Category: Beavers and saltwater

BEAVERS NEEDING REHAB

heidi08 Beavers and saltwater April 29, 2021

It is true that beaver can live in estuary’s and tolerate water as salty as 10 parts per 1000 but they are never happy when this happens, Poor little guy. Dispersal is such a hard time in a beaver life already and South Carolina is a rotten place to be a beaver under any conditions.

‘This may be a first for us’: Beaver on beach a sight for onlookers in Murrells Inlet

While visiting Huntington Beach State Park in Murrells Inlet on Wednesday, South Carolina Department of National Resources staff encountered an interesting sight: a beaver on the beach.

“We’ve seen lots of interesting things on the beach, but this may be a first for us,” the DNR posted on Facebook.

The DNR relayed that park ranger Mark Walker said the animal most likely wound up on the ocean’s shoreline while fleeing a predator, such as an alligator, in a native freshwater pond, where it’s more typical to see the species building dams and such. Walker noted the beaver would likely make its way back to its natural habitat as long as people didn’t get in the way of his trek home.

What a surprise! The DNR is totally wrong about beavers! I’m thinking that beaver departed his family somewhere along the way and used the intercoastal waterwy to get to a new home. Then found himself stranded in salt water. Hope he makes it. But often beavers that get this ‘oceaned’ need rehab.

Speaking of rehab, Cheryl wrote that a rehab buddy had attended the California Beaver Summit and really enjoyed it. She is going to add it to the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Coalition website, as an educational tool. Which was great because I just finished Day One’s highlights reel. Of course the best rehab advice for beavers is to tell people to STOP TRAPPING THEM, but a few salty or orphaned souls will really need their care.

It was two weeks of steady work to snip out the best 35 seconds of each talk, edit into a five minute presentation. add music and snip together video but I’m happy with how it came out. Part 2 is coming in another fortnight. Feel free to share.
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HOW DID ALL THESE BEAVERS GET HERE ANYWAY?

heidi08 Beaver population, Beavers and saltwater, Beavers elsewhere April 2, 2021

Bowen Island in BC would like to know where all these darned beavers come from? Obviously, they say, they weren’t here before the nineties so who brought in all these beavers?

Inquiring minds need to know. This article by Alan Whitehead of the nature club demands answers.

How long have beavers been on Bowen Island?

There were no beavers on Bowen Island / Nex̱wlélex̱m when my young family and I moved here in the early spring of 1988. Beavers first appeared, if memory serves me, in the early 1990s in the Lagoon and soon moved upstream all the way to Killarney Lake. Long-time residents told me there had been muskrats, which had been trapped out in the first half of the 20th century, but told no similar stories of beaver. Fast-forward a few decades and beavers, their dams, lodges and cut vegetation can be found in many places, especially though not exclusively in the Killarney-Terminal watershed.

There were no beavers when we got here. And the old timers who were here since the 1900’s say there were none in their lifetimes, so where how did they get here? Never mind that the fur trade wiped most of them off the face of the earth in the 1830’s and they’ve been slowly clawing their way back into existence since then. In fact Bowen Island might even have been the upper edges of the ‘fur desert’ HBC helped create to keep the nasty foreigners from settling in.

Bowen Island is a metro of Vancouver and located about 1.9 miles off the shore. Gee how long does it take a beaver to swim 1.9 miles?

The beavers’ arrival in the 1990s was on the east side of Bowen via Deep Bay. It is, therefore, very likely that they must have come from the Fraser valley lowlands, where beaver populations have been increasing over the past century as a result of the decline in trapping, construction of drainage canals, and other changing land uses. Beavers are strong swimmers. Although they live in fresh and brackish water, they are known to cross significant spans of saltwater; this happens particularly when the young adults are dispersing away from their birth habitat after their second year. Beavers have no trouble navigating the waters between the mouth of the Fraser River and Bowen Island and beyond.

A beaver has to find his own space in the world, don’t you know. You can’t just stay in your parents front yard forever.

Are the beavers now here to stay? Yes, but only in the best habitats. Judging from the large girth of some of the cedars that have been gnawed as a source of bark for food, I suspect that life is not easy for the young beavers that, during their dispersal, try out the more remote locations. In these areas, the preferred forage plants are scarce, and streams and wetlands tend to go dry during the late summer and early fall, leaving beaver dams temporarily useless. In the prime habitats, however, such as Crippen Regional Park, the new municipal park at Grafton Lake, and possibly other existing and future protected areas, beavers will likely endure thanks to the continuing abundance of year-round food and shelter habitat and a connection to Howe Sound for dispersal and recruitment of mates to maintain genetic diversity.

Gee I don’t know. You don’t have any willow on that island? Any aspen or dogwood or birch? I’m sure skunk cabbage and ferns will do in a pinch. Obviously there’s something to eat or there wouldn’t be beavers eating it.

TIDAL WETLANDS SAVE LIVES

heidi08 Beavers and saltwater September 26, 2020

Well what do you know? It turns out wetlands are really important! Just ask Katrina. Especially the tidal zones in between salt and freshwater like where our beavers lived. Gosh who would have guessed?

A watershed study for wetland restoration

Where rivers meet oceans, each cycle of the tide moves water in and out of estuaries. The mixing and mingling of fresh and briny water, combined with seasonal weather, creates a unique environment for ecosystems in coastal estuaries and upstream tidal rivers.

The framework is described in “Ecohydrology of wetland plant communities along an estuarine to tidal river gradient,” which appeared September 18 in the Ecological Society of America’s open-access journal Ecosphere. The research is the latest in a series of regional-scale studies supported by the Bonneville Power Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District, which are implementing a program to reconnect and restore wetlands on the Columbia River floodplain.

You know where our beavers lived right? It was right on the border between the salty strait and the fresh creek. Literally right on the in between place. Are those places important?

Like giant sponges, wetlands serve key environmental functions, such as controlling flooding, storing carbon, and filtering pollution. Wetland habitats also provide protection and food for birds, fish, and mammals. For example, tiny salmon nibble along the shores of the Columbia River, growing and gaining strength on their downriver journey to the Pacific Ocean.

But Diefenderfer said that these important coastal ecosystems often go unnoticed or are viewed as wastelands.

Sure, that’s the truth. Their unsafe to build on so they don’t make people any money. Cities either ignore those spaces or bring in topsoil to make it less responsive to tides.

The long-term research effort, a focus of PNNL’s Coastal Ecosystems Research team, allowed scientists to record plant responses in low-, medium-, and high-flow years. Results showed that plant species varied across elevations within wetlands and along the river. The variations depended on the distance from salt and tides at the coast, and the volume of river flow below the head of tide.

The team also found that wetness—or inundation—largely determined plant communities and resistance to non-native species. Nearest the Pacific Ocean, salinity kept non-native species from taking hold. Just upriver, in the strongly tidal but freshwater zone, plant species diversity was highest—an indicator of resilience in the tidal wetlands.

Huh. Martinez sure has a lot of Arundo near the salty parts. But I guess the strait isn’t pure ocean, so maybe it doesn’t count. The interesting part to me is that the richest part of the wetland is where our beavers chose to live. Chicken or egg?

Farther upriver, changes in daily, seasonal, and yearly wetting and drying cycles increased invasion by non-native species. These cycles also decreased aquatic plant diversity and other vegetative cover. On average, the quality of plant communities significantly improved closer to the ocean.

Well, sure. Plants in more saline areas were less vulnerable to non-native invasion because it’s harder to thrive on the edge. And the more drought we experience the less fresh water flows into these areas and the more saline everything becomes. Hmm, Resilient plants do better I guess with climate change.

And everyone does better with more wetlands. Gosh it’s too bad there’s not some natural way to make more wetlands on a larger scale.

Here’s some more excellent footage from our friend Mike Digout in Saskatchewan.

SLO NEWS DAY FOR BEAVERS

heidi08 Beaver ecological impact, Beavers and saltwater June 4, 2020

I’ve been gloating for a couple days. Time to be crumpled with envy again as we watch other beaver advocates enjoy the sweet success of their efforts for which we can never hope. This time it’s from our friends in San Luis Obispo who recently had a very special visitor. Dr. Emily Fairfax came for a beaver visit and brought her favorite equipment with her.

What a treat, I got to show our beaver dam to Dr. Emily Fairfax, Assistant Professor, California State University Channel Islands, Environmental Science and Resource Management. She was the researcher that studied large-scale wildfires and beaver habitat and made a great stop-motion video demonstrating her findings.

**Thermal Image of beaver dam, showing 90 degree wood in dam and 60ish degree water. (by Dr. Emily Fairfax)**

It was so fun to walk around the beaver dams and beaver lodges and learn so much about an area that I visit regularly. First, she called our beaver dam a “Jewel” of a beaver complex. She pointed out all the ways the beavers have committed themselves to this area, the 7-foot deep moat around their bank den, the beaver lodge (ie. second story) they were adding on to the beaver den (that I never even noticed before), the series of micro-dams on the hidden back side of the den that were widening the river and creating a safe hidden path to food sources.

As we walked in the water, we would occasionally pass through really cold patches of shallow water, she said these were places where the ground water was coming up, cooling the water and recycling the river water back into the ground (something like that), keeping the river water at that perfect fish-loving temperatures. She took a thermal image of the water and the dams also, which are sooooo cool.

Oh I remember having ‘experts’ come to the beaver dam. And how we would hang on their every word and ply them with endless questions. Experts from out of state or across the country. We learned so much from them. In retrospect though from years of experience I can say that nobody really knew our beavers better than we did. No matter how much they knew about beavers.

And the best part!?!?!?! She wants to do a study of this beaver complex, watching, recording, capturing photos, as the seasons change, gathering data within the beaver complex and comparing to data outside of the beaver complex. Is that the most exciting news ever or what!? I can’t even believe it.

That is VERY exciting. For you. I sooo wish that had happened for us. Sniff. I whimpered to Emily and she said gamely “I can still come and study your beavers!” But I sobbed

“No you can’t because we don’t HAVE any beavers. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”

But still. Still. It’s GREAT news for our friends in SLO and great news for beavers in general. I’m so glad Emily is on the job! You MUST go to the website to see the AWESOME 360 image of the beaver habitat. I can’t embed it here but it’s amazing!!! Those are some happy beavers munching on all those cat tails.

Oh and speaking of great news, Robin of Napa had an excellent sighting at Pearl Street.

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WHOM SHALL WE BLAME? YOU KNOW WHOM

heidi08 Beavers and salmon, Beavers and saltwater May 9, 2020

When a huge crisis of our own making escalates to the point that we can ignore it no longer, there is only one thing to do that will allow us to avoid responsibility and resist changing our own destructive behavior. You know what it is. You must.

Blame the beaver.

There’s a massive beaver boom in Northwest Alaska, and scientists and locals have dam concerns

This is the craziest part. Not only do beavers hasten global warming but they natives are worrying they’ll block all the salmon. Because you know how beavers do that.

Henry Horner is the president of the Tribal Council for the village of Kobuk. He’s lived in the village since the 50s, and says that he remembers beavers popping up in the region periodically, but there are considerably more now. And they can be a nuisance.

“Where we subsist for fish and stuff like that, they’ll be blocking the creeks and stuff like that,” Horner said.

“Farther up [the Kobuk] river, I see where they’ve built dams, and the salmon have to start spawning elsewhere,” Horner said.

Horner says some locals think that eliminating the beavers is a viable solution to their concerns, though he doesn’t see it as very practical.

“Some of our elders would say, ‘kill the beaver,’ and they might get the beaver,” Horner said. “But while they think they’ve got it, another one arrives.”

Really? Your elders would say that? Gee do you think its possible that tribal knowledge might have LEAP-FROGGED a generation or two? I mean I’m willing to assume your tribe has learned something about salmon the past few centuries, but maybe, if new streams are welcoming new spaces that don’t freeze its a fairly new acquaintance. Because otherwise you’d know that baby salmon need DEEP POOLS that don’t freeze so they grow up fat and happy to swim to sea and become BIG salmon. And that means beaver ponds where there’s lots of real estate and plenty to eat.

And the more babies you have the more adults you’ll be able to catch later.

But sure. The elders probably know best. Beavers are probably causing climate change. Better kill ’em all

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Well let’s leave that annoying story behind us and talk about this amazing footage which was sent yesterday to Ben Goldfarb from some friends in Lithuania. He had this to say about it.

That beavers use saltwater to disperse between river mouths, and even build dams in tidal estuaries, is something that biologists have long recognized. Veterinarians in western Washigton have treated multiple beavers for salt toxicity due to prolonged exposure to Puget Sound. I even wrote a story about this quirk of beaver behavior:

https://www.hakaimagazine.com/…/the-gnawing-question-of-sa…/

Still, it’s one thing to know that beavers turn to the ocean, and quite another to *see it.* Here’s an amazing video I received from Žavinta from Lithuania, who recently captured this delightful footage of a beaver slipping into the Baltic Sea. (Yes, I get a lot of beaver videos from strangers.) Bon voyage, my good mariner!

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