Category: Beavers and salmon

BEAVERS AND SALMON AND FORESTS, OH MY!

heidi08 Beavers and Forests, Beavers and salmon June 11, 2021

Medium is a two year old platform that introduces thoughtful blog posts on various topics from various authors. It is the brain child of the inventor of twitter and is getting some good attention. Look what it featured yesterday from Megan Michel,

The Beaver, the Salmon, the River, and the Forest: Protecting California’s Intricate Ecosystems

By building dams, beavers create flooded wetlands with deep water reserves. As the California nonprofit Beavers & Brush points out, these creatures keep nine times as much water running through the ecosystem just by making their homes. Not only do beavers keep streams flowing throughout the year, but they also mitigate erosion, improve water quality, and support abundant biodiversity. Dams and the water channels carved by beavers purify the water and leave more stable stream banks. These natural engineers create a wetter, more stable environment that allows plants and animals to thrive — including humans.

The beaver’s activity in rivers and forests creates the right conditions for the salmon to thrive. Beaver ponds are deep enough to stay cool in the sun, and (according to this great article published recently in Smithsonian Magazine) they increase the amount of water available in summer months by 20%. Salmon need cool, clean water to breed — so beaver-engineered habitats are perfect for a juvenile salmon nursery, and can help support the population numbers that salmon need in order to face their treacherous journey from mountain to sea and back again.

So beaver make it possible for salmon and then the salmon make it possible for forests, Isn’t that a excellently organized? I mean until humans come along and start eating all the salmon and killing the beavers.

In California, we’re trying to save our forests by stopping the practice of clearcutting, a destructive logging method that replaces healthy, natural forests with man-made timber plantations. This unsustainable practice is putting our wildlife and our watersheds in danger — and it’s happening every day.

Based on data obtained from CAL FIRE, more than 50,000 acres of California forest are being clearcut every year. We must choose more sustainable logging methods. We must reject the destructive practice of clearcutting in order to defend our complex forest ecosystems — ecosystems that support terraced beaver marsh habitats, the wriggling bundle of vital nutrient cycling that is the salmon, and the clean, connective water that our river veins provide..

I guess the silver lining is that when the beavers are gone and all the salmon are gone AND the forests are gone they’ll be nothing left to burn right?

Just the houses..

CALIFORNIA IS BEAVER-RESISTANT

The story of California and Washington’s respective attitudes toward beavers is pretty much straight out of Highlights “Goofus and Gallant”. One kills them as nuisances and the other strategically relocates them while educating the public about their benefit. Guess which one we are? One depredates them for getting in the way of salmon and disregards the streams they would have maintained and the finds funds to pay for truly stunning things like this.

Drought-hit California scales up plan to truck salmon to ocean

With chronic drought drying up rivers earlier than usual this year, California is scaling up a drastic operation to help its famous Chinook salmon reach the Pacific—transporting the fry by road in dozens of large tanker trucks.

“Trucking young salmon to downstream release sites has proven to be one of the best ways to increase survival to the ocean during dry conditions,” said northern California hatchery chief Jason Julienne in a recent statement.

That’s right. California streams are drying up so rather than allow the ecosystem engineers to maintain dams that hold deep pools during drought they are frickin’ DRIVING the fish to the ocean. Because who doesn’t enjoy a nice drive to the beach in the summer?

Guess what Washington is spending its money on? Go ahead GUESS,

The enchanting world of beavers in King County — and how they might benefit a warming planet

CHINOOK BEND, King County — Salmon was a gateway animal for Jennifer Vanderhoof. Her work with the Northwest’s most beloved fish introduced her to the world of the industrious beaver, a critter that can alter a landscape like no other animal except for humans.

Her focus is paying off. Vanderhoof secured a $500,000 grant from the state Department of Ecology to study human-made beaver dams in the upper reaches of the Green River watershed. The project’s goal is to see if beavers will use the ready-made dam complexes and if these structures increase surface and groundwater storage.

The project will also explore whether planting cottonwood and willow trees, beavers’ preferred trees, near a stream will cause them show up to nosh and build without a beaver dam analog.

That’s right. Washington is paying half a million dollars to study beavers. And Jen Vanderhoof will be holding the clip board. This is a great article besides the monetary factors emphasizing how beavers make every difference for salmon and birds.

Salmon might have led Vanderhoof to beavers but the issue is much bigger, she says, because what beavers do to a landscape benefits not only salmon but a variety of amphibious, ground-dwelling and airborne animals.

The trick is getting farmers and landowners on board who might be negatively impacted by beavers, she said.

“To me, this is the holy grail of beaver coexistence in King County. Figuring out how the beavers and farmers can coexist,” she said.

Farmers and landowners have historically clashed with beavers as they’ve dammed up waterways, flooded land and knocked down trees.

Beaver coexistence is not only good for salmon but also could have the benefit of combating the many negative effects of climate change.

Much of this beaver work is being driven to create space for the animals and to harness the power of beaver engineering to store water, recharge groundwater levels, cool waters downstream from dams and create wetlands many other species rely on. All things important in a warming world.

You would think a little of this wisdom would rub off on their Southern Pacific Cousin. Wouldn’t you? But you’d be wrong. Nothing is soaking in. California is beaver-resistant.

CUVERTS, SALMON PASSAGE AND BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers and salmon May 17, 2021

Today Zane Eddy defends his masters thesis on the Martinez Beavers, and the academic world find out whether urban beavers matter. I of course will be tuning in like a ghost attending her own funeral. I just have to know how (if) it ends!

Meanwhile Washington is spending money on beavers again, and we should all follow suit.

King County’s culvert hunters — and a $9 billion plan to save salmon habitat

It doesn’t look like much, this ditch by the side of the road. But to King County’s culvert hunters, this isn’t a throwaway landscape.

Kat Krohn, an engineer and fish passage specialist for King County, chopped right into a fierce bramble of blackberries and got into the ditch as traffic roared by on a busy thoroughfare in Lake Forest Park. Here, Lyon Creek flows through Lake Forest Park before draining into the northwest corner of Lake Washington, crossing in culverts under roads and even private driveways all along the way.

That’s where Krohn and her teammates at King County come in. They are working in the field to compile an inventory of culverts on country roads, bridges and properties — the good, the bad, and the truly ugly in terms of whether a salmon can get through them to spawn or journey to the sea.

Urban creeks are the arteries and veins of the region carrying the lifeblood that animates the region’s ecology: salmon. Food for more than 123 species of animals — including endangered southern resident killer whales that frequent Puget Sound.

Imagine checking EVERY culvert in the county to see if fish can get by safely. Salmon are practically treated like royalty in Washington State. And guess what helps the royal family most?

A beaver dam attested to the help from nature’s primo wetland engineer, noted Jen Vanderhoof, a senior ecologist at King County working to support the coexistence of beavers in the watershed. Beavers can help boost biodiversity in a creek like this, Vanderhoof said, which is challenged by the effects of development, including both elevated temperature and pollutants.

The dams beavers build create pools that benefit baby salmon, and grow the insects and invertebrates that feed everything from fish to birds. Pools created by their beaver busyness also help recharge the hyporheic zone of the creek — where the water flows unseen, underground — maintaining flow and cooling temperature.

“Let the rodents do the work,” Vanderhoof said.

Not a wisecrack, but an insight, to not just treat symptoms, but instead restore natural processes that create healthier habitat and cleaner water in this creek. It is an important county stronghold for wildlife, home to not only coho, sockeye and Chinook, but freshwater mussels and sponges, river otters, crayfish and a teeming community of aquatic insects that stoke a web of life.

Who knew such things went on in urban streams and culverts! Wow you could almost write your master’s thesis on it!

I don’t know. Beavers might not be inspiring enough. What do you think? This photo of a beaver dam before the grand Tetons was sent by a friend of Rusty Cohn.

MUSKRAT LOBBY ARGUES FOR KEYSTONE STATUS

heidi08 Beaver Chewing, Beavers and salmon May 8, 2021

Do you remember reading those “Highlights” magazines when you were in the dentist office or waiting for your mom at the dr? There was one recurring column called “Goofus and Gallant” about brothers who behaved very differently, Goofus was always turning over chairs or breaking plates while Gallant was helping his mother arrange tables for the tea party or something like that. I thought of that cartoon when I read THIS.

Muskrats are key to Poplar Island restoration

In the Chesapeake Bay, the muskrat is a valuable partner in an ambitious project to restore a remote island under siege. It’s helping turn sediment scooped from Baltimore shipping channels into healthy salt marsh habitat.

The same silt that clogs a port can rebuild an island. Since the mid-1990s, barges have carried the dredged material down the bay to the Paul S. Sarbanes Ecosystem Restoration Project at Poplar Island, where it’s used to recreate the island. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service partners with USACE and MDOT MPA on the ambitious undertaking.

Although perhaps less intentional than their well-known cousins, muskrats also shape their surroundings. While beaver dams flood the landscape, killing trees and creating freshwater marshes, muskrats eat their way through salt marshes, helping other wildlife and strengthening the habitat.

Did you get that? Muskrats save salt marshes and beavers kill trees! No really! I’m totally sure that that Fish and Wildlife and MDOT know exactly what they’re talking about and understand about the beavers that live in salt marshes and affect those channels.

“They engineer the ecosystem just as beavers do,” said McGowan. An animal with brown fur and a long, hairless tail gnaws on a plant held in its front paws, with water and a large rock in the background.

No.

No they really don’t.

They build trails. I grant you by swimming around looking for food. And they eat plants you would like to get out of the way. But they do not do what beavers do. We could sit down and count every animal that uses their habitat and it wouldn’t come close to the list we create at a beaver pond.

They create habitat like thieves generate the economy.

Muskrats eat marsh grasses, such as smooth cordgrass and marsh hay, and the roots of shrubs like high-tide bush. They consume one-third their weight every day, opening areas of dense vegetation, keeping troublesome plants from taking over, spreading nutrients, and aerating the soil.

Perhaps most important to restoration, muskrat trails — called leads — move water throughout the salt marsh. Marsh plants are adapted to the coming and going of the tide, and they can’t survive constant flooding.

“Water gathers in areas where sediment has settled,” said McGowan. “Muskrat leads drain interior pools and keep vegetation from standing in water for long periods.”

That’s nice. Isn’t that nice? And I’m sure there’s no beaver living in brackish water that helps them with this onerous task.

Leads also let marsh birds like ducks and rails travel more easily and save energy. Small fish and invertebrates can reach ponds in the marsh’s interior.

And so, it turns out, can turtles. Researchers from Ohio University recorded as many as 1,500 diamondback terrapin hatchlings in one year on Poplar Island.

Smaller rodents like shrews and voles find shelter in the huts, and turtles climb on top to bask in the sun. Raptors such as short-eared owls and northern harriers rest atop the houses, where they scan the marsh for their next meals. Mallards and Canada geese sometimes build nests on the mounds.

“A great variety of wildlife uses these biological highways,” said McGowan. In addition, muskrat huts, which are three- to four-feet high, add what biologists call microtopography to the marsh. On Poplar Island, muskrats build their mounded homes from salt meadow hay and salt marsh cordgrass.

Oh pulleeze. Before you go one step further proclaiming the ecosystem services of the muskrat I would like to see proof that you know for CERTAIN there are no beavers helping them out. Good lord.

You can, however, have too much of a good thing, and muskrats are no exception. As the population grows, so too do the odds of disease, starvation, and conflict over territories. At a certain point, they start to harm the very habitat they — and so many others — depend upon.

With no mammalian predators to keep them in check, muskrat populations on Poplar Island tend to be cyclical — numbers increase for a few years, stressing the habitat, then crash due to disease. To reduce habitat damage, biologists manage the animals.

Well it’s nice to know that even little muskrats deserve killing sometimes, I mean it’s only fair. Man is so important we have to kill things regularly to keep the machinery running smoothly. Didn’t you know?

“To keep the system in balance, the model allows for muskrats to remove no more than four percent of the plant biomass,” said McGowan. “The model calculates the carrying capacity of the marsh and, if the muskrat population exceeds it, tells us how many need to be culled.”

Service staff remove the extra muskrats through trapping. It’s not necessary every year, and the numbers are usually low.

That’s right. Because I’m sure a booming muskrat population wouldn’t get snapped up by hawks or eagles or even otters if they’re in the way. Good thing you found something else to trap.

Thanks to one hungry rodent, some creative state and federal agencies, and an unlimited supply of sediment, Poplar Island is once more a destination for migratory birds and people alike. It also protects Maryland’s eastern shore from westerly waves. Its recipe for successful remote island restoration is being cooked up worldwide.

Isn’t that special?

BEAVER BENEFITS IN THE SMITHSONIAN

heidi08 Beaver relocation, Beavers and salmon May 3, 2021

Well the beaver coho story is only 30 years old. Don’t you think its time for the Smithsonian to act like they discovered it? Me too.

Scientists Are Relocating Nuisance Beavers to Help Salmon

Alves helped launch the Tulalip Beaver Project in 2014 with the aim of using beavers to boost declining salmon numbers. Since the low-cost project began, scientists have relocated more than 200 “nuisance” beavers, as they are called, and created dozens of salmon-friendly beaver ponds. While scientists don’t have statistics on salmon population changes after beaver reintroductions, they say anecdotal evidence shows the rodents reshape the landscape in a way that’s fostering more fish. Now they’re set to expand their easily scalable work into new watersheds in western Washington, and other groups in the Pacific Northwest are picking up on their successful tactics too. “I’ve heard multiple people say that Washington is kind of a leader in beaver projects,” says Kodi Jo Jaspers, a Trout Unlimited employee and manager of the recently-launched Wenatchee Beaver Project on the other side of the Cascades.

Just so you know. There are no “Nuisance beavers”. Only property-owners that can solve problems. And property owners who can’t.

The reintroductions are important because the outlook for wild salmon is dire, especially in the Pacific Northwest. About a third Tof salmon and steelhead populations on the West Coast have already gone extinct according to a 2007 study in Conservation Biology. Today, 14 more populations out of 131 remaining are at risk of extinction in Washington alone, according to a 2020 report produced by the governor’s salmon recovery office. In the heavily populated Puget Sound area, only one of 22 different populations of chinook salmon—the largest species—has exceeded population goals set by NOAA in 2007.

These declines have led to a flurry of funding for salmon recovery projects. Many of those projects are costly and logistically complex; they include tearing down man-made dams that block fish passages, removing pollutants from contaminated waters and installing new salmon-friendly bridges over spawning grounds. The salmon recovery office estimates that only 22 percent of the funding needed for these projects has been met—after $1 billion has been pumped into salmon recovery efforts.

Moving beavers for fun and profit! That sounds like a book that needs to be written. Everyone loves a good ‘moving beavers’ story. Molly has been in the New York times. The Washington Post. And now the Smithsonian.

I wonder if any of these folks ever think about the problems that COULD be solved by installing a flow device and letting beavers stay put?

Salmon need icy cold, clear water year-round, and that’s exactly what beavers provide. A 2019 study by Benjamin Dittbrenner, the executive director of Beavers Northwest, showed that each beaver relocated by the Tulalip Beaver Project created a swimming-pool sized pond of water for every 328 feet of stream. The beavers also slowed the stream down, causing more water to soak into the ground. The dams cooled downstream water by more than two degrees Celsius because the deeper water was harder for the sun to heat. And the ponds increase the amount of water available throughout the dry summer months by 20 percent because of the small reservoirs created behind the beaver dams. All of these new conditions add up to ideal habitat for salmon fry, as the baby fish are called.

I’ve been dooint this so long I have the graphic all ready for every occasion. Fancy that. This is the paragraph I like the most.

“If you have beavers in conflict with people and they will be killed if they’re not moved, then yeah. We’re gonna move them,” says Alexa Whipple. “But we’re trying to create more programs for coexistence strategies.” Biologists use tools that homeowners might not be aware of to mitigate damage. For example, scientists install pond leveling devices that prevent flooding and wrap the base of trees in beaver-proof fencing.

Now that is worth the price of admission. Hey I wonder when the Smithsonian is going to write an article about the harm people do to salmon when they trap beavers. Any time soon?

Don’t hold your breath.

Despite the success of beaver relocation programs, quantifying the projects’ impacts on salmon is tricky. Limited funding means projects don’t have the resources to count salmon numbers in the streams. Instead, biologists measure easier-to-collect data like water temperature, the number of new ponds and the size of those ponds. “Our metric of success is just whether they have impacted their environment somehow, in some way, by some structure,” says Jaspers, with the assumption that building better habitat equals more salmon.

Even though the biologists don’t have the written numbers to show it, they have witnessed direct benefits to the fish. “We’ve seen sites just completely transform to these massive beaver complexes of like 12, 13 dams and ponds everywhere,” says Alves. “Now there’s hundreds of salmon fry swimming in these ponds.”

Or you know. You could leave the beavers where they are. Solve any issues they cause with about 2 hrs of work. And have salmon populations explode across the pacific coast.

Your call.