with sticks and branches, many of which have been stripped of their nutritious bark—a beaver buffet item—and all of them showing signs of gnaw marks. Occasionally, I’ve found a beaver footprint, and if this wasn’t proof-positive of my invisible foe’s identity, consider the following.

Crepuscular? Have you checked the nutrition label on a willow leaf lately? Do you really think a 60 lb beaver is going to consume all the calories he needs by eating leaves an hour a day? And find time leftover to raise a family and make the repairs you’re complaining about? Beavers are NOCTURNAL. And the biologist who made up the other thing also believed no one could see him if he closed his eyes.

Indeed, it was the demise of the stream, a favorite hangout, which girded my loins for the fight. This nameless body of water has long been the home and, I suspect, nursery for a group of uncommon dragonflies known as Dragonhunters, large, fierce, and beautiful insects whose primary prey is fellow odonates, and I’d be hanged if I was going to let this creek be engineered out of existence. Now, when it comes to beavers, engineering is just what they do.

Nature’s master craftsmen have been creating, maintaining, and, when they consider it appropriate, recreating wetlands to meet their needs since the glaciers receded more than ten thousand years ago. It’s simply their nature to do this, and when they returned to our area, after being trapped to the point of local extinction, in the 1970s, we were to learn that, even when we humans might suggest, “Bucky, this area is fine as is and doesn’t require any improvement,” there’s no arguing with beavers.

But, I thought, perhaps my persistence might convince them to go elsewhere to practice their unnecessary dam trade. After all, there’s already a perfectly functional dam in place. The pond it created and maintains doesn’t require any additional help. So I do my daily work to bring back the water flow over the dam, and make the stream safe for its resident flora, from Bur Marigolds and Cardinal Flowers to liverworts and mosses, and resident fauna, which includes otters, minks, Great Blue Herons, crayfish, Powdered Dancer damselflies, Stinkpot turtles, Brook Trout, waterthrush warblers, or any of the myriad other animals I’ve spotted here since I took this area under my observational wing in 1984.

Okay. This endears you to me, Bruce. You’re a stream keeper. You’re motivated by stewardship and want to prevent the stream from changes that will result in less biodiversity of the species you love to photograph. Me too!

capture — Dragonflies mating: Bruce Fellman

(You take amazing photos by the way, you really should visit the beaver pond some evening before the month ends and try your hand at beaver photos. Poke around this website for a while and you’ll see the builders aren’t as impossible to see as you think.)

mirror mirror — Martinez Yearling Grooming: Cheryl Reynolds

Hey guess who can help you take care of that creek you love? I’ll give you a hint. It has fur and a flat tail. Those deep pools have more to do with the brook trout and the turtles than you imagine. And those creek plants you love so much – guess who’s raising the water table so that their roots have something to drink? Beavers are the original creek stewards. Why not learn to work with them instead of against them?

And every night, for the past few weeks, the Castorean Conservation Corps has returned with mud, sticks, and impressive skills to undo my efforts.

Yes beavers fix repairs they believe are necessary for their family to survive the upcoming winter. Go Figure. Hey you’re good with tools and own a pair of waders. Why not buy Mike’s DVD and learn to install a flow device that will keep the dam at the height you can stand and still protects the beavers? It will save your creek and your sanity. Unwilling to spend a dime on these dam rodents? How about a free book that will teach you to do this as well? Or hey, if you don’t like being in the water, why not hire Mike Callahan or Skip Lisle to do it for you? They’re a phone call and a couple states away. We brought Skip out 3000 miles to solve our problem a decade ago. You’re getting off cheap.

Now, I’ll let you go. I’m glad we’ve had this little chat. I know you have a lot of reading to do. Start by watching our story to learn how the flow device controlled our dam height for ten years and how the beavers transformed our creek. Then go down some evening and actually watch the family you’re fighting with. There are a million fascinating columns in your future if you learn to appreciate the effect beavers have on wildlife and watersheds. Don’t believe me? Check out the writing of Vermont’s Patti Smith for the Battleboro Reformer, or Connecticut’s Ben Goldfarb for the High Country News.