Category: Beavers and trout

To Beaver or Not To Beaver?

heidi08 Beaver Behavior, Beavers and Birds, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Educational, Environmental, Who's blaming beavers now?, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? May 25, 2017

More silly mulling from the Scottish countyside: Should beavers be allowed or not? A reader on the Tayside group pointed out that this same argument could have been made 15 years ago, I say probably longer than that.

Beaver reintroduction – what’s the story?

Their reputation as strong swimmers and prodigious engineers is not an understatement. Their large incisors and clawed front feet enable them to construct dams and lodges that can extend for hundreds of metres, as well as burrows of up to 20 metres into the riverbank.

“Any species introduction, particularly if it has not been in this country for hundreds of years, can have a massive impact on the many benefits that the countryside delivers,” Mark Pope, an arable farmer from Somerset who has instigated numerous initiatives to provide habitat and food for birds and insects and encourage diverse plant species on his farm, said.

“In the case of beavers, the NFU has concerns about the damage to farmland and the landscape caused by their physical activities.” Mark, who is also chair of the NFU Environment Forum, added. “Farmers and the public must have the tools to manage the impacts beavers will have to farmland, the countryside, flood defences and urban areas.

“Beavers can add biodiversity, as well as the interest, enjoyment and socio-economic benefits they can provide to many people. What the NFU is very clear on is that in some locations there is a clear need to manage this species to minimise undesirable impacts on agriculture, forestry, inland waters and other land uses.”

There is increasing interest in the beneficial role beavers could bring to habitats. The natural activities of beavers could help to regulate flooding and improve water quality, if managed properly. The Devon trial on the River Otter, led by the Devon Wildlife Trust in partnership with Clinton Devon Estates, the University of Exeter and the Derek Gow Partnership, has been exploring the role of beavers in managing and creating wetland habitats, the impacts on water quality, and influence on water flow and flood risk.

Tolkein once wrote “Go not to the elves for council, for they will say both ‘No’ and ‘Yes’.” Mostly no, though.

On the other hand, beaver burrows near watercourses can weaken river embankments and flood defences. Material felled and gathered by beavers for dams and lodges can create flood risk downstream and block drains upstream. The potential consequences of this for farmland and the rural economy is a cause for concern.

It is estimated that the costs of the 2007 and 2013-14 floods on agricultural businesses alone were £50m and £19m respectively, not to mention the wider economic impacts on local employment, infrastructure and utilities and the damage caused to people’s homes and communities.

The knock-on effects can be wide-ranging. The loss of productive farmland, for instance, would have a detrimental effect on food production and supply.

The Scottish Beaver Trial was a five-year project between the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, the Scottish Wildlife Trust and Forestry Commission Scotland to undertake a trial reintroduction of beavers to Knapdale, Mid-Argyll. The trial concluded in 2014 and as a result the Scottish government is considering recognising the European beaver as a native species.

A change in the legal status of beavers raises additional concerns. This is because beavers have no natural predators in the UK so it is important that populations can be managed, particularly if they are present in extensive low-lying areas such as East Anglia, Wiltshire and the Somerset Levels where their activities could block field drains leading to waterlogging (known as ‘wetting up’) of productive farmland.

Clarification: Beavers might benefit us if they don’t kills us all first. “We killed off all their natural predators in the UK so there’s nothing left to kill them and their numbers will swell like taxes with national health”. Are there no otters? No bacteria? No vehicles in your land? Beavers just don’t get killed by predators you know. And honestly, why act like you want to explore an issue and ONLY speak to one farming fiend from the National Farmers Union?

Who’s going to list all the many benefits for fish, wildlife, birds and water storage that come with beavers? Who’s going to talk about how much you can learn about nature by watching them? Who’s going to say how much they improve the health and vitality of urban waterways?

We need a National Beavers Union!!!

Beaver Reverberations

heidi08 Beavers and climate change, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water May 19, 2017

Yesterday’s blockbuster report is sounding bells all over the northern hemisphere. (Probably everywhere but Wisconsin.) The latest accolades come from Canada, where the CBC wants every countryman to know that beavers are Worth A Dam.

Beavers are dam important for the ecosystem

The beaver is a Canadian icon. To some it’s also a royal pest. Beavers are more than just a nuisance, though. They are also important engineers of our environment. A new study published in the journal PLOS One has discovered just how important beavers are in protecting habitat.

What role do beaver ponds play in the ecosystem?

There are lots of species that rely on beavers to engineer the environment to suit their own needs. Creatures like the Sandhill crane, the mule deer, and, most importantly, juvenile fish. Not only that, when there is a beaver pond, the water is able to be better absorbed by the land, allowing it to resist both droughts and floods a lot better.

For a long time, it was believed that beaver ponds increased the temperature of water in the ecosystem due to its greater surface area absorbing more energy from the sun. That was always thought as a possible way that beaver ponds could be damaging the surrounding ecosystem.

This assumption has been overturned by new research. Nick Weber is with Eco-Logical and his team conducted experiments along Bridge Creek, Oregon.

“As the volume of surface water increases,” he says, “it just takes a lot longer for streams to heat up during hot summer days.”

The work was done in the high desert of Oregon where temperatures can soar in the summer. But it’s not much different from what we can get in Canada, especially as our world warms.

Why is this significant?

It’s significant because the high temperatures of river water — which on some days can reach up to 29 C — is problematic for fish like salmon and trout. These fish need temperatures closer to 25 C, which is exactly what is achieved by having a beaver pond. Having much cooler water increases the survival of juvenile fish like the steelhead trout.

Needless to say, when we are living in the current warming world, it’s important to find ways to reduce the impact of higher global and water temperatures on important stocks like salmon.

So the proposal is to take inspiration from nature, and the beaver, to help restore habitat by constructing artificial beaver dams. And the coolest part is that beavers eventually take over the dams after a few years.

Not only can the dams restore river systems, but it means beavers might be guided into building dams where they might reduce the impact on people’s lands.

Hurray for beavers! Everybody worships at the ‘salmon and trout’ alter, it seems. Birds and frogs don’t matter as much. But that’s fine. Whatever reason you find to appreciate beavers is good by me. It’s wonderful how surprised folks are by this news, which is old news to us. I think Pollock was talking about the cooling effects of hypoheic exchange 10 years ago, but better late than never.

All this excitement has clearly made the researchers giddy, because yesterday Dr. Wheaton forwarded me an email from the senior author, Nick Weber, excitedly showing photographic evidence of beavers using the BDA’s they had made. Look closely at the picture, because I see something other than beavers. I especially like that patient coyote.

Do you think Joe Wheaton is trolling me?

Come on in, the water’s fine!

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and climate change, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? May 18, 2017

Another block buster from our friends at the science site that should be called “Beaver Phys.org”. This morning the news has also been picked up by plenty of followers including “New Scientist”. Because beavers are just rock stars like that, you know?

Beaver dams may buffer against temperatures that threaten sensitive species

Both natural and artificial beaver dams may alter stream temperatures which may benefit temperature-sensitive salmonid species, according to a study published May 10, 2017 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Nicholas Weber from Eco-Logical Research, Inc., USA, and colleagues.

Beavers are ecosystem engineers, altering stream temperatures by building dams that increase surface water storage and connectivity with groundwater. Some studies suggest that the dams make water warmer and so are detrimental to salmonids, which are sensitive to temperature. Weber and colleagues tracked beaver dams and monitored water temperatures along 34 kilometers of the John Day River in Oregon over eight years. In addition, the team assessed the impact of artificial beaver dams on water temperature along four reaches of Bridge Creek.

Yes beaver dams lower the temperature for sweaty fish. We here at beaver central have been touting this fact for years. Pollock proved it years ago, but now it’s especially even more extra proven. Has any creek been the subject of more study than Bridge Creek? I doubt it.

The researchers found that beaver dams may alter stream temperatures to the benefit of salmonids. Studies suggest that juvenile steelhead salmonids in Bridge Creek experience extreme stress at about 25°C, and the researchers found that maximum daily temperatures in much of the study stream exceed this temperature for much of the summer. However, temperatures rarely exceeded 25°C after the proliferation of beaver dams, likely because they help moderate temperatures both by increasing water storage and encouraging exchange between surface water and groundwater exchange. This fits with the fact that both beavers and salmonids were once more abundant and widely distributed in North America, and suggests that beaver dams could help mitigate the thermal degradation that can threaten sensitive species.

Dr. Weber notes: “Beaver are often considered a keystone species, and their propensity to build dams plays an integral role in maintaining biodiversity and enhancing aquatic processes that benefit an array of aquatic and terrestrial organisms. Recognizing this, beaver relocation efforts and installation of structures designed to mimic the form and function of beaver dams are increasingly being used as effective and cost-efficient approaches for restoration of stream and riparian function. Despite this trend, the notion that beaver dams negatively impact stream habitat remains common, specifically the assumption that beaver dams increase summer stream temperatures to the detriment of cold-water species such as trout and salmon. However, by tracking beaver dam distributions and water temperatures throughout a high-desert, scientists have demonstrated that beaver dam can actually reduce high stream temperatures by increasing surface water storage and connectivity with cool groundwater. These results suggest that construction of artificial beaver dams and beaver relocation projects could be used to mitigate the impact of human induced thermal degradation that may threaten sensitive cold-water species.”

If you need the reference to go look up it’s here. Feel free to notice how many of the names are friends of this website.

Weber N, Bouwes N, Pollock MM, Volk C, Wheaton JM, Wathen G, et al. (2017) Alteration of stream temperature by natural and artificial beaver dams. PLoS ONE 12(5): e0176313. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176313

Dr. Wheaton wrote yesterday to make sure I saw it, but three beaver readers had beat him to it. Let’s hope all those backwards thinkers in Wisconsin who rip out beaver dams to protect their baby trout read it and at least think, huh??? Maybe they’ll even start to read the research later than the 1970 study they tuck under their pillows at night.

Our Edinburgh professor friend saw this photo last night uploaded on to the California Academy of Sciences page “biographic” and sent it our way. I knew you’d appreciate it. No sissy GoPro camera for this lovely shot. Read about the sturdy and patient French photographer who got this beautiful shot.

Castor d'Europe; Castor fiber; transporte une branche sous l'eau; BBC 2011 — **Louis-Marie Preau** has been watching beavers in the Loire region of western France for more than 15 years. He’s never forgotten the first time he saw an adult delivering a tasty branch to its family underwater—but it took him four years to successfully capture this intimate scene. Each evening, **wearing snorkeling gear and weights, he would lie motionless on the riverbed for two to three hours**. Finally, one evening, his patience paid off. Preau had only just plunged into the water and positioned himself when this adult returned with a freshly harvested poplar branch to feed to its three young kits. He was impressed by the beaver’s strength and determination, as it dragged this leafy meal through the water. Saumur, France

A beaver-friendly Friday

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver-themed merchandise, Beavers and Forests, Beavers and Frogs, Beavers and Ice, Beavers and Insects, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Who's Killing Beavers Now?, Who's saving beavers now? May 12, 2017

Happy Friday! We’re off to Safari West today so I can talk beavers to families after dinner. It’s always a lot of fun, because we get to stay in one of their luxury tents and drink wine on the deck listening to exotic animals or crazy birds making noises there is no word for. On the way back we are stopping at Molly Eckler’s studio in Sebastopol to pick up her donation for the silent auction! In the mean time there is a startling amount of news on this end. I was notified yesterday that we were getting donated tickets to the Oakland Zoo and Academy of Sciences. And Coyote Brush Studios just finished the artwork for our temporary tattoos. (They say Tina is half way done with the Ecosystem poster).

They are going to look SO cool on the nature Journals, I had to try a mock up to see. Obviously Tina Curiel is a great talent and with Lindsey Moore managing the business side they make a great team. In the meantime we’re heading to the mountains on Monday week where we will gather a mere 150 8 inch sticks for children to use as the bindings and make each one have ‘beaver chews’ on my father’s grinder.

So I feel full of purpose.

To top it all off we weren’t the only ones irritated by that trapper-fan-fiction article last week. Settle back with a second cup and enjoy.

There’s a reason animal rights groups demonize trappers

Re “On the trap line” by Leila Philip (Opinion, May 5): Of course animal rights people “demonize” trappers. Why shouldn’t they? Methods of controlling beaver damage abound, including beaver deceivers, baffles, and PVC pipes. Philip should pay attention to her own instinctive resistance to the cruelty of trapping; to her, the beaver is a “token of the wild.” Consider the animal that has been trapped: Perhaps the night is icy, and yet he cannot escape. He is in a great deal of pain. He tries to chew off his paw in order to rid himself of the painful trap.

Nothing can be said in favor of trapping other than by people who do not care about the animal’s suffering. That’s why we demonize trappers.

As for the trapper: Who cares if he is “the ultimate locavore,” using the defenseless animal in every possible way? He may be deeply rooted in nature, but of what significance is that when he accepts cruelty?

Virginia Fuller

Nice job, Virginia. When I read a letter like this I, of course, wish it talked less about ‘cruelty’ and more about what removing a beaver is taking away from the community in terms of ecosystem services. Every beaver you trap means a bird that won’t nest there, a trout that won’t survive, a frog that won’t reproduce. That dead beaver carcass is weighted down with ghosts, like Marley’s chains in Scrooge, or like the tin cans on a just married car, expect they make no sound and it’s more like a ‘just buried’ car, instead.

Hmmm, that would be a more complicated graphic to create, but worth thinking about.

GoPro Goes Beaver

heidi08 Beavers, Beavers and salmon, Beavers and trout, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Environmental, Who's saving beavers now? May 9, 2017

Today is a great day in beaver-reporting land, because it’s the day that Denise Burchsted showed some ground breaking work to the media in using GoPro cams to film the fish in beaver ponds. If her name sounds vaguely familiar it should, because she’s the very bright mind behind the “River Discontinuum” which I wrote about way back in 2011. She’s the fluvial engineer that wants to apply the lessons of beaver dams to our urban settings, without actually using those pesky beavers.

Field biology shows that GoPro cameras aren’t just for snowboarding daredevils

An important skill for scientists is knowing where to spend your funding, which explains why Keene State College’s Denise Burchsted sounded proud when she described her protocol for studying beaver ponds: “Rather than investing in winches to pull undergraduate students out of the muck, I invested in a few GoPro cameras.”

Don’t worry, KSC parents: This assistant professor of environmental studies isn’t abandoning biology majors to the Cheshire County mire. Rather, Burchsted is developing a new – and cheap – way to understand the difficult-to-investigate ponds that are created by beaver dams, which are a focus of her research partly because they haven’t been analyzed as much as you might think.

“It’s hard to study beaver ponds. Boating is usually difficult, because the ponds are too shallow and full of dead trees (“gunk holes,” as my colleague says). Wading is also difficult, because the bottom is incredibly mucky,” is how Burchsted described the situation.

It’s well-known that beaver ponds are important for the New Hampshire’s ecosystem, since they’re rich in nutrients and organic material, and are home to a variety of invertebrates, fish and birds, but even a very basic fact like how many fish live in them is hard to obtain, she said.

The easiest method to determine fish populations is electroshocking, in which fish in part of a stream or lake are stunned by an electric charge and float to the surface for easy counting. That doesn’t work in a cluttered beaver pond, because the stunned fish get caught on all the woody debris. As a result, most beaver-pond population data depends on traps, which can be inaccurate.

Enter the GoPro:

She looked at these small, rugged cameras, best known for their use in making action-filled “selfie” films while skiing, kayaking or mountain climbing, and liked the idea. She knew that one of her students, Mike McGuinness, liked fishing so she thought he’d be just the person to splash through the muck and water, and experiment with ways of placing GoPro cameras in the wild.

“He spent a summer out in the field and looked for fish in beaver ponds with a GoPro camera. It was so much more successful than I would have imagined … There were more than twice as many fish we caught on camera as compared to traps. Not just numbers, but species. With a trap we would get one species, with a camera we’d get three or four,” she said. “We had to develop new methods to count them, there were so many.”

They collected underwater video more than 100 times at sites along 12 rivers and streams in New Hampshire, with an “in-channel” beaver pond having by far the highest number and diversity of fish.

“Some of our favorite videos show fish swimming in and out of a minnow trap, as though there were almost no barrier,” she said – a reflection of why trap data are suspect.

Yes, because seeing something is almost always better than counting it. Think for a moment of all the bogus data saying fish don’t do well near beaver dams. I’m guessing there are lots of variables responsible for the mistake, but this well might be one. Too bad Denise thinks we have to find out how to do this in a beaver-free world.

Interestingly, Burchsted, whose pre-academic life as an engineer involved helping remove human dams to improve river systems, admits she isn’t all that interested in fish and frogs and aquatic bugs: “I am more interested in the nonliving parts” of the environment. But you can’t understand the nonliving parts without understanding what the living parts do to them, hence this research.

What she really wants to accomplish, she said, is to understand how beaver ponds work so we can re-create their benefits in urban environments without having to import beavers, which will promptly fill in all our culverts.

“Beaver ponds are a part of the river system that was here before Europeans, and we want to know what functions they provide, how they contribute to the nutrient cycling,” she said.

“We’re trying to get a handle on what types of functions they are providing – what can we do to provide some of these functions that we’ve lost, that the beavers would be providing for us. (We want) kind of a recipe for what we can do to create more of these places, to support all of the life stages of in-stream habitat, not just fish.”

That’s why she thinks one of the most interesting videos collected by the GoPro “comes from urban Keene, where we see a relatively high density of fish … and a high species richness. It seems possible that these urban locations would provide habitat similar to a beaver pond.”

Pretty cool. But this is science, so it’s not that simple.

Burchsted said the GoPro project was a “proof of concept” and now she’s developing methods and processes to establish its bona fides. She needs to show that the results weren’t a lucky accident but a better reflection of what is going on in these ponds, which provides other researchers confidence in the results.

Okay, good job Denise et al. Now lets do a bunch more research projects showing what happens in beaver ponds, only lets do some of them with folks who want the actual beavers, okay? It’s a mad, mad, world when people who observe beaver benefits don’t want them, and people who study the effect of beavers on fish can’t see the benefits.

But still, baby steps, right?